If you’ve been sticking to our reads, you should have known by now – lately, it has all been about Chatbots and Conversational AI! And this too is one such read – chatbots vs conversational AI chatbots!
The chatbot adoption rate is super high and statistics say that almost 80% of businesses will be using some form of chatbot by 2022. While that’s crystal clear, here’s the next part – businesses often end up asking the question, “Which one should I go for, Chatbots or Conversational AI chatbots?”
So, we thought why not come up with a read that clearly tells the differences between chatbots and conversational AI bots to make the decision process easy for businesses (and you)!
But before that, we’ll take a look at what a chatbot and conversational AI chatbot is real quick!
What Is a Chatbot?
A chatbot is a special software that is designed to communicate with humans on websites or mobile applications.
Chatbots are mostly used for customer support, lead generation, appointment scheduling and more with customer service as the top application. Chatbots are known for accuracy and their ability to solve problems on point. With the help of FAQs and related articles, chatbots can give resolutions to customer queries instantly.
However, chatbots have their limitations – they çan only serve a specific purpose and conversations are based on predefined templates, eliminating the human conversation feel. Also, chatbots are only as intelligent as they are programmed – they have no understanding or learning capabilities.
What Is a Conversational AI Chatbot?
Let’s just say conversational AI chatbots are the upgraded version of chatbots. Like the name says, Conversational AI chatbots use artificial intelligence technology to deliver personalized human-like interactions.
Conversational AI bots are used for customer support and a number of other reasons – this includes automating sales, lead generation, collecting customer feedback, routing tickets to agents more. In fact, conversational AI technology bots have the ability to learn from customer queries and they become better over a period of time!
Simply said conversational AI chatbots can do everything a chatbot does but only in a more advanced and efficient way!
To know more about chatbots and conversational AI chatbots, check out this read.
👉 Conversational AI Chatbots – The What, Why and Everything Else
Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s take a look at the differences between them!
5 Key Differences Between Chatbots and Conversational AI Chatbots
1. Chatbots vs Conversational AI Chatbots – How Do They Work?
Chatbots
Like we saw above, chatbots are rule-based softwares that work based on how they are programmed. They are usually given a set of predefined responses for set workflows and when a customer asks a question, the chatbot gives appropriate responses.
Here’s an example of how a chatbot works to help you understand better:
The chatbot is programmed to do a set of actions and it only does that. If a user comes with an out-of-the-box question, that’s when a chatbot fails!
Conversational AI Chatbots
On the other hand, conversational AI chatbots can understand the context & sentiment of the user’s query and then reply accordingly. Backed with Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML), conversational AI chatbots simulate human-like conversations and offer more appropriate responses to queries.
The fact that conversational bots come with NLP and ML capabilities, makes it possible for AI chatbots to constantly learn from the queries they get. This helps them answer queries they haven’t been trained for in the first place. Over a period of time, you don’t have to monitor conversational AI chatbots because they’ll be pretty familiar with all possible scenarios.
2. Decision-Making Abilities
Chatbots
Chatbots, as you already know, are rule-based softwares that work like an instant FAQ tool. This means, chatbots do not have any decision-making abilities and work as they are instructed.
During a crisis scenario, if the chatbot is asked questions out of its knowledge, it can auto-route tickets to a support agent. This is possible if the chatbot is programmed to do so. If not, well, it can turn awkward!
Conversational AI Chatbots
But when it comes to conversational AI chatbots, it’s totally the other way around! Since conversational AI bots have Machine Learning (ML) and phrase detection technology, they understand what the customer is asking, even though they are not trained to address those queries.
Based on its previous interactions with customers, conversational AI bots make decisions as to what’s best for the customer and give replies/recommendations accordingly.
3. Scalability & Learning Capabilities
Chatbots
Chatbots work based on keywords and if/then statements. This doesn’t mean chatbots cannot be scaled. They can be programmed to resolve similar scenarios but there is only limited room for improvement. Also, chatbots do not have any learning capabilities – it just does what you have programmed it to do! Nothing more, nothing less!
Conversational AI Chatbots
Unlike chatbots, conversational AI chatbots have unlimited room for improvement. The more you train your chatbot to meet different scenarios, the better they become in solving queries and offering support.
Conversational AI bots can also understand and learn from the continuous queries they get, making them more knowledgeable and smart.
4. Chatbots vs Conversational AI Chatbots – Deployment Time
Chatbots
This is where chatbots get an upper hand! Since chatbots hugely depend on canned responses and workflow for options, deploying a chatbot for your website isn’t going to take much time. All you have to do is, come up with the rules, a couple of canned responses and your chatbot is all set to go live!
You can expect to create and deploy a chatbot for your website in less than a week.
Conversational AI Chatbots
When it comes to conversational AI bots, getting started is quite the task! But later, you don’t have to worry about how it progresses. Since AI chatbots solely depend on the training you provide them, you have to initially train them to a great extent. Come up with all possible scenarios your customers would come up with and train your AI bot using the same. Once you’ve come up with enough scenarios, you can deploy the chatbot on your website.
You can create and deploy an AI chatbot for your website anywhere between 2-3 weeks.
Note: Chatbot creation and deployment also highly depend on the platform you choose to go with. Make sure you choose a chatbot/AI chatbot platform that’s easy to use & understand, has good customer support and onboarding sessions. You know where we are going with this😉!
5. Omnichannel Capabilities
Chatbots
Chatbots are text-based and work with the help of predetermined conversational flow. This means you can only use them for answering text-based questions and can deploy it on your website or static pages.
Conversational AI Chatbots
But on the other hand, with conversational AI as the base, you can create and deploy web-based chatbots, voice assistants, smart speakers and more. That’s how Alexa and Siri work! This is something you cannot do with text-based chatbots.
Which One Should You Choose – Chatbot or Conversational AI Chatbot?
If you ask us which one of the two is best, we’d go 100% all in for conversational AI Chatbots! But that doesn’t mean chatbots are bad! It totally depends on what purpose you need a chatbot for in the first place!
Chatbots do what they are programmed to do like a PRO. And conversational AI chatbots can do more than what they are programmed to do!
If you’re running a small business and you often get the same kind of queries, you can deploy a chatbot to take care of this. Also, if you’re worried about lead generation, a chatbot can do that for you – come up with a couple of flow-based questions and you’ll easily be able to recognize qualified leads!
But if you’re running a large business and you receive a lot of out-of-the-box questions and need a more personalized human-like approach to represent your brand, conversational AI chatbots are the way to go. AI chatbots can pretty much handle any situation that’s put up to them, thanks to NLP!
A lot of businesses have started investing in conversational AI bots because conversational AI is the future. But before you make a decision, consider your budget, your business needs and how much tech knowledge you have! At the end of the day, what matters most is the purpose of you choosing a bot being met – doesn’t matter whether it’s with a chatbot or a conversational AI chatbot!
So, that’s everything you need to know about chatbots vs conversational AI chatbots from our side.
Since you’re so much into this, here are a few chatbots related articles you might be interested in!
👉 10 Best AI Chatbots You Should Be Using In 2022
👉 9 Common Chatbot Mistakes That Are Making You Lose Customers
👉 50 Chatbot Statistics You Should Be Knowing for 2022
Feel free to reach out to us in the comments section if you have any questions regarding chatbots and conversational AI chatbots.