A Quick Guide to Pros & Cons of Chatbot Development

According to ComScore’s 2017 US Mobile App Report, users spend 90% of their mobile app time in their top 5 apps. Surprised? Well, more alarming is that nearly 50% of their time is spent on a single app, leaving 18% lesser time for the second and other three apps. This means that until and unless your app is the first or second most used application, there’s no way to get valuable users’ attention. But, is it so easy to become the first choice of the users? With Google, Facebook and Apple leading the market in terms of user engagement, this seems to be nearly impossible. What to do then? How to rise above these tech giants? Well, the answer to these questions is Chatbot.

Chatbot- The New Face of App Market

“The tech industry continues to undergo critical changes. The Websites replaced the desktop Operating system, mobile apps trumped over the websites and now, the Chatbots are all set to surpass mobile applications.”

Chatbots are becoming a hype in the tech industry! Also called Bots and Messaging bots, Chatbots are considered among the best ways to reach the customers and keep them hooked. As per our experts, chatbots with the help of messaging applications are providing newer opportunities to brands for user attraction and engagement. It is offering a promising future to the businesses, and in fact, is supposed to surpass mobile apps by the year 2020. So, what’s your plan now? Ready to invest in the technology used by popular companies like Hyatt, Spring and HealthTap? To make it easier to decide, here we are sharing the merits and demerits of Chatbot Development.

Benefits of Chatbot Development

• Reach a Wider Customer Base

As the messaging applications are gaining huge momentum over social networks and other applications, a Chatbot built into a chat platform like Facebook Messenger can help you to reach a wider customer base across the globe.

• Increased User engagement

Chatbots are usually text-driven, with images and unified gadgets. It enables the users to get all the information under the same roof, without going through the whole content. In short, the bots screen out the content users which to know and deliver to them in no time. With the help of Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning, the chatbots learns from the user’s behavior, previous interactions and offer customized services/products. Also, it keeps the vital details like name, address, credit details, etc. into its storage which implies the user need not to provide these information again and again. Apart from these, the Chatbots keep consulting the users like humans about their previous experience, which helps the customers get emotionally linked to the bot.

“According to Gartner’s report, 85% of user communications will be managed without human involvement by 2020.”

• Round the Clock’ Customer Service

Another reason why businesses are looking ahead to shaping the future with bots is its potential for ‘round the clock’ customer service. This empowers the customers to communicate regarding any product/service even in the midnight and get a response immediately.

• Faster & Customizable Facility

The websites take a few seconds or minutes to load, while the mobile apps consume your storage space. However, the chatbots loads instantaneously and do not ask for separate phone’s memory storage. Thus, they win the race as users prefer mobility solutions with faster loading time and lesser memory consumption.

Besides this, the bot provides a wider array of services- ranging from diagnosing your health to buying a gift to booking a flight ticket at the same platform. This is one of the prime reasons users love bots over the mobile apps.

• No More Stress of App Downloads

One of the challenges faced by the companies is getting their app downloaded. According to a report, though the number of app downloads is going to exceed 197 billion by this year, the rate of app downloads in the developed countries like the USA is declining to zero. In such a scenario, a Chatbot can be the ultimate solution for you! A Chatbot is integrated within the messaging apps, and need not be downloaded for usage. That means, your targeted audience can take the perks of your chatbot without compromising with their phone’s storage.

• Lower Development Cost

With Chatbot development, you can be available on all the mobile platforms and devices; you no more need to rely on platform-centric development resources. You need not spend weeks and months on developing an app or wait for approval from the app store. Also, building a chatbot is much faster and cheaper. According to our developers, a top-class Facebook bot can be built at about half the cost of a mobile application. Isn’t that amazing?

Limitations of Chatbot Development

• Immature

There’s no exaggeration to the fact that the Chatbot is the fastest flourishing technology in the field of app development. But still, it is not mature enough to give tough competition to humans and mobile applications. According to the top mobile app development companies, the bots gain knowledge by the interactions and might need a human assistant to handle the situation when something goes wrong.

The very best example of this is Microsoft’s chatbot Tay which turned from human-loving bot to a racist freak within 24 hours.

• Can Replace Promotional, Retail & Content-focused mobile apps only

Although there are millions of applications on the App Store, about 75% of revenue is driven by games. Various mobile app development agencies have integrated the gamification into the bots to attract the younger audience, but there’s still tough competition in the market. The applications like Prisma, Pokemon Go and MSQRD are still ranking on the top, proving that mobile apps are still in business.

Conclusion

Now, as you are familiar with the advantages and disadvantages of Chatbot development, take the right decision for your business. For any further query or get a bot for your business, contact us!

THE AUTHOR

Saurabh Singh

CEO & Director