Future of artificial intelligence in CRM rests with the bots Posted on : Jan 05 - 2018

Chatbots may seem basic or rudimentary now, but just wait: AI advancements will take virtual agents to new levels of competency to engage customers.

The race is on for software vendors to improve user experiences with chatbots -- a new wave of computer programs that conduct conversations through auditory or text methods.

Chatbot development is one frontier confronting artificial intelligence in CRM, as is better lead scoring and automated data entry into CRM records from outside sources, such as email and other back-office systems. Vendors are rushing to improve chatbots before customers tire of their still somewhat unreliable self-service experiences and rudimentary functioning.

But even if the companies can't keep up, artificial intelligence technology will. A company's customers will adapt and learn to depend on interactions with chatbots, and their creators will eventually catch up and smooth out the kinks by augmenting automated conversation with human interactions at key moments.

Bots are making email CRM obsolete

Ready or not, major brands are slowly killing the customer service email channel and replacing it with real-time communication with chatbots. Globally, 31% of firms surveyed by Forrester Research were using chatbots in 2016 or planned to in 2017, and even more will use them in 2018. Companies are relying less on email in most verticals and opting for this real-time, two-way conversation to engage customers, which should lower costs and expedite resolutions. This kind of AI allows agents to glean insights quicker to optimize self-service.

Chatbots have been on the scene for more than 50 years -- the very first, named Eliza, was developed at MIT in the mid-1960s. It became famous for imitating the psychoanalysis process and had some convinced "she" was actually intelligent. A wave of virtual agent vendors followed suit about a decade ago, and in the past five years, hundreds of chatbot providers and dozens of chatbot development frameworks joined in.

"In the time it took me to say this sentence, four chatbot startups were probably founded," Forrester principal analyst Ian Jacobs said. View More