Gartner research believes that chatbot technology will be very popular in the immediate future and will cause a 70% reduction in calls, chat with human agents and email inquiries after implementing this software.
Gartner Executive Vice President, Gene Alvarez, said that more than half of organizations have already invested in chatbots to manage customer service because they are beginning to realize the advantages of automated service, as well as the advantage of being able to escalate a problem to a human agent in complex situations.
"As more customers engage in digital channels, VCAs are deployed to serve customer requests across websites, mobile apps, instant messaging apps, and social media," Alvarez said. "This is based on improvements in natural language processing, machine learning, and intent matching capabilities."
Investments in technology
Gartner also found that 84% of organizations expect to increase investments in customer experience (CX) technology in 2018, and by 2019, 20% of brands will abandon their mobile applications.
“Many brands are finding that mobile apps are not driving the level of customer adoption and engagement they hoped for”says the research Gartner. "Original ROI calculations are not being met due to the cost of support, maintenance, updates, customer service, and marketing to drive downloads."
Artificial intelligence
By 2020, 30% of all B2B companies will employ artificial intelligence (AI) to augment at least one of their core sales processes.
Artificial intelligence applied to sales enables greater efficiency in business processes, often with up to 30% higher conversion rates when it comes to leads, according to Gartner.
AI is becoming an attractive alternative for sales companies with large processing volumes, opportunities, and forecasting processes because it provides fast and accurate support in performing different stages of sales.
By 2021, more than 50% of companies will spend more on bot and chatbot creation than on traditional mobile app development.
"Many brands find that mobile apps don't deliver the level of customer acceptance and engagement they'd hoped for", according to the research of Gartner.
Instead, brands are now investing to have a presence in messaging apps for potential consumers, like Facebook Messenger, Telegram and WeChat, through bots, to reach where customers spend the most time, according to the report.
Gartner added that by 2022, two-thirds of all front-end projects will use IT, up from 50% in 2017.
Source: Gartner
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