- What does the AI chatbot do?
- Where the AI chatbot can be installed?
- When the AI chatbot shall be launched?
- Does the AI chatbot replace my website?
- Our business does not have a website, can we use an AI chatbot?
- Does it matter how the company website was created / what is its technology for adding an AI chatbot to it?
- I will change my website; do I need a new chatbot for it or I can use already the created one?
- Can I have a chatbot on more than one language?
- What determines how smart a chatbot is?
- How much time does it take to create a chatbot?
- What is the price of a chatbot?
- What are the steps in the implementation of a chatbot?
- What are the chatbot functionalities?
- Where can I find a comparison between the AI chatbot and other communication tools our business use?
- How the chatbot activates to customers?
- What happens if the AI chatbot does not give an answer to a question?
- The AI chatbot can have various forms and provides statistics on customer behavior. Does it collect users’ personal data?
- Who controls the content in my company’s AI chatbot?
- How long does it take to add company information to the AI chatbot and how often shall content be added?
- Do I need to have any technical knowledge and skills to support our business AI chatbot?
- Can the AI chatbot be integrated with our CRM system or other business software/platform?
- Can files and links be uploaded to the AI chatbot?
- Can there be more than one answer to a question in the conversational AI module?
- Are AI chatbots, AI digital assistants, and AI virtual assistants the same?
- What are some of the challenges that I can expect with the chatbot?
- What are the successes that I can expect with the chatbot?
Did you know that 74% of internet users prefer using chatbots when looking for answers to simple questions, according to PSFK (Piers Fawkes and Simon King – an American media and research company)? Chatbots are used by various businesses commonly for automating FAQs and routine inquiries. When your customers ask many repetitive questions like the following ones, the chatbot will assist them 24/7 with an instant answer, and your team will have time for more complex tasks.
According to a recent study on customer service by MIT, 90% of businesses reported a decrease in customer service time with the help of chatbots. At the same time, in 2020 State of Conversational Marketing report by Drift, it is mentioned that being unable to get answers to simple questions is one of the three biggest challenges that customers faced in the last year. Do you have such challenges?
Creating chatbots since the beginning of 2018, knowing the technology and its history that dates from the 1960s, our team had hundreds of conversations and presentations about this software solution from A to Z, its functionalities, business benefits, and more. We collected the most asked questions related to choosing to implement an AI chatbot on a website and will share the questions and their answers with you. If you cannot find an answer to your specific question you can always contact us so to enlighten you about the chatbot world.
1. What does the AI chatbot do?
Before you know what the AI chatbot does, you need to know what it is and how it works. We are happy to share with you a blog post on this topic, too.
In short, the AI chatbot is a software solution that serves as a digital assistant to:
- Provides information in the form of texts, photos, buttons for additional information and quick links, audio; it is a fast and easy self-service tool
- Is a two-way communication tool: the conversational AI simulates the conversation with a human, instantly identifying the meaning of the inquiry and providing a response from the built database.
- Collects feedback and inquiries: another important element is the forms that allow customers to contact the business quickly and easily, make an inquiry, or other.
- Assist with company sales and marketing, as every information section and inquiry form in the chatbot has its own link and QR code that allows the business to share personalized information or action with its customers literally anywhere online and offline with 1 click or scan
- Collect first- and zero-party data, becoming an alternative to the website cookies
2. Where the AI chatbot can be installed?
You can create an AI chatbot and embed it in your business website, in a mobile app, in a messenger, or in other online platforms where its code could be implemented. The AI chatbot on the website operates within a website widget, and it is managed from a chatbot platform, like Umni’s platform. There are many benefits of implementing an AI chatbot on your site and you can check some of them in our blog post on the topic. According to Juniper Research whitepaper (Why chatbots are essential to retail), 43% of the existing chatbots are located on websites versus 48% in messengers, and it is expected that the number of chatbots located on the businesses’ websites will increase. Web-based AI chatbots can act as a first and immediate contact point for customers, answer FAQs and collect inquiries from customers.
3. When the AI chatbot shall be launched?
The answer to this question is not unambiguous. The first thing to do after the implementation of the chatbot is the planning of its promotion along with the launching. You can think of launching it during a special event, during a holiday, or the birthday of the company so to popularize it more. You must be sure that everything is working properly, is tested, and no mistakes are found before the launch so as to not make a bad impression of your brand.
4. Does the AI chatbot replace my website?
No, the chatbot upgrades the site and does not replace it. That’s why when thinking of implementing a chatbot on your site, you shall think of its purpose and functionalities that do not repeat the website but add additional value to it. The chatbot does what the website cannot – a 2-way communication but not with a human via live chat, but with conversational AI. The chatbot can have unlimited content personalized to the questions of the users for instant support 24/7/365. The website works together with a chatbot in favor of the business, its customers, partners, and employees. Of course, for smaller businesses, or if you don’t have a website yet, it is perfectly realistic to use a landing page with a chatbot instead of a website, where the chatbot is the main communication tool, i.e. replaces a website.
5. Our business does not have a website, can we use an AI chatbot?
The Umni platform provides an option to generate a web page with a widget for the AI chatbot by using a template, which is managed very easily and quickly. Umni provides the hosting and the sub-domain for it so do not worry about them. The website contains up to 2 content pages, a contacts page, a languages page for switching between available languages, and links for social media (Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, etc.). Everything else can be opened as informative answers in the AI chatbot on such a web page. Here is an example of a landing page with a chatbot of Umni to see how it looks and try it. One of our clients’ hotel complex Izgreva replaced their old website with a webpage with a hotel AI chatbot assistant on the Umni platform to help their guests and for direct bookings 24/7/365. One more example is The Foundation “Koja – a platform for mental health” which made a webpage with a chatbot on the Umni platform – Koja.bg, within a day to help Ukrainian refugees to sign up for a free consultation for psychological support – in Ukrainian, Bulgarian and English. Your business also can create its own landing page for the chatbot using other online tools for this purpose.
6. Does it matter how the company website was created / what is its technology for adding an AI chatbot to it?
Generally, it does not matter what is the technology behind the website your business has. Adding an AI chatbot on the site is easy – just pasting a short code. The widget (name, colors, logo, content, and other settings) is managed on the platform the chatbot was made on like the Umni platform. You can add the chatbot immediately to your site to see what it looks like, or test it on its own landing page.
7. I will change my website; do I need a new chatbot for it or I can use already the created one?
Once you have made and implemented your chatbot on your site by placing a short code on it, you can move it to every site you have and want – your new one, a landing page for the chatbot, and you do not need to create a new chatbot, you can use the created one. By copying the code of the chatbot and placing it on your new site, it will show on it and start working immediately.
8. Can I have a chatbot in more than one language?
It is good to have a digital assistant that can talk many languages at once. An AI chatbot can be created in more than one language. If you choose a self-training option, you can train your AI chatbot on the languages that your customers talk as soon as these are AI languages so as to be an international brand that foreign customers will love to communicate with.
In the AI module training of the Umni platform, currently, we support English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, and Bulgarian. More languages are coming soon. Other languages can always be added upon request.
9. What determines how smart a chatbot is?
How smart a chatbot is, depends on whether conversational AI is included in it or not, as well as how well the chatbot has been planned and created. If it has conversational AI, the intelligence depends on how well-trained it is and how many topics it has been trained to. The answers depend on the business – what content to add to represent the brand and to be in favor of it and its customers and employees. Businesses cannot blame a chatbot that didn’t give a correct answer as it depends on them to ensure continued proper training and content upgrading. Here are some good practices for creating the perfect chatbot to be sure it is smart and helpful.
10. How much time does it take to create a chatbot?
The development of a chatbot depends on its intended use and functionalities: a basic chatbot with a few forms may only take a couple of hours to develop, while a chatbot with conversational AI and other advanced features could take several months to train.
The conversational AI module must also continue its development after the AI chatbot implementation because of the constant customer interactions that it learns from. The person or the team responsible for its maintenance must train it when new topics appear and retrain it if it didn’t provide the right answer to a customer’s question.
11. What is the price of a chatbot?
The price of a chatbot depends on what are its functionalities, is it a subscription paid monthly or yearly. It also depends on the type of chatbot you want to have – a basic one or conversational AI, and the price depends on if you do it yourself on a platform like Umni’s platform or someone else will create it and maintain it for you.
12. What are the steps in the implementation of a chatbot?
First, you must decide what will be the functionalities of your chatbot based on the goals and the result your business wants to achieve for a precise group of users (customers, partners, or employees) – what will it do, how it would help your business, customers, and employees, and assign a team or person in charge of the project. Then comes the choice of a chatbot platform, planning of the chatbot, collecting the information that is needed (text, images, links, files, conversational AI topics with answers, etc.), starting the development, testing it, and, finally, implementing the chatbot on your website or somewhere else. You can check our blog post, a complete guide to preparing for an AI chatbot project, to be fully informed.
13. What are the chatbot functionalities?
Chatbots can perform a variety of tasks – from answering frequently asked questions to automate routine tasks, gathering customer information via chatbot forms, automatically collecting customer questions and behavior to provide it in statistics, and more. The functionalities of the chatbot depend on what are the business specifics and needs and what the main purpose of the chatbot will be. The chatbot can have inquiry forms, redirects to different sections of the chatbot, have direct links from online and offline (with a QR code) as an entry point to a precise place in the chatbot on a precise webpage, it can be with or without conversational AI, with voice recognition and commands, on many languages. All these and many more can be chosen by the business based on what it assigns the chatbot to do.
For example, a small business, an online store for car parts – Danexo, has a simple chatbot, made on Umni’s platform, that helps potential business partners request registration of an account, and individual customers to place an order for a car part – only forms are used, without conversational AI. On the other hand, a large hotel with many customers, and different services and departments, the 5-star Casa di Fiore SPA & Medical, has also a chatbot made on the Umni platform that offers many functionalities and conversational hotel AI module to fulfill all customers’ actual needs and give them the opportunity to book a room, ask questions and learn new information about the hotel.
14. Where can I find a comparison between the AI chatbot and other communication tools our business use?
The AI chatbot on the website of a business has a great chance to become the company communication hub automating up to 80% of the routine questions and tasks and decreasing the cost of customer service by 30%. However, our recommendation is to use the AI chatbot wisely together with other communication alternatives to work smarter. You can find comparison and tips on this topic in our blog post.
15. How the chatbot activates to customers?
The chatbot activates automatically when a customer enters the site. The conversational AI is activated when a customer types or asks a question. Keep in mind that customers won’t come to the chatbot themselves if they do not know about the chatbot’s existence so share it with the world. We share with you some good practices on how to promote your business chatbot, so customers know about it, learn how to use it, and have easy access to it.
16. What happens if the AI chatbot does not give an answer to a question?
As the training of the conversational AI module is a continuous process of data accumulation, it sometimes may not have an answer to a question. The AI assistant will answer that it does not have information on the topic at this moment. Information about a missing topic will appear as a pending notification in the module in the platform. The new question then can be trained, and answer can be provided.
The AI chatbot “learns” by communicating with each user. The more it communicates, the smarter and more useful the chatbot becomes. Another good tip here is to use the “no, we do not have that” answers as an opportunity to provide clients with more information about the existing products or services as an alternative, and to show the benefits your business will provide with it to the customer: “but we have that which is better with…”.
17. The AI chatbot can have various forms and provides statistics on customer behavior. Does it collect users’ personal data?
The customer behavior statistics that are provided in a dashboard are only general information such as what users are asking or looking for, what time of day they do it, and others. The forms send the collected information to an email specified by the business itself or to business’s externally secured account. The information collected in the forms is deleted from the conversation surface of the AI chatbot at the time of the email sending. The person or the team responsible for the data analysis shall know what to do with it according to the personal data requirement.
18. Who controls the content in my company’s AI chatbot?
The content in the AI chatbot is controlled entirely by the business itself. The business adds the content information on the platform, provides and maintains the answers on the business topics in the conversational AI module, also can make changes throughout the entire content at any time when needed, and be sure to provide up-to-date information so customers can find what they are looking for and be satisfied at the time of their searching. This is the main difference between the business AI chatbots and those large standalone AI chatbot modules like ChatGPT, LaMDA, BlenderBot, or others that use information from their database (fed with over a trillion records of data) and search live online to generate their answers in freestyle and live.
19. How long does it take to add company information to the AI chatbot and how often shall content be added?
The basic information in the chatbot (information cards, forms, and other elements) can be created within a day or two, or a bit more depending on the volume of information. When the required business information and content materials are ready to be used, the initial topics with answers about the company can be added to the chatbot also within couple of days. The conversational AI module however shall be constantly and continuously trained to work in favor of the business, its customers, and its employees. One topic in the AI module takes 3 to 5 minutes to create and train per language. The other content can be changed and a new one added in a matter of minutes for each, when necessary, at any time when is needed by the employees responsible for the AI chatbot maintenance.
20. Do I need to have any technical knowledge and skills to support our business AI chatbot?
You do not have to acquire any special technical knowledge and skills to work on the platform of Umni and for the management and maintenance of the AI chatbot. Umni will provide all the necessary instructions and how-to materials for using the platform and working on the AI chatbot.
21. Can the AI chatbot be integrated with our CRM system or other business software/platform?
The integrations in the chatbot help to automate various business/communication processes and ease customer service and support, 24/7. Examples of integrating a chatbot with various reservation systems, CRMs, and other platforms are scheduling a service, making direct bookings for a room, checking order status, and synchronizing information between the chatbot and other systems that offer APIs. If you are interested in custom integration for your AI chatbot you can always contact us to consult you.
22. Can files and links be uploaded to the AI chatbot?
Yes, it is possible, but to share documents in the chatbot, first you will need to upload them somewhere online to have an accessible link to them. The links in the AI chatbot are shared via a button on an information card. In this way, you can share any external sources of information in the AI chatbot: links to pages on your website links to blog publications, or other company online resources, various files and important documents, presentations, images, tutorial videos, and many more.
23. Can there be more than one answer to a question in the conversational AI module?
You can add more than one answer to a frequently asked question, which will make the AI chatbot much more interactive for customers. When more than one answer is available, the AI chatbot will choose one of the answers randomly and will provide it to the customer. That way users will feel it more like talking to a human which does not repeat the same answer all over again but give other alternatives. For example, you can teach your AI chatbot to tell funny jokes – as many as you know, and every time it will give a different one to engage customers much more.
24. Are AI chatbots, AI digital assistants, and AI virtual assistants the same?
AI chatbots are software solutions designed to help with business tasks, customer service, and support for concrete business. AI virtual assistant is like a personal assistant, helping with daily tasks. AI chatbots are a simpler solution with a narrower range of functionalities than AI virtual assistants.
At Umni, we use AI, a digital assistant, as synonymous with AI chatbot to emphasize the AI assistance part of the AI chatbot. This is because many people think of chatbots as a basic solution that is navigated only by scrolling over pictures and text and clicking buttons. However, chatbots are much more than that. Businesses can use chatbots to improve communication with customers and employees, save time and resources, create attractive marketing campaigns, and increase sales by using conversational AI as a major part of their chatbot strategy.
25. What are some of the challenges that I can expect with the chatbot?
The main challenges you may have with the chatbot could be related to not proper planning, training, and testing. These processes depend on the business team itself so they shall revise all the content for mistakes, the connections between the different chatbot elements, and the answers it gives so everything works correctly in favor of the business, its customers, partners, and employees. The chatbot is a long-term project and it needs constant checking, training, and maintenance for a better user experience.
26. What are the successes that I can expect with the chatbot?
What is your goal? Adding an AI chatbot would give you as many benefits as you cannot imagine – for your site, customers, employees, partners, and the overall online communication with your brand. The AI chatbot could help you with increasing sales, improving your marketing campaigns, acquiring and retention of customers, more traffic to your site, better 2-way communication, customer service, and support, and many more other benefits that will help your business to grow.
These are the top 26 most frequently asked questions from our potential and current clients. If you have a question that we haven’t addressed in this blog post, ask our AI chatbot Robo on the site and you’ll get an answer right away, if you don’t get an answer, we’ll make sure to train it. Don’t hesitate to contact us to start your journey into the world of chatbots now to have a fully functional digital employee in just a few months!
Do not also forget to follow our LinkedIn account for the helpful content we upload almost daily and to stay updated on the opportunities AI chatbots give!