Difference between a Chatbot and Live Chat

Quality customer service is the key to business growth. A lot of factors may influence your choice of which tool you may use to facilitate the customer service of your business. The number of customers and human agents you have is an example.

Chatbots like Zebrabuzz and the rest, allows businesses to improve their customer engagement and interaction. But are there any differences between a chatbot and live chat, handled by human agents?

The truth remains that both chatbot and live chat remain incredibly popular in the customer service landscape.

This is because companies are consistently searching for innovative means to better customer experience, and the best way to do that is through providing quality customer service.

Both live chat and chatbot are superior ways of communicating with customers. At least, they are better than cold call and email messaging.

While more than 70% of customers prefer live chat as their form of interacting with businesses, market analysts have predicted that over 83% of customers, by 2020, will communicate with businesses without human interaction.

Also, recent studies have shown that close to 85% of businesses are utilizing chatbot for customer service or plan to do so. This shows that AI-powered chatbot is on the rise.

Though live chats have serious limitations, which include slow customer response time and poor user experience, they remain an impressive tool (only if used properly).

The chatbot, on the other hand, is AI-powered. It is a computer application that uses a chat interface to allow your customers to engage with you.

Chatbots exist to cater to the flaws and shortcoming of human agents and live chat. Experts have referred to them as ‘an important step’ and ‘next generation of intelligence’.

Not that chatbots are entirely flawless, using quality chatbot builders like Zebrabuzz, is a fantastic way of building an effective and easy-to-use messenger bot.

So, this article will be analyzing the difference between a chatbot and live chat and drawing your attention to which will be best for your business.

 

 

The major difference between chatbot and live chat

Here are some of the most significant differences between chatbots and live chat.

Human supervision and intervention

Sundar Pichai, Google Inc. CEO, once said that computing would evolve to the stage of ‘AI-first world.’

The statement is proving to be a reality with the use of chatbot in the customer service landscape. One of the biggest differences between a chatbot and live chat is that the chatbot can function without the assistance and supervision of humans.

Yes, chatbots can interact and assist your customers for hours and hours without human assistance. Juniper Research has shown that the adoption of chatbots by businesses will save them 11 billion dollars of operational cost and 2.5 billion customer service hours in the next three years.

This shows if businesses continue to use chatbots, they can reduce expenses while saving time and energy. 

For instance, Zebrabuzz allows you to engage your customers on social media and your website with the use of chatbots – human assistance is not required. 

Unlike, live chat where an agent spends hours engaged in the monotonous task of answering repeated questions, again and again, a chatbot can effectively provide customer service for your customers while freeing you time to do other important tasks. 

While humans can get bored and fed up with answering repetitive questions and query, chatbots are never tired. They continue to perform optimally, making you and your customers happy. 

Human agents handle live chat, which means when they are off work, the live chat feature remains inactive or offline. This will likely disappoint your users because they may have messages, expecting a prompt reply. Ultimately, this may lead to poor customer experience. 

 

 

Chatbot can multitask

It is highly improbable for a human agent on the live chat platform to handle and reply to hundreds of customers in an instant.

If you attempt to do that, it will likely lead to delay and frustration for customers. If it continues, you may lose your customers to competitors. And don’t forget that word-of-mouth advertising is still the most trusted form of review.

Chatbots are fantastic software. Through automation, a single chatbot can engage and interact with hundreds of customers. It is why using an easy-to-use chatbot builder such as Zebrabuzz, is recommended. 

 

Quick Response time

A distinguishing factor between a chatbot and live chat is that a single chatbot can provide hundreds of customers with real-time customer service solutions, creating satisfaction for your customers.

Live chat differs significantly. Many customers will have to be put on hold, for you to be attended to.

Chatbots eliminate delay and sluggish replies, which will endear you to your customers. According to recent studies, over 80% of customers demand an immediate response on social media.

 

 

Chatbots are easy to operate

As someone who has used a live chat before, I can tell you that it is characterized by complexity. It has two interfaces that represent chat windows for both admin and visitors, littered with data. For live chat to be optimally used, money and time have to be invested in training sessions on how to utilize it properly. 

But the chatbot is better. With an effective and simple-to-operate chatbot builder like Zebrabuzz, you don’t even have to know how to write codes.

For instance, there is a single interface through which your customers and your bot can communicate, and with the power of artificial intelligence, your chatbot will become smarter. You can also train your chatbot on that very platform.

 

 

Chatbots are always available

Another major difference between a chatbot and live chat is that the chatbot is always available, the reverse is the case for live chat. 

You will never find a human agent who works 24/7 on a live chat. It is simply impossible. Chatbots will remain online round-the-clock – every hour of the day, every day of the week, every week of the month and every month of the day. Your customers will be able to interact and communicate with your bot, in whichever continent of the world they are in. 

It is an open secret that businesses that cannot provide round-the-clock customer service and support, lose customers. 24/7 customer service is key to brand loyalty and customer retention. 

 

 

Final thoughts

You have to put on your thinking cap when trying to find out the best means of offering quality customer service to your customers. Quality customer service will enable you to beat your competition and win new customers while retaining the old.

A lot of people are still confused about which is better between the chatbot and live chat. Even if it may seem chatbots are power, self-sufficient and highly sophisticated, they do not exist to replace humans entirely (not yet). Chatbots have saved businesses time and money.

Your business needs a highly exceptional chatbot to provide optimal customer service, and this is why you need Zebrabuzz.