2019 Chatbot Statistics – All The Data You Need

chabot trends & stats 2019

With the business world facing the fiercest kind of competition, customers now have a lot of options to make a choice. For many competing businesses, this means little to no differences in the revenue margins between them.

Because the customers’ buying decision is mostly tied to the experience they receive, it is crucial that growth-oriented businesses put into consideration developing a plan towards understanding the expectations of customers as well as their needs which are on a continuous increase.

The transaction journey of every customer or potential buyer, from the point where they initiate interaction by way of enquires to the point where they make a purchase or exit that route, has to be given adequate attention and handled exquisitely.

However, with the current expansion in the buying populace, especially online, businesses can no longer provide such dedicated experience relying on human effort alone; artificial intelligence and automation have become necessary to stay afloat and keep winning in the business scene.

Undeniably, one force to reckon with presently, in the artificial intelligence and automation space is the chatbot. The popularity of chatbots is on a steady rise as a lot of people use them daily without even realizing it, and they are becoming more accepted as a vital component of customer service strategy, and a potent marketing tool for communicating with the customer.

What is a Chatbot?

A Chatbot is a program that is designed to automate specific tasks by interacting with a user through a chat interface. They function as conversational interfaces or automated chats and virtual assistants. 

Chatbots help in building business brands; they do this by providing excellent customer services to users. They communicate intelligibly with humans online; and field their questions, simulate conversations between people, capture data on website visitors and convert them as well as personalizing messages to improve the way customers interact with businesses.

Effects of Chatbots on Business

The impact chatbots can have on your business is massive. They breathe life into your website by initiating the engagement process with your online audience; making their experience interactive and most fundamentally, they enable you to capture data on your site visitors and convert them. The benefits they can offer towards your business growth are several.

Some of them include:

They Reduce Operational Costs:  Annually, billions of Customer Requests are reported, and businesses spend trillions of dollars to service these requests. The use of Chatbots can help your business to save up to 30% of the cost expended in customer requests servicing.

Chatbots Provide Support to your Team: Rather than replace humans, entirely, Chatbots will empower you and save your time by becoming the first-level support that filters a customer request before it gets to you.

Chatbots Boost your Brand Perception: The visual interaction chatbots offer creates a friendly experience and helps your brand to build a healthy rapport with its customer base across the globe.

They are a Better Alternative than Apps: Chatbots are typically more productive than apps as they outperform apps in every aspect of functionality. And what’s more? They are more cost-effective compared to apps.

The Millennials are in Love with Chatbots: Given the instantaneity of communication and ease of use provided by chatbots, the Millenial audience has developed a soft spot and acceptance for chatbots, compared to the conventional legacy tools.

Current State of the Chatbots

A look at market figures shows that the popularity of chatbots is on an exponential increase. A recent Grand View Research report opines that the Chatbot market is expected to reach roughly $1.2 billion on a global scale, in less than ten years. More so, experts predict that the market will grow at an intensified annual growth rate above 24%.

It is 2019, and the good news is that chatbots are not dying out anytime soon; users are getting more interested and are eager to know more about the automated bots.

Chatbots have taken over traditional conversational service owing to the continuous advancements in machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), generally. They are now more AI-driven. Hence they have become capable of handling complex human interaction with so much ease.

Chatbots are efficient in work areas such as payments and data processing, and marketing. Also, in terms of revenue generation, Chatbot services have a large part of the market share. 

The Grand View Research shows that around 45% of end-users prefer chatbots as the primary mode of communication for fielding their questions and accessing customer service.

Below are some predictions and statistics from various research reports on chatbot users:


• 27% of consumers worldwide are very interested in artificial intelligence-based tools (HubSpot, 2017)
.• 57% of UK consumers know what a chatbot is (Ubisend, 2017).
• 48% of consumers would instead connect with a company via live chat than any other means of contact (HubSpot, 2017).
• 63% of people would consider messaging an online chatbot to communicate with a business or brand (Mindshare, 2016).
• 27% of consumers predict they would buy an essential item through a chatbot (Drift, 2018).
• 57% of consumers are interested in chatbots for their instantaneity (HubSpot, 2017).
• 35% of consumers want to see more companies using chatbots (Ubisend, 2017).
• 15% of US consumers believe nothing could stop them from using a chatbot (Convince and convert, 2018).
• 40% of consumers do not care whether a chatbot or a real human helps them, as long as they are getting the help they need (HubSpot, 2017).
• 16% of US adults own a smart speaker like Amazon Alexa (Edison, 2018)
• 21% of consumers believe chatbots as the easiest way to contact a business (Ubisend, 2017).
• 55% of consumers are interested in interacting with a company using messaging apps to solve a problem (HubSpot, 2017).
• When communicating with companies, people prefer to use chatbots rather than an app (Outgrow, 2018).
• In regards to e-commerce, 34% of respondents said they would prefer to answer questions from AI via chatbots or virtual assistants (Chatbots Magazine, 2018).
• 15% of consumers have communicated with a business via a chatbot in the last 12 months (Drift, 2018).
• 95% of consumers believe ‘customer service’ is going to be the primary beneficiary of chatbots (Mindbrowser, 2017).
• 48% of consumers prefer a chatbot that solves issues over a chatbot that has personality (Business Insider, 2017).
• 30% of consumers worry that a chatbot would make a mistake, such as purchasing the wrong item or making the wrong reservation (The State of ChatbotsReport, 2018).
• 75% of users expect to receive an instant response from chatbots (The State of Chatbots Report, 2018).
• 43% of customers prefer to deal with a real-life assistant than a chatbot (The State of ChatbotsReport, 2018).
• 47% of adult internet users in the US felt that chatbots had too many unhelpful responses (Statista, 2018).
• 34% of respondents say they would use a chatbot to find a human customer service agent (Convince and Convert, 2018).
• 46% of respondents believe that chatbots are explicitly used to keep them away from living agents (GetVoip, 2019).

 

Countries Embracing Chatbots    

Based on data collected by insider Reports’ Collect.chat, from August 2017 to January 2019, the five top countries where businesses engage customers through the chatbot interfaces on their websites are as thus:
• The United States of America tops the list with 36% engagement of the chatbot technology.
• India, the country with the highest number of internet users, made it to the second position of the list with 11%.
• Because these chatbots can be translated into any language, Germany got third place on the list with 4%; and 
• Closely followed by the United Kingdom with 3% application.
• And lastly, Brazil made it to the fifth position on the list with 2%.

Other countries that also made it to the list, with similar share, but scored below the top five are; Spain, France, Canada, Italy, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Industries Profiting from Chatbots

Every business thrives on the number of good leads it can generate as if you have no leads, then you have no one to sell to – it is that simple. Presently, chatbots are performing excellently, especially in the aspect of lead generation for businesses.

• Data presented by Collect.chatshow that the Real Estate industry, lead generation is in an all-time high demand, tops the list of sectors profiting from chatbots with 28%.
• The Travel industry got the second slot on the list with 16%. No doubt, this is one industry that finds chatbots useful in the areas of fast-tracking the process of responding to and sorting through travel bookings. More so, the around-the-clock presence of chatbots on their websites is an assurance that every lead coming in is given attention.
• The Education industry closely follows in the third position with 14%. This industry is where the chatbots engagements were widely applied by students through online courses and parents as well, who were looking to get their children enrolled in various institutions of learning.
• The Healthcare industry made the fourth position with 10%. Here, the application of the automated bots helped clinics and health professionals to sufficiently manage their bookings using conversational interfaces.
• Last of the list is the Finance industry with 5% engagement of chatbots. It is common knowledge that financial institutions are now adopting chatbots to manage their pre-assessment and consultation processes with potential clients.

Undoubtedly, in a few years to come, more businesses and companies are going to embrace and adopt automated bots technology. With so many institutions already aware of chatbots and their potential, they are beginning to see the need to integrate this powerful tool into their business processes as a means to improve their operations and stay ahead of the competition.

Listed below are some statistics about chatbots in business:

• 58% of companies that use chatbots are B2B tech (Ubisend, 2019).
• 42% of companies using chatbots are B2C (Relay, 2018).
• 35% of consumers want to see more companies using chatbots (Opus Research, 2018).
• Chatbots can save up to 30% in customer support costs (Invesp, 2017).
• 67% of businesses believe that chatbots will outrun mobile apps within the next five years (Medium, 2019). 
• Over 50% of customers expect a business to be open 24/7 (Oracle, 2016).
• Only 0.5% of all B2B companies are using chatbots as of 2018 (NerdyData, 2018).
• The average time it takes a company to respond to a message is 10 hours on messaging platforms (Oracle, 2016).
• 41% of people that start online chats with businesses are executives (The State of Chatbots Report, 2018).
• 53% of customers are more likely to shop with businesses that they can message (Outgrow, 2018).
• 67% of US millennials said they are likely to purchase products and services from brands using a chatbot(Chatbots Magazine, 2018).
• 43% of digital banking users in the U.S. prefer to use a live chat or chatbot to address issues (eMarketer, 2018).

What Does the Future Hold for Chatbots?

There are several predictions, spanning into the next five years, about how chatbots will transform the world. The following are predictions and forecasts made by significant publications and analysts of the technology industry who foresee the rise of chatbots in the coming years:
• By 2020, customers will manage 85% of their interactions with businesses without interacting with a human agent (Gartner Report).  
• 80% of businesses are expected to have some sort of chatbot automation by 2020 (Outgrow, 2018).
• By 2021, more than 50% of enterprises will spend more annually on chatbots creation than traditional mobile app development (Gartner Report).
• By 2022, cost savings from the use of chatbot conversations would rise to over $8 billion yearly from $20 million this year (Juniper Reports).
• By 2023, 2.5 billion hours will be saved by both businesses and consumers through the use of chatbots(Juniper Research).
• By 2024, the overall market size for chatbots worldwide would be over $1.3 billion (Global Market Insights). 

In the present technology world, chatbots have become approved and accepted by many. Businesses, whether large or small now adopt chatbots to provide assistance to their customers. Apparently, chatbots have found their rightful place as people have moved from being skeptical of Artificial Intelligence and Automation to now rapidly embracing chatbots as the game-changer in marketing and business processes.

As for what the future truly holds for chatbots, we will have to watch and see how the predictions and forecasts already made unfold.

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