Recently, new tools have been developed to simplify the interaction between humans and computers, the innovations that “recently” arrived on the market and are increasingly present in several sites and segments: Chatbots or Virtual Assistants.
In the banking sector, for example, chatbots and virtual assistants are already becoming essential tools, and are designed to simplify interaction with customers and reduce operating costs.
What is Chatbot?
A chatbot is artificial intelligence (AI) software that can simulate a conversation (or a chat) with a user in a natural way through messaging apps, websites, mobile apps or even the phone.
Why are chatbots important? A chatbot is probably one of the most advanced and promising ways of interacting between humans and machines. However, from a technological point of view, a chatbot represents only the natural evolution of a question answer system that uses natural language processing (NLP).
Formulating answers to questions in natural language is one of the most common examples of natural language processing applied to systems at various companies.
Brief history of Chatbots
The first chat bot was written in the USA in 1966. It was implemented by Joseph Weizenbaum, a computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and was named Eliza.
In the early 90s, the Turing test was developed , which allows the possibility of thinking through computers to be determined. It was with him that we started to perfect this tool, it consists of the following: A person talks to the person and to the computer, and the objective is to find out who his interlocutor is – a person or a machine.
Types of Chatbots
We can separate Chatbots into two types:
Simple chatbots:They work based on pre-written keywords that they understand. Each of these commands must be written by the developer separately, using predetermined expressions. If the user asks a question without using a single keyword, the robot will not be able to interpret the message and will likely respond with messages such as “sorry, I don’t understand”.
Smart chatbots: Theyrelyon artificial intelligence when communicating with users. Instead of waiting for pre-prepared questions and answers, the robot tries to interpret and respond with appropriate suggestions on the subject or with the final answer / action. In addition, all communication made is recorded for analysis and further processing.
A very interesting example of using Chatbots has been by Google, they have developed an interface for the user, Google Assistant, but the interesting thing is that they are also making their personal assistant use artificial intelligence to make their life easier and do things for you, see an example applied in real life:
Advantages of Chatbot
As you can imagine, this type of technology has several advantages for companies in all segments. Therefore, choosing the right solution for your need is a very important step for the successful implementation of this tool.
- Productivity.Chatbots provide assistance or access to information quickly and efficiently.
- Scale.Chatbots allow you to escalate customer service quickly and cheaply, reducing the operational cost of new hires.
- Efficiency:Chatbots allow you to have effective metrics for your services and audiences, enabling smart and effective adjustments to optimize the service process.
How does a Chatbot work?
Basically, a bot aims at two types of tasks: giving an answer and / or performing an action. Let’s take two simple examples of a banking Chatbot:
Example 1: The user wants to know his bank balance
- User: Hello, would you like to know my bank balance?
- Robo: Receive the message and analyze the request: Hello, would you like to know my bank balance ?
- Robo: Identifies the keywords and what action to take and composes the message
- Robo: Returns the message to the user: Your bank balance is R $ 1500.33
Example 2: The user wants to deposit R $ 100 in another account
- User: Hello, I would like to transfer R $ 100 to Henrique Marques bank account
- Robo: Receives the message and analyzes the request: Hello I would like to transfer R $ 100 to the bank account of Henrique Marques
- Robo: Identifies the keywords and what action to take; Checks whether there is a balance; Perform the action; Compose the message.
- Robo: Return the message to the user: Your transfer was successful.
How do I develop a Chatbot?
If you are not a programmer, I recommend that you hire companies specialized in this type of technology, now if you want to play and try to develop there are some platforms that provide the ecosystem to create your Chatbots: