New Year is right around the corner. As you prepare to move into the New Year, it’s time to think of new strategies to help your business achieve growth. Throughout 2020, as the pandemic wreaked havoc across the world, limiting human interactions, businesses transitioned to technologies that required zero or minimal human intervention. One such technology is AI-powered Chatbot technology, which made smooth customer service possible in pandemic and added value to many businesses by improving their customer service quality, both in terms of speed and scale.
With 2021 around the corner and companies witnessing a huge influx of customer service requests, chatbots’ role is poised to get even bigger and better. Let’s take a look at the infographic below to get some idea of how chatbots are expected to rise in the coming few years.
Source: Collect.chat
Looking at the above prediction by major publications, it won’t be wrong to say that chatbots will not just be a valuable addition to businesses. Still, they’ll be a necessity in the coming few years. While every sector is going to be benefitted from chatbot usage, five sectors, in particular, will be benefitted the most from AI-powered chatbots.
Healthcare Sector
As the global healthcare sector struggles to cater to the huge influx of patients during covid-19 crises, coupled with the need to limit human interaction to reduce the risk of virus infection, telemedicine’s adoption increased as one of the most effective telehealth strategies to overcome Covid-19 challenges. To get an idea, let’s take a look at the statistics issued by cdc.gov
Source: cdc.gov
The surge in the use of chatbots during the pandemic was due to their ability to carry logical conversations with remote patients, monitor and track their health conditions, and provide a medical diagnosis to self-care patients. Today’s chatbots are also capable of identifying critical care patients and can alert the hospital/doctor in case of medical emergencies.
In 2021, chatbots will have a much bigger role to play by helping the providers handle Covid-19 vaccination interactions and assisting doctors with patients’ health monitoring, prompt health analysis, and intelligent treatment recommendations.
Insurance Sector
Technology has revolutionized the insurance sector greatly. From customer browsing insurance policies online to consulting chatbots for their insurance-related queries, the industry has come a long way due to technological advancements. This analysis from Credence Research indicates that the chatbot market is expected to see exponential growth in the coming few years.
Source: Credence Research
The covid-19 crises catalyzed to increase in the use of AI technology in the insurance sector. Due to Covid-19 restrictions and safety concerns, insurance companies could not perform physical inspections for claims processing. In such times, chatbots for virtual appraisals enabled Photo-based Estimations that enabled faster and Safer Claims Processing without the need for physical damage assessment. As the pandemic made it difficult for the customers and the insurance companies, many businesses adopted technology at an enhanced pace.
In 2021, when contact-less service will still be required as a safety measure, chatbots will continue to add more value to the insurance industry by helping insurers process claims faster, assisting the customers as their insurance managers, and providing the sales team with valuable insights about their customer preferences for lead generation.
IT Sector
As remote working became a necessity, it’s success greatly depended on the IT team’s capabilities. They were responsible for ensuring adequate communication infrastructure and had to manage documents and productivity tools. Besides, the team also had to manage round-the-clock support for remote teams to smooth work across various industries. At that time, Chatbots played a vital role by providing 24×7 assistance in device malfunction.
IT helpdesk Chatbots delivered instant answers for technical and end-user queries like password resets and notifications. They also helped raise issue tickets for human intervention, whenever required. In 2021, the role of AI-powered conversational platforms is only going to grow further as Gartner predicts that “by 2022, 70% of white-collar workers will interact with conversational platforms on a daily basis.“
Travel Sector
Chatbots have enabled a step-change in customer service across various industries. The travel industry, which is hinged on customer satisfaction, requires providing prompt and round-the-clock service to the customers, including providing accurate answers to their questions and helping them with tasks like booking. After the pandemic, the travel industry has the additional task of managing booking modifications, cancellations, refunds, informing travelers about the impacted destinations, and providing them with Covid-19 updates. With automated self-service tools, the customers can enjoy the following benefits:
- Customers can complete travel-related processes in minutes.
- They can get answers to their queries in a few easy steps.
- Seamless delivery of travel packages, promotions, and vouchers on chat applications.
With this level of efficient and highly-responsive service, the use of chatbots in the travel industry will surely see a surge in 2021.
Banking and Finance
The global pandemic has provided an impetus to digital transformation and automation in the banking and finance sector. When it comes to maintaining a high customer service level while reducing physical human interactions, AI-powered chatbots offer game-changing opportunities for the banking and finance sectors. Chatbots have transformed the way banking and finance institutions engage with customers across all touchpoints. From providing customers with the balance on their account to providing reports on expenditures and tax calculation, chatbots of today are capable of handling a multitude of customer interactions.
In 2021 and years to come, new communication channels, enabled by voice-activated assistants, social messaging platforms, and AI Technology, will enable new and exciting possibilities for the banking and finance sector. According to CACI research, the consumer visit to physical banks will dip to just four visits annually by 2022, and the popularity of digital banking will be at an all-time high. At that time, chatbots’ role will become even more prominent.
Conclusion
Chatbots have come a long way since they were first developed in 1966. Today’s chatbots are smarter, designed to be more human-like, and employed in new and unforeseen ways to overcome this wily opponent, called the coronavirus. With a worldwide market size projected to be more than $1.3 billion by 2024 (Intellectyx, 2019), chatbots will continue to be revolutionary in 2021 and the years to come.