# Business development

AI Chatbot for Small Businesses: Pros, Cons and How-To

Red Rocket teamJul 5, 20246 min read

There are many non-essential processes in the operation of any business that takes up most of the employees' time. It can negatively affect the KPIs of the employee and the company overall. With the development of artificial intelligence, it has become feasible to shift some tasks to a «smart assistant».

You may hear people's opinion on the Internet that AI chatbots are only needed for large enterprises like Amazon, Apple, Netflix and others. Actually, this is not true at all and a company of any size will gain a lot of benefits by Integrating AI chatbots in the app. Want to know how to implement a chatbot into your business? We have collected a lot of useful information for you in this article.

AI Chatbot for Small Businesses: Pros, Cons and How-To

What is Chatbot?

Actually, it doesn't take much effort to explain the meaning of chatbot. Why? Each of you faces smart chatbots almost every day. Briefly speaking, chatbots for small businesses are special software designed to communicate with customers on behalf of the company. When users write to support, some of them don't even realize that it's not a real person talking to them. The customer service chatbot receives and processes the customer's message, applies predefined algorithms and provides the most appropriate response. If you use the most advanced artificial intelligence models, then the chatbot will have advanced capabilities.

A chatbot is a tool used by companies to perform many routine tasks of handling customer requests. It's no secret that our time supply is very limited and this applies to sales, or customer service managers as well as those very customers. Therefore, no business can afford to waste such a valuable resource.

Advantages of Chatbots

Studying the pros and cons of AI chatbots, it is necessary to analyze what purposes they are used for. A small spoiler for you - AI chatbot for small businesses has many more advantages than negative influences. We have collected the most important advantages below.

Increased conversions

AI customer support chatbot is simply a must-have for your business. To engage potential first-time customers on your website, bots showcase your new products and offer discounts to convert them into new customers.

In addition, chatbots on your website proactively send alerts to visitors and help speed up the buying decision process. You can customize the content of these notifications yourself by adding your current offers or company news there. A website chatbot can also help customers find what they are looking for.

Saving money

Reducing costs - isn't that what every manager strives for? By integrating AI chatbots in the app, you can achieve a certain level of savings. It's all thanks to that very same load balancing: automate everyday tasks that include everything from answering frequently asked questions to booking appointments. This allows your customer support team to focus on more complex queries.

Implementing a chatbot is much cheaper than hiring employees to perform each task. By properly setting up a chatbot business process, you can even reduce the number of staff needed to run your business.

New insights about customers

Among the benefits that a chatbot for a website offers is that it can also collect customer data such as name, email address, and other relevant information for you. It also makes sense to create specific surveys among users at different stages of the sales funnel. For example, you can embed a customer satisfaction survey at the end of a conversation with the bot to find out how satisfied they are with both the chatbot itself and your brand as a whole.

What Business Could Benefit From a Chatbot?

AI chatbot for small businesses have emerged as a prominent tool that enables business owners to intensify customer experience and operational efficiencies. Using AI technology, chatbots are now taking even more complex conversations and are capable of performing more complex tasks. The burning question today is which business areas need custom AI chatbot development the most?

E-commerce. It is evident that retail more especially online retail is one of the sectors that can benefit a lot from the use of chatbots. Chatbots can also offer customer support for customers’ inquiries regarding products, orders, shipping, returns, etc.
Recruitment agencies. Conversational agents for recruiting agencies can include the following uses: prescreening of candidates and initial video/phone interviews, booking of face-to-face interviews or interviews by phone, as well as automation of certain aspects of the hiring process.
Electronic queue. The healthcare sector is deploying chatbots to enhance patient experience. This helps in scheduling appointments, reminding patients of appointments, taking details of patients before attending them, and performing tasks that do not require the physical involvement of a healthcare practitioner.
Restaurants. The restaurant industry is also likely to be a winner. Cost-effective chatbot solutions are capable of ordering food and making bookings for tables. This in essence provides improved customer service for visitors.

Chatbots are especially applicable in any enterprise where it is necessary to involve technical support or customer service. Users can solve their concerns without waiting for a human representative.

Examples of Chatbot Integrations

Organizations are today using chatbots as a popular means through which they can engage with consumers. We'll tell you about two of the best AI chatbot platforms that are working today.

Siri. It was created by Apple is one of the most popular chatbots in the market. Originally launched in 2011 on Apple’s iOS, Siri employs speech recognition and natural language understanding abilities to respond to individuals’ questions, offer suggestions, and execute actions by sending requests to a network of Internet services. Siri allows users to wake themselves up through alarms, respond to queries, direct them on the best route, and many other features as assistants provide the individuals talks to their Apple device.
Starbucks. This famous company also included the chatbot in its mobile application My Starbucks Barista, in 2016. Indeed, it expands choice through the ability for the customers to place their orders in advance for pick-up at the Starbucks outlets. To help the user navigate through the Starbucks menu, the virtual barista has questions like a real barista would. Customers can add or alter the items they require for their beverage and store them for future use.

Taking a look at examples of the best AI chatbot platforms for small businesses is the best solution to see the effectiveness of such software.

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Step-by-Step Guide for Chatbot Integration

How to add chatbot to website? This is a question that interests many entrepreneurs around the world. Follow this simple guide to add a chatbot to your website or application.

1. Purpose and Objectives

First of all, you should understand the goal of your chatbot and how it will help you. The typical goals of a chatbot consist of dealing with customer inquiries, navigating the guests to the products and services, arranging meetings, and obtaining information from the site visitors. It is crucial to identify objectives to make up the course of actions for the entire custom AI chatbot development process.

2. Select From a Variety of Ready-Made or Custom Chatbots

You need to consider whether you are going to create a chatbot using the bot framework from scratch or if you are going to use one of the existing chatbot development platforms that have templates for incorporation. It would be possible to build a custom bot from scratch, which gives maximum freedom in terms of bot functionality but, at the same time, requires more resources in terms of technical expertise.

3. Set Dialogue Algorithms

It is critical to note that an equally crucial aspect of a chatbot is the process of preparing it to respond helpfully during chats with customers. Think about the dialogues that should be established in order to determine the appropriate responses based on the input of the customers and the goals of the chatbot.

4. Integrate The Chatbot Into Your Platforms

Last but not least, ensure that your chatbot is fully connected to the available communication platforms including your business’s website, mobile application, messaging platforms, or even SMS. To make the flow of a conversation optimal and comfortable, it can be necessary to optimize the chatbot for each channel individually.

Conclusion

As you might have realized by now, integrating AI chatbots in the app is a solution that can positively affect the performance of your business. After implementing such software, business owners notice improving sales with chatbots. Generally, you can use it for different purposes and make it a universal helper.

We, at Red Rocket custom AI chatbot development company understand the importance of implementing such software for small businesses. We can help you create and implement a chatbot to improve the efficiency of your company.

Frequently asked questions

What’s the cost of AI chatbot for small businesses?

The pricing of chatbots is not fixed since the price depends on the features of the chatbot and the integration necessary. Standard chatbots cost $500, while those that use NLP can cost $2000 or more.

What types of chatbots are there?

Chatbots can be categorized by their working principle, goals, functions and platforms where they operate. The most common variant is AI customer support chatbot, which helps customers find the answer to their questions. There is also AI chatbot analytics for small businesses, which collects and analyzes important data for the business owner.

What about chatbot privacy and security?

Thorough and credible chatbot service providers employ methods such as encryption and access controls in making the chatbot conversations and data secure. Enable user authentication before gathering their personal information. Make the chatbot users understand that they are talking to an artificial intelligence rather than a real person.