The Unlimited Potential of AI Chatbots in Bulgaria

AI chatbots have long been known and used by large enterprises and small businesses in different countries. Although the first chatbot was created in 1966 and the technology has been used by businesses for 20 years, in Bulgaria many people have not heard of chatbots. Others do not know enough about this technology and its progress and cannot trust it yet. The good news is that in Bulgaria there are businesses and organizations that have been using it for years and rely on the long-term potential of the development of this technology. They are curious about the huge potential of AI chatbots and their usage and optimize their chatbot performance according to customer behavior. For all of them, one of the most important benefits of a chatbot is to free the business and its employees from the routine and the related to it costs (time and resources) and give them more time and opportunities to develop and successfully reach the ultimate goals.

AI chatbots take place in various processes such as customer service, marketing, and sales, saving time and resources. In an April’22 survey of the top 12 customer service technologies, CBInsights put AI chatbots on the top as the first choice that businesses must prioritize. As the challenges and trends faced by businesses abroad are identical to those faced by businesses in Bulgaria, it is expected for local businesses to invest in this technology if they want to improve communication with their customers and other business processes. CBInsights says: “The Covid-19 pandemic has made AI chatbots essential for making important decisions by brands in a variety of industries to manage all customer requests. Most AI chatbots can automatically respond to 60% to 70% of the requests.”

According to a study by a leading research store Research and Markets, The artificial intelligence market size (including chatbots with AI and other), is expected to grow from USD 86.9 billion in 2022 to USD 407.0 billion by 2027, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 36.2% during the forecast period.

AI chatbots in Bulgaria

The potential of the development of chatbot technology with artificial intelligence in Bulgaria is based on the need to optimize online customer communication, which needs intensified even more during the pandemic. The trend for businesses to have an adequate online presence remains after the pandemic, because customers got used to digital service and self-service, and prefer working with companies that offer products, services, and assistance online. Having an AI chatbot that helps customers 24/7 is an advantage for businesses to differentiate from the competition and show up with a digital and innovative solution.

By 2020, only 30% of the companies globally considered themselves as falling behind in the adoption of innovative technologies, but surprisingly in Bulgaria only 25% consider it necessary to invest in digital tools. This is one of the reasons the development of AI chatbots is on a rise outside Bulgaria. The potential and the possibility of significant differentiation of a company among the competition in Bulgaria are increasing by using such technology having on the background the conservatism of the market and the lack of knowledge of the technology.

Many local businesses still rely on communication with customers mainly by phone or email, and in the past couple of years – by chatting in messengers, which is a waste of time mostly for routine questions and requests, as well as the communication process is slow, and is limited by the working hours and staff availability. It is an excuse that a chatbot is not suitable for businesses due to a company prefers personal attention. The technology allows businesses to create their smart chatbot as useful and interesting to customers as possible, to give it character, an avatar and a name, as well as a style of communication with customers – responding instantly and being active 24/7. Customers wouldn’t matter whether they are talking to a chatbot or a real person, as long as they receive relevant answers and quality assistance instantly, and employees would have the time to do more complex and interesting tasks. Routine questions and requests – 70-75% of the overall customer communication, are one of the main functionalities of AI chatbots, and they handle them very well. Although in the past few years the acceptance of chatbots was far away for many businesses in Bulgaria, the pandemic opened the need for more digital services due to staff shortage and customers’ digital needs for self-service solutions. For this and many other reasons for Bulgaria as part of the EU, digitalization is growing as a priority in the country and its businesses. About half of the companies (47%) intend to invest more in digital technologies than they have invested in the past year. Moreover, approximately a third of the interviewed businesses invest the same amount and only 2% will invest less. There is an awakening in most of the industries. Let see some examples in the next paragraphs.

Viber’s statistics on customer behavior in Bulgaria from 2021 show the number of messages for order confirmations, delivery tracking, reminders for meetings, and others, increased by 52%, marketing messages for offers, discounts, and others, increased by 91%, and calls for customer support increased by a surprising 237%! A chatbot with conversational AI can perfectly handle all these tasks. It comes to common sense that the use of chatbot technology in this messenger in 2021 by businesses looking for alternative channels for communication with customers and advertising, has also grown by 26%, and user engagement in chatbots has increased by 30%. In 2022, Viber reported 200+ million messages in chatbots in Viber. We are looking forward to seeing how the numbers change in the next few years.

The Covid-19 Bulgaria chatbot – the official Viber chatbot of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Bulgaria during the pandemic, had over 80,000 users in 2022, which showed that Bulgarian users also accepted well this technology, and it attracted not only the attention of businesses but of state institutions and organizations. The chatbot was created in 2020 by the Association for Innovation, Business Services and Technology and enables users to receive the latest information about the pandemic from reliable sources, state measures, as well as advice on how to protect ourselves and our loved ones. The chatbot shows in one place statistics about people’s sicknesses, all the news about the pandemic, and its functionality allows receiving notifications of published news in real-time.

Although there are no other statistics on the use of business chatbots for Bulgaria apart from Viber, users encounter digital assistants also in other messengers, and especially on the websites of various companies.

The consequences of the pandemic stimulated Bulgarian hotels to turn their attention to AI ​​chatbots for communication with guests, to their assistance, and to save time and business resources. The hotel Casa di Fiore SPA and Medical (Kranevo village) began to use an AI chatbot even before the hotel opening. The chatbot was made and maintained by the hotel team on the platform of Umni for the hotel’s website. The 5-star hotel participated in the Digitalk & A1 Awards with its chatbot and was honored as an example in the Digitalk 2021 Best Technology Report after the competition. The hotel took an innovative approach in the creation of its own digital employee – creating an avatar and giving it a name – Miss Fiore, and also upgrading the chatbot with voice recognition in Bulgarian and English for faster and easier online communication in 2023. The hotel uses the AI chatbot to optimize customer communication, for bookings via integration of the chatbot with a hotel reservation system and collecting information about customer behavior for marketing and sales purposes with impressive results in just a few months of the chatbot implementing. In 1 year, Ms. Fiore had over 545,000 customer interactions, night chatting (18:00-8:00) was 39% to 45%, and 32% of the requests also happened at night. You can find more about this hotel AI chatbot, Miss Fiore, here.

Around the world, banks and financial institutions are among the top 3 industries that use smart chatbots for a long time. There are examples in Bulgaria as well. In 2018, Postbank has developed the first bank credit chatbot – EVA (Electronic Virtual Assistant). EVA responds to customers and is online 24/7 to provide useful information about banking products such as consumer loans, credit cards, and other financial services. First Investment Bank also invested in this technology by starting to use their FIbot chatbot, which supports customer service and is based on frequently asked questions that customers daily ask call operators. BNP Paribas Personal Finance uses its digital assistant Chati which is a basic chatbot with predefined information for checking financial status.

Business problems and how AI chatbot solves them

A common problem of the businesses in Bulgaria is that there are not enough staff to answer instantly customers’ routine and recurring questions, or employees waste a lot of time doing this instead of focusing on more important tasks. An AI chatbot can help with such challenges, with automation of this process on the business site by being constantly online, 24/7 and answering customer questions on time. This saves not only business resources, but also time for employees to work on more interesting tasks with higher added value, support their own development in the company and contribute much more to its success. AI chatbot costs a small portion of the staff salary in customer service or other departments and saves a lot of time and business resources that lead to more successful business performance. Businesses in which a large part of the daily work is answering customer questions from different channels, as well as accepting appointments, doing direct sales or product and services, and others, can benefit a lot by using such technology. Among them are online stores for products and services, as well as dermatological clinics, dental offices, beauty salons and other businesses in service industries, small and large hotels – the industry does not matter. One example in Bulgaria of a well-done usage of an AI chatbot is the beauty studio Beauty Point, which uses its AI chatbot mainly for communication with clients and booking appointments. According to the owner of the studio, 30% of customers use only the chatbot to book or change an appointment, and 100% of customers take advantage of promotions via the chatbot. You can see how they do it in the case study about them here.

Especially for dental services, an article in Investor states that Bulgaria is among the leaders in the number of dentists in Europe. However, the problem is that there is an uneven distribution of specialists in the cities, which makes doctors unable to help everyone. At the same time, doctors spend a lot of time talking to patients about routine issues, both in person and on the phone, and chatting in messengers. The AI ​​chatbot responds instantly, is available 24/7, and does not require the user to install and learn new applications. It allows dental clinics to provide instant information about services to their patients and the opportunity to book an appointment or other, saving valuable time for the doctors and receptionists.

Another common problem is the difficulty of gathering information about customer search and interests in one place, and its analysis. It is difficult for many businesses to use the communication with customers to collect, sort and analyses their feedback, collect data from different channels, as this takes a lot of time and effort. There are many businesses that do not have the time and ability to create questionnaires or other forms of collecting marketing information for analysis to offer exactly what customers want and are looking for. There are still many businesses that do not collect or analyze customer questions from different channels at all and completely underestimate the data about customer behavior that can be collected without violating personal data restrictions and without additional costs. AI chatbots like those on the Umni platform automatically collect and sort customer inquiries in the chatbot and turn them into live statistics about what customers are looking for, when they are looking for it, and other important information for marketing and business processes. This information can be analyzed easily and used for the benefit of the business, to improve its products and services. For example, that is how it is known that due to a change in customer behavior during the pandemic, night chatting in chatbots of businesses from various industries has increased to 35-45% and remains stable at this level. The same is the case with TEZTour, the largest Russian tour operator operating in Bulgaria and the Balkans region. Their chatbot was not only on duty at night – 35% of the communication in it took place between 18:00 and 8:00, but for the first 10 months of its work saved 850+ working hours to the staff, successfully processed over 1100 incoming inquiries, and responded to 30,000+ customer messages. You can read how they did it in the case study about them here.

There are businesses where their main work requires full concentration and attention of the employees. When customers keep calling to ask routine questions, the employees’ workflow may be disrupted, and the customer experience might be negatively affected. In such cases, the AI ​​chatbot helps by responding to these customers instantly, and there is no need for employees to be constantly online or on the phone. At the same time, they will not miss any opportunities, because the chatbot can serve multiple customers at once and will take care of all of them. Such businesses are various repair activities, expert services, as well as businesses in the medical sector and others. Their potential of using chatbot technology is undeniable. For example, at the Reverse Dermatology Clinic, up to 80% of social media inquiries were unanswered despite the reception desk where staff has been focused on phone calls and on customers waiting for assistance. With the implementation of an AI chatbot – dermatological assistant, the clinic was able to respond to all customer inquiries on time. In 16 months, the AI ​​chatbot Dr. Ross has responded to over 10,000 messages sent by over 1,400 customers, mostly after business hours. You can read more about their chatbot project here.

“Live, do not suffer” is a Bulgarian mental health chatbot that can be used on Viber via phone, computer or tablet and currently has over 20,000 users. It is a project of the Patient Care Association. The chatbot helps with quick and easy access to useful information about psychological health and provides the location of mental health care providers in Bulgaria. Anyone who uses the chatbot can find the nearest psychiatrist, medical center or emergency center based on their current location. Animus Foundation in Bulgaria has created and maintains on the platform of Umni its AI chatbot with information for help and support in cases of domestic violence. The Foundation “Koja – a platform for mental health” has been using a chatbot for 2 years. Together with Umni, the Foundation created Koja.bg – a platform with a chatbot to help Ukrainian refugees to sign up for a free consultation for psychological support – in Ukrainian, Bulgarian and English. Another example of the capabilities of the chatbots is the digital health assistant Symptoma, which is also available in Bulgarian. In it, users can check their condition based on the symptoms they listed.

Some more Bulgarian examples of chatbots as a result of the spreading usage in the country:

The translation agency Arte.doc implemented an AI chatbot and named it Artina after the brand’s name. This AI chatbot has been trained by the business team to provide customers with 24/7 online support and answer their questions about translation services. Artina’s is like an office assistant wearing a costume and glasses and is always ready to assist customers with relevant information. The development and training process of Artina is underway, and soon she will be implemented on the business site to provide self-service and easier communication.

Amika, the charming digital assistant of the Association of Medical Cosmeticians, is a businesswoman from the beauty industry that has interacted with over 1200 customers in just 48 hours of work, including 370 new users and 294 returning users. Amika is currently in training to become the perfect digital employee who can assist customers 24/7/365, including helping them purchase tickets for the International Beauty Conference 2023 and other services.

Chokolina is another Bulgarian business’s chatbot that serves as the smart assistant for 1 Meter Chocolate. This chatbot is inspired by the owner Bilyana Todorova and helps customers purchase chocolate for various occasions and holidays. Chokolina is always available to assist customers with their orders, even when the owner is not available. Customers can order custom-made chocolate for holidays and special events. The reaction of the owner of the company in the first hours of the implementation of Chokolina was priceless: Wow, the chatbot made its first chocolate sales overnight while I was sleeping!

Beriko serves as the virtual assistant for New Era for Health, a company that provides natural products for health prevention, improvement, and cosmetic purposes. Beriko is a cheerful panda-boy who can provide information about the top-selling products of the business, explain bioresonance (the analysis of health conditions), answer FAQs 24/7, and help customers contact the company. He can also guide customers through the most important information on the business site and show them promotions and many more.

The potential of AI chatbots usages is growing along with the gained popularity of it created by ChatGPT, which is not a business AI chatbot, but a chat with a language model, but it is an advanced technology used by many now. Businesses tend to invest in digital solutions due to the benefits but prefer to do it in a more business-controlled environment. That’s why platforms like Umni now provide integration with ChatGPT for easier training of your own chatbot but with a control over the content.

More and more businesses in Bulgaria are starting to implement chatbot technology into their business operations and such examples from different industries and sizes are small and big hotels, universities, small and big online stores, translation agencies, fitness, courier companies and many others are starting to accept AI-related technologies to further grow.

Conclusion

The pandemic did not bring the need for automation, digitization, and robotization of businesses. It only forced the adoption and sped up trends, behaviors, habits, and the use of technology globally. In a webinar in 2020, Gartner listed digital self-service as a core business activity needed to recover from the pandemic. The chatbots were ranked in the top 5 business solutions needed to overcome the crisis. We also saw the implementation of chatbots in various businesses due to the new challenges that needed to be addressed, such as face-to-face contact between customers and employees and the need to reduce fixed costs, as well as the lack of staff when reopening. These are a few more reasons why businesses in Bulgaria need to start using this technology to be part of the digitalizing world in all industries. Those businesses that are not yet convinced of the benefits of AI chatbot need to learn from the successful examples of companies that have been using it for years and earning a lot, to be even more competitive and comparable to global markets.

Globally, forecasts of the development of chatbot technology and positive expectations of it are increasing. According to Juniper Research (2021), by 2025, half of all sales will take place in chatbots. Sales via chatbots are expected to rich $145 billion by 2025, an increase of 590% compared to 2021.

According to a study by Gartner (Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Artificial Intelligence, 2020), the chatbot is the “face of AI today” and is the most popular artificial intelligence application for businesses. According to the study, the spread of chatbots for businesses in 2020 has reached the range of 20% -50%, compared to 5% -20% a year earlier. At the same time, this range will grow by more than 100% over the next five years. Bulgaria is part of the digitally evolving world in all directions.The past few months have further accelerated digital transformation. Customer habits continue shifting towards omni-shopping and e-commerce. This means that it is essential to understand where these trends are headed and what the keys are to transforming the business into a competitive one in the future. It is essential for retailers to build stronger and more memorable relationships with their customers, creating a strong brand and offering a better engaging customer experience based on digitalization. According to Forbes, 95% of all customer interactions will rely on the help of artificial intelligence and tool that use it, such as AI chatbots, so it is a crucial for marketers to adopt such tool to stay competitive. Relying on technology, the decisions of business owners become informed and intelligent, with the goal of increasing sales thanks to the analysis of data in real time, customer engagement, convenient and simple payment methods or process automation. With the National Program “Digital Bulgaria 2025” we hope more businesses get toward technologies including chatbots with conversational AI to make our local businesses and country more competitive on the global market. The businesses in our country, which have not turned their attention yet to this technology, limit their potential for development and create preconditions to rank in their industry after their competitors, who already use the chatbot technology or plan to use it in the near future.