Are you planning to build a chatbot for your organization or just here to learn about chatbots? Then you have reached the right place. This article has a list of chatbot examples and use cases that several companies have adopted

What is a chatbot?

Simply put, it’s that little chat box that opens up at the bottom right of most websites these days. They usually sport a human face or icon.

Now here’s the technical definition: A chatbot is software that can converse (or chat) by text or text-to-speech, usually with the user of a website, mobile app, or a bunch of other applications.

Contrary to popular belief, Chatbots are not new. The first chatbot, ELIZA, was first designed at MIT in 1966! The software has been around for decades, but it’s only in the last few years that it has been adopted by companies to engage both internal and external stakeholders.

The good thing about chatbots is that a few of them understand natural language, which makes them the perfect tool to engage a broad range of audiences. In today’s technological landscape, a chatbot is considered one of the most advanced and promising expressions of interaction between humans and machines.

Types of Chatbots

What are the different types of chatbots, and how does each one work? This section lists some of the more common types of bots. Many of these bots also allow a human to take over after a conversation reaches a particular stage. They may also involve a combination of the various types of bots.

Type 1: Scripted/Quick Reply Bots

These are the simplest chatbots, and they are also called Rule-based Chatbots. The chatbot asks questions and provides a predefined set of options for the user to choose from. The user then selects the appropriate option. The bot analyzes this and gives a reply.

Such bots have a longer user journey and are slower to guide the customer to their goal. They can also respond only to specific instructions. They make sense when you want to limit the user’s responses to a few limited options. These would be the cheapest chatbots to roll out, and there are several off-the-shelf chatbots available that you could roll out for your organization. Such chatbots are used in scenarios such as website engagement and even support.

Type 2: AI or NLP-powered Chatbots

These are AI-powered chatbots and are considered one of AI’s most prominent applications. These chatbots use  Natural Language Processing (NLP), Machine Learning (ML) and AI to understand a user’s instruction. NLP helps the bot to understand the user’s text/voice responses and intent. They then use language parsing techniques to serve a reply. AI chatbots have a predefined flow to solve the user’s problem.

Conversational AI, in particular, has seen a lot of interest in recent years. Such chatbots are also called voice bots. They can conduct smart conversations with speed and efficiency, which goes a long way towards enhancing the user experience.

Some of these chatbots can be integrated with transactional systems to give an appropriate response to users. iAssistant is an in-house chatbot we built at Ideas2IT to automate several highly regular functions like attendance, recording time logs, and answering a ton of HR-related questions.

Type 3: Service/Action Chatbots

Service/Action chatbots require relevant information from users to initiate action. The appropriate words are identified from the user’s inputs by the chatbot, and this is why these bots are also called ‘Intellectually Independent Chatbots.’ These chatbots are typically used in industries that rely on a prepaid reservation or ticketing function to sell their services, like travel, hospitality, and movie halls.

Type 4: Social Messaging Chatbots

Social Messaging Chatbots, as the name suggests, are found in social messaging applications like Facebook, Whatsapp, Telegram, Slack, etc. These bots are extensively programmed and ‘trained’ to stimulate near-human conversations with users.

Type 5: Context Enabled Chatbots

Have you ever wondered how smart speakers like Alexa and apps like Google Assistant and Siri seem to know you so well? That is because they leverage Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to remember conversations and learn from them. This ability to learn makes these chatbots good at answering questions based on a specific context.

Type 6: Voice-Enabled Chatbots

This is another category of chatbots that features the same examples as in Type 5. They are voice-activated. Once trained by the user, they can carry out a rather large number of tasks and provide a delightful ‘hands-free’ experience to the user. Siri and Google Assistant are the most prominent chatbots examples of voice-enabled chatbots.

So why use a Chatbot? What are the advantages?

With the rise of emerging technologies like AI and wearable technology, chatbots are opening up new avenues for businesses to engage with their audiences. Let’s take a look at the top 7 benefits of chatbots, and have a better understanding of how they can contribute to your business.

Chatbots could help you leverage Messaging Platforms

Messaging platforms are very close competitors to social media platforms when it comes to the number of users. According to Statista, in 2019, 2.52 billion mobile phone users used messaging apps, while an estimated 2.95 billion people used social media worldwide in the same year. While social media is useful for engaging audiences, messaging platforms allow businesses to have one-on-one conversations with their customers. So integrating your chatbot with a platform that your customers use daily could be better than building a new app by saving money and time.

Awesome Customer Service

According to Raymond Joabar, Vice President at American Express, “Seven in 10 U.S. consumers say they’ve spent more money to do business with a company that delivers great service.” And chatbots could be a great way to boost customer service. Chatbots are active 24x7x365 (unless you have forgotten to renew your chatbot’s annual subscription ), proactively initiate the conversation, and also do not make customers wait.

Better Customer Engagement

While social media is an excellent tool to engage audiences, chatbots help you have more in-depth conversations at an individual level with your users. This could play a huge role in also establishing your brand personality (corporate, confident, reassuring, quirky, take your pick!).

Most customer service interfaces provide all the information in one go, more than the customer can comprehend. But chatbots serve one information point at a time, so customers are not loaded with irrelevant information. So a well-designed chatbot will conduct more extended conversations and keep your users longer on your site.

Obtaining Customer Feedback

Chatbots are great at asking customers for feedback on specific issues. Chatbots can gather feedback from customers, from a pre-selected list of items, and drill down further.

Optimized Lead-Gen

To state a very B2B-specific example, let’s say you have a page that seems to be drawing a lot of traffic, but is weak on lead generation. A specifically-designed chatbot could ask a few pointed questions to visitors and help convert more leads.

With chatbots, companies can now also track the users’ responses and direct them to an alternative product or service, while at the same time notifying sales reps to engage the customer. Chatbots could ensure customers’ UX flow is in the right direction to get higher conversion rates.

Go Global without 24x7x265 Teams

With chatbots on your side, you can expand your business to other geographies without worrying about time zones and increased income requests. What’s more…you want your chatbot to speak different languages like Japanese or Vietnamese? That could be done!

Optimized Costs

Cost savings is probably the biggest reason why most companies should consider getting a chatbot. Chatbots are far cheaper and faster than hiring employees or creating a cross-function app. Chatbots do not get tired, need breaks, and make errors. They also do not complain about handling repetitive tasks.

Limitations of a Chatbot

• Chatbots cannot decipher the context from the input of a human, so customers often tend to ignore them once they realize they are interacting with a bot.
• Chatbots are unable to display emotions, while human customer service executives are better able to relate to a customer’s needs, act upon it, and retain them.
• Chatbots give the same answers to multiple queries. For example, if the customer asks a question, the chatbot is not programmed to answer; it will keep apologizing in the same irritating manner.
• Unless programmed to learn from the customer, chatbots have zero memory and zero research skills. They cannot remember a customer’s preferences or choices without being programmed to do so.
• As an enterprise evolves, the skills of chatbots must change with it. For this reason, it is essential to be able to extend the bot with more skills and capabilities easily. It is only possible to achieve this if you select the right enterprise AI chatbot platform, which includes visual tools to add new bot skills without any coding.
• Programming and training sophisticated chatbots can be expensive at times. And there’s also the added cost of maintaining and upgrading them.
• Chatbots could collect a lot of personal information. And, sometimes customers may inadvertently hand over sensitive information such as credit card numbers or social security numbers to a chatbot. These could be exposed to staff, and confidential information will need to be securely handled through the entire journey from transmission to storage.
• Chatbots should strictly operate within their permissible limits. For example, when a customer asks, “I have a cardiac condition. What is the best health insurance plan for me?”, the chatbot should not provide a specific answer to the above question. Instead, it should guide the employee to a link that helps her/him choose plans.
• Every interaction with the chatbot should be recorded for future data retrieval purposes, mainly when used in enterprises. These backups help when determining trends, examining an issue raised by a chatbot user and auditing.

List of 50 Amazing Chatbot Use Cases & Chatbot Examples (Industry or Sector-Wise)

Chatbots have revolutionized customer interactions and streamlined operations across various industries. Here, we’ll delve into some of the best chatbot use cases and provide real-world examples of how these intelligent virtual assistants are making a difference.

Best Banking Chatbot Examples and Use Cases

Conversational AI is a technology that allows customers to perform specific tasks with just voice commands. Imagine being able to tell your smart speaker, “Hey Alexa…transfer 57 dollars to Bebinca’s account!” or “Hey Alexa…pay my Power Bill!” knowing fully well the task will be done. That’s what Conversational AI does, and it has found traction in the banking industry. Numerous banks are leveraging Conversational AI to build voice-enabled apps to create differentiation in a highly regulatory-driven and parity-driven industry. Here are the best chatbot use cases in the banking industry.

• Personal banking services
• Customer support
• Customer feedback & measurements
• Delivering personalized marketing messages
• Employee self-service

AND here’s a list of top-ranked noteworthy chatbot examples from the Banking industry.

Erica, by Bank of America

Erica is an AI-driven virtual financial assistant. The chatbot sends notifications to customers, provides balance information and credit report updates, facilitates bill payments, recommends money-saving tips, and even helps customers with simple transactions. Erica’s capabilities have recently been expanded to help clients make smarter financial decisions by providing them with personalized and proactive insights.

Amex bot, by American Express

American Express deployed the ‘Amex bot’ on the very highly-used Facebook Messenger. When Amex customers link their cards with their Messenger accounts, they begin receiving messages and push notifications in Messenger. Apart from responding to customers’ support queries, the Amex bot is also programmed to provide contextual recommendations based on the user’s purchases, real-time sale notifications, information regarding product benefits, and loyalty program features.

EVA (Electronic Virtual Assistant), by HDFC Bank

At the time of its launch, EVA was India’s first and largest AI-powered banking chatbot. Eva bot uses the latest in AI and NLP to understand the user query and fetch relevant information from thousands of possible sources in milliseconds. The chatbot has been deployed on Google Assistant and Alexa. EVA has answered over 5 million queries with over 85% accuracy, holding over 20,000 conversations daily with customers across the globe.

Amy, by HSBC Bank

Amy is a customer servicing Virtual Chat Assistant (VCA) deployed by the corporate banking division of HSBC Bank. Amy bot provides real-time responses to customer support queries in English and Chinese! It gradually learns to respond to more complex and broader questions over time. In the event that Amy is unable to respond to a query, it connects the customer with an actual human customer support executive.

Ceba, by Commonwealth Bank Australia

Ceba can help Commonwealth Bank’s customers with over 200 regular banking tasks such as activating their card, checking account balances, making payments, or getting cardless cash. Ceba is also programmed to detect large-scale customer trends.

Best Insurance Chatbot Examples and Use Cases

Insurance is a highly regulated industry. It is filled with jargon that could confuse and scare away most consumers. While chatbots could be leveraged for a multitude of insurance processes, we found these seven use cases brought the highest value to the customer and also the highest Return of Investment (RoI).

• Product recommendations
• Lead Generation
• Quote/Illustration
• FAQ & Common inquiries
• Policy Renewal
• Document Submissions
• Claims FNOL

And here’s a list of top-ranked well-performing chatbot examples in the Insurance industry.

Flo by Progressive

The Flo Chatbot is a Facebook Messenger app created by Progressive. It helps customers file claims, move payment dates, and get auto insurance quotes. Flo uses simple language but adds in wit where appropriate, which may engage customers and tie into Progressive’s marketing.

ABIE (Allstate Business Insurance Expert) by Allstate Business Insurance

ABIE uses NLP to answer simple questions like “what is a deductible?” and “how does the insurance claims process work?”, thereby helping the company deepen ties with small business owners. The ABIE chatbot’s ML model was trained on thousands of questions from insurance agents involving anything from policy pricing to claims.

Kate by GEICO

GEICO’s customers can pose insurance questions in either text or voice. The Kate chatbot provides an answer to the user’s question, but can also bring the user to the appropriate section of the GEICO mobile app.

Next Insurance Chatbot

In June 2020, Next Insurance staff announced the launch of the world’s first full insurance sign up via Facebook Messenger. All their potential customers need to do is message their chatbot, and within minutes they will be signed up for an insurance policy. And yes…we checked, Next Insurance’s bot really does not have a name!

Liberty Mutual Insurance Chatbots

In 2016, Liberty Mutual Insurance announced the first Amazon Alexa skill focused on insurance. The skill granted users instant, voice-controlled access to a quote from Liberty Mutual, with other automated services that guided users in the insurance selection process.

Going a step further, in Oct 2019, the company announced the addition of an enterprise-grade Natural Language chatbot to its Digital Employee Experience Platform (DEXP). The new chatbot functions as a centralized workplace, capable of handling inquiries from across the enterprise (HR, IT, Finance, Facilities, etc.). It provides employees with a more personalized and contextual experience for answering questions, finding information, and performing tasks. It also eliminates the complexity of deploying a chatbot because it features a no-code training interface.

Best Human Resource Chatbot Examples and Use Cases

Much of HR time is invested in managing routine processes and activities that chatbots could handle instead. Using chatbots allows HR staff to focus on higher priority initiatives and pressing issues. Teams have limited time left over to offer employees the individual attention they need when handling sensitive personal issues.

Human resources (HR) is one area ripe for intelligent automation with chatbots in an enterprise. To enhance labor efficiencies, optimize, and deliver better employee experiences, several large corporations are leveraging chatbots that are powered by AI, ML and NLP. HR Chatbots are primarily used in the below use case scenarios.

• Recruitment
• On-boarding
• FAQ’s on company policies
• Employee training
• Other common questions
• Benefits enrollment
• Annual self-assessment/reviews

AND here’s a list of top-ranked reliable chatbot products in the Human Resources industry. Most of these are SaaS chatbots can be adopted by any organization.

XOR

XOR’s chatbot can automate many complex recruiting and HR workflows through various modes of communication, including SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook, web, email, etc. Their chatbot supports candidates screening, interview scheduling, employee onboarding, HR FAQ’s, and many other use cases.

Olivia

Olivia/Paradox has one of the most robust Recruiting Chatbots in the market. Engineered by a company with its DNA in HRTech, they have built everything from job boards in the 1990s to recruitment marketing software in the 2000s, and now chatbots.

Mya

Mya boasts a 93% screen completion rates, 79% time-to-interview reduction, 2.5x increase in funnel conversion, and 144% recruiter productivity gains. The creators of Mya claim it engages both active and passive candidates with dynamic conversations managed by recruiting AI.

Brazen

Brazen claims its bot is designed to convert more career site traffic into applications in your ATS by answering candidates’ most pressing questions or navigating them through the application. They’ve found their bot engages 40% more career site visitors than just asking candidates to apply, and that candidates who’ve engaged with the bot are 100-200% more likely to be hired. They also seem to have the only chatbot that allows video!

Espressive

Espressive’s solution is specifically designed to help employees get answers to their most common questions (PTO, benefits, etc.), without burdening the HR team. Employees can access Espressive’s AI-based virtual support agent (VSA) Barista on any device or browser. Barista also has a unique omnichannel ability enabling employees to interact via Slack, Teams, and more.

Best Retail & E-Commerce Chatbot Examples and Use Cases

Be it Retail or e-Commerce, today’s customers (this includes the millennials, Generation Z, and the soon to arrive Generation Alpha) demand quick responses. With a plethora of e-commerce platforms to choose from, what differentiates one from another is the user experience and convenience of buying. In such an environment, the idea of a chatbot-guided purchase experience has enormous potential.

Also, chatbots eliminate the need for customers to visit a particular e-Commerce site. Chatbots could allow customers to shop at their favorite store through a messaging platform like WhatsApp and Facebook. For example, Alexa helps customers make purchases from Amazon.

• Helping customers find the right products
• Provide factual data that helps in making purchasing decisions
• Advertise new and personalized offers
• Following-up with customers when they abandon carts
• Communicating shipping information
• Customer service
• Upsell products and services
• Take costumes’ opinions through polls, quizzes, etc.
• Handle transactions

AND here’s a list of top-ranked high-performing chatbot examples from the Retail and e-Commerce segment.

H&M

In 2016, H&M kickstarted a trend with the launch of its chatbot on Kik, a messenger app. A significant number of customers liked the recommendations and user experience. The experience enabled customers to choose from suggestions, filters, and style preferences. They could share product pages and favorite items with their contacts on the Kik app.

Taco Bell

Similarly, fast-food giant Taco Bell integrated TacoBot, their chatbot, with the messaging app Slack, which allowed customers to use the app to request food items, prices, ingredients, and pay. This integration led to the brand’s expansion and also used a good dose of humor to enhance their brand image.

Macy’s

Macy’s optimized chatbots for mobile and web help primarily to locate items and provide customer service, which includes answering queries and assisting customers in finding the product they’re looking for.

Macy also has ‘StoreHelp,’ a simple chatbot that has been designed to help customers locate the items in their local Macy’s store.

Sephora

With the launch of its app on the Kik platform, Sephora is leveraging conversational commerce to provide the experience of shopping with a friend. With Kik, Sephora is connecting with its customers to drive sales by harnessing the one-to-one experience and replicating in-store conversations on mobile. Customers can directly make purchases within the Kik app. Sephora Chatbot enables users to make beauty recommendations, DIYs, read ratings, and find products that are accurate for their skin type and tone.

Nike – Design your sneakers

Nike’s Facebook Messenger bot, Stylebot, was targeted towards the female audience. Essentially a personal stylist bot, the bot let users upload images and then pulled the color scheme from these images to customize a pair of Air Max 90s. Now that’s cool.

Best Chatbot use cases AND top Chatbots Examples in Healthcare

A chatbot’s innate ability to bust queues and automate frontline patient service tasks makes them a very viable option for the healthcare industry. The healthcare industry is brimming with a countless number of possibilities for chatbots to help physicians, nurses, or their families. Here are some of the top chatbot use cases in the healthcare industry.

• Customer service/administration
• Patient engagement in pre and post appointment instances
• Population health management
• Patient triaging basis the symptoms
• Medical research and treatment

AND here’s a list of top-ranked healthcare chatbot examples that illustrate these use cases.

OneRemission

OneRemission chatbot has been specifically designed to ease the life of cancer patients by providing a comprehensive list of diets, exercises, and post-cancer practices. Should they need the help of a specialist, OneRemission features the ability for users to consult with an online oncologist 24/7.

Youper

This AI-powered healthcare chatbot is based on the latest scientific research. It monitors and improves users’ emotional health with quick, personalized conversations. The app learns more about the user in the process of communicating with users and offers a customized experience.

Safedrugbot

SafedrugBot is a chatbot messaging service that offers assistant-like support via the Telegram messaging app to doctors who need appropriate information about the use of drugs during a patient’s pregnancy and breastfeeding stages.

Babylon Health

This AI-powered healthcare chatbot is a subscription-based online medical consultation and health service. Valued at more than $2 billion, the chatbot offers consultation based on personal medical history and common medical knowledge. It also provides a live video consultation with a doctor when a patient requests it. The chatbot has been in use by UK’s National Health Service (NHS) since 2017.

Florence

The Florence chatbot is an online personal nurse and works on Facebook Messenger, Skype, and Kik. It reminds patients to take their pills, keeps track of their health and more. The chatbot also has the skills to find the nearest pharmacy or doctor’s office.

Best News and Media Chatbot Examples and Use Cases

Speed is an essentiality in the news industry, and that is a primary feature of chatbots. With this vital ingredient, chatbots are being leveraged for the following use cases. Here’s a striking commonality with a majority of news chatbots, they all leverage already popular messengers to deliver the news.

• News curation from various sources based on the user’s interests and preferences
• News delivery
• Running surveys to collect public opinion

AND here’s a list of top-ranked sensational chatbot examples from the News industry.

AIRA

AIRA is a personal news tool that keeps users up-to-date on financial news stories via real-time notifications on Facebook Messenger. The news is tailored to the user’s interests and shortened to the essentials.

BBC Politics

BBC Politics is a branch of the British Broadcasting Corporation (the BBC) that’s dedicated to intense political coverage. The BBC Politics chatbot allows users to get instant access to critical breaking news and frequent updates and highlights via Facebook Messenger.

Breaking News

The Breaking News chatbot with messenger integration enables users to subscribe to NBC news via Facebook Messenger. Users get NBC news stories delivered directly to their Facebook inbox as they break.

CNN

CNN was one of the first major publishers to push a news bot to Facebook Messenger. The CNN messenger integration is another chatbot that sends regular news updates, but through a larger number of platforms like Facebook Messenger, Amazon Echo, and Kik. It also has the distinction of allowing users to ask specific questions.

Digg

Digg is an online news platform that curates trending stories from all over the web. The Digg bot uses AI to scan millions of stories and tweets every day. The Digg bot enables users to read hand-picked stories and get daily news updates via Amazon Alexa, Facebook Messenger, and Slack.

Best Fashion and Beauty Chatbot Examples and Use Cases

In the last decade or so, many a retail chain have expanded their online presence through chic websites and apps. Fashion and beauty brands have not been lagging too far either in ramping (pun not intended) up their omnichannel e-Commerce ecosystem. But mobile apps and websites lack the unique ‘personal touch’ that a customer would typically experience at a brick and mortar store. For example, an app would rarely suggest a matching accessory with something you have chosen, or give you a special compliment about how well you looked in your just bought party gown or dress.

This is where chatbots come in. AI-powered chatbots are excellent at offering that personalized experience that makes a customer feel special. Let’s take a quick look at the various chatbot use cases in the fashion and beauty industry.

• Promoting the latest looks and collections
• Allowing users to browse through the catalog of available items
• Quizzing the customer to filter collections based on taste, requirement, style and more
• Upselling and Cross-selling, to increase the customer’s purchase value
• Serving prompts for newsletters
• Sending push notifications about deals and offers
• Store locator
• Invites to view the backstage of fashion shows digitally
• Details about a delivery, returns, refunds, customer care, FAQs and more

And here’s a list of top-ranked trend-making chatbot examples from the Fashion and Beauty industry.

Tommy Hilfiger’s Chatbot

Tommy Hilfiger impressed fashionistas all over the world when it debuted the world’s first video ad chatbot. The chatbot lets consumers globally explore pieces from the brand’s new collection by asking questions that help identify the customer’s tastes and required sizes.

Victoria’s Secret Chatbot

Victoria’s Secret is a lingerie brand. It chose a different approach to communicate with customers via a chatbot, by limiting itself to showcasing the new collections and available options. When the customer wants more details or wants to purchase an item, it promptly takes the customer to the website to complete the remainder of the transaction.

Burberry’s Chatbot

Burberry has the distinction of being a digitally-forward luxury fashion brand and this is seen in the way its chatbot (integrated with Facebook messenger) has been leveraged to promote the brand. The original version of the chatbot offered customers behind-the-scenes looks at their collections and also let them shop some of the pieces from the show. The chatbot also sends push notifications to people who recently interacted with it allowing them to see unique branded content and enticing them to shop. To top it all, this is the only bot we know that helps a customer book an Uber ride to Makers’ House to see the brand’s exhibition.

Abercrombie & Fitch’s Chatbot

While Abercrombie & Fitch’s Twitter-based chatbot does not offer a luxurious shopping experience like its peers, it does an excellent job of helping with more regular functions like order help, product help, store location, and more.

Kiehl’s Chatbot

Kiehl’s bot is the world’s oldest skincare brand (yes, they have been around since 1851!). By engaging with their chatbot on their website or Facebook messenger, users can get recommendations and advice about which products are best for them. The chatbot also explains why the product is being recommended to them! A sure shot way to look good…what say?

Best Travel and Hospitality Chatbot Examples and Use Cases

The travel and hospitality industries are known for adopting cutting-edge technology to drive their businesses, especially targeting consumers at the middle to bottom of the marketing-sales funnel. The ease of making a booking is a huge differentiator in this parity-based industry. They were among the earliest to launch their e-Commerce websites, a whole host of aggregator websites, and mobile apps.

To make the booking process more convenient, these companies are leveraging chatbots to target travelers on widely used channels like Facebook, Skype, Slack and Twitter. With a majority of customers preferring to use chatbots to interact with service providers, it’s no wonder that all major travel brands are deploying chatbots in the following use case instances.

• Suggesting destinations based on the traveler’s requirements and preferences
• Making the actual reservations
• Customer service in case of disruptions in the travel plan
• Expense management
• Acting as the local insider in the traveler’s destination
• Offering assistance in booking cabs, recommending restaurants, local tourist attractions, etc. throughout the trip
• Acting as a liaison for payment transactions

AND here’s a list of top-ranked chatbot examples from the Travel and Hospitality industry.

Expedia

Although Expedia offers a wide range of services, it’s Facebook messenger bot is programmed for hotel searches and bookings only. But Expedia’s Amazon Alexa skill helps customers do more like check flight status, cars for rent, and loyalty point updates.

KLM

KLM leverages Facebook Messenger’s checkbox plugin to provide travelers with booking confirmations, check-in notifications, boarding passes, and flight status updates via Messenger.

Booking.com

Booking.com was founded with a mission to eliminate the friction out of travel, and that ties very well with their chatbot too. Accessible on their desktop and mobile website and app, the chatbot offers a wide range of functionalities to travelers to provide a seamless travel experience.

Skyscanner

A Facebook Messenger chatbot that is quick to respond, the Skyscanner bot is a flight search assistant that categorizes flights in unique categories like ‘cheapest,’ ‘shortest,’ and ‘best.’

CheapFlights

Cheapflights won in the ‘Best use of Social Media on Mobile’ category at The Drum MOMA Awards, for this flight and hotel chatbot. Apart from offering conventional functionalities, the chatbot is known more for using wit and humor in its conversations. And all this from the comfort of your Facebook messenger.

Best Food and Beverage Chatbot Examples and Use Cases

Purchases made in the food and beverage industry are usually in the ‘high involvement’ category, and a customer is always king. Exceptional customer service is a critical ingredient in the business success recipe, and that is usually a combination of quality, consistency, speed, politeness, and several other factors. A negative social media campaign by a well-known foodie could cause havoc at the cash register.

Businesses also need to be smart enough to use key milestones of the purchase to promote other available items to increase the invoice value. Do you see why chatbots make a perfect fit for the food and beverage industry? Here are some of the top use case scenarios.

• Showcasing the available dishes or items on the menu
• Make recommendations basis on the customer’s requirements and preferences
• Providing more natural ways to order like asking the customer if she/he would like to repeat a previous order
• Providing additional information when asked like the main ingredients used, number of calories, presence of specific allergy-causing substances
• Suggesting restaurants basis the user’s intention (romantic date, family dinner, girls’ night out and more)
• Manage reservations and take orders
• Upsell and cross-sell opportunities (Would you like to pair your Lobster with a bottle of Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc white wine?)
• Promote deals, offers and loyalty programs
• Customer service, especially when there are deviations/delays in the order
• Get feedback and opinions from customers

AND here’s a list of top-ranked delicious chatbot examples in the Food and Beverage industry.

Absolut Vodka Chatbot

The Absolut Vodka chatbot was launched in Facebook messenger with a tempting offer. It offered its fans a free drink and a discounted cab ride to go back home! The bot was obviously designed to increase the consumption of Absolut Vodka’s products. So the bot gave directions to the nearest bars and pubs that served its products and let customers order their favorite cocktail too! Now that’s a great marketing takeaway!

Burger King Chatbot

Burger King too, launched a Facebook messenger chatbot that allowed customers to place orders from a limited menu, select a pick-up location, and pay for their meals all from the same platform. Their bot even greeted customers while opening the app and asked them if they would like to place an order.

Campbell’s Kitchen Chatbot

Unlike the previous two examples of chatbots, Campbell’s Kitchen chatbot was an Amazon Alexa Skill. It allowed customers to request for new dinner recipes and filtered options by cooking time, meat options, types of critical ingredients, and more.

Domino’s Pizza Chatbot

Domino’s sure knows how to roll out a digital initiative. The Domino’s Pizza chatbot is available on Google Assistant, Facebook Messenger, and Amazon Alexa! The chatbot remembers the user’s previous orders on all platforms (they figure most customers stick to one favorite) and brands it ‘Easy Order.’ It also offers customers the options of takeout and delivery. In case a customer chooses delivery, the bot will even track the order and say when it will be delivered! Now that’s one wholesome chatbot experience!

Quaker

Okay! So that’s enough for Quick Service Restaurants (QSR) and drinks. Let’s look at something healthy, shall we? Quaker has been a breakfast option for centuries now. The Quaker chatbot allows its users to request new oatmeal and overnight oat recipes. These are served as step-by-step guides and read aloud by Alexa! Quaker also launched a Facebook Messenger chatbot to improve consumer engagement in 2019.

Best Customer Relationship Management Chatbot Examples and Use Cases

All good businesses are built on relationships. The better they communicate with their customers and solve their queries, the better are their chances of closing higher revenues. But not all CRM systems are perfect at both serving customers and satisfying business needs at the same time. Chatbots could, therefore, play a role in CRM.

Here are some use cases for you to consider.

• Handling mundane tasks and regular queries, thereby freeing up the bandwidth of human customer support executives to handle more complex tasks.
• They are also faster to respond and can handle several customers at the same time without making errors, thereby minimizing a customer’s wait time.
• Chatbots could become your omnichannel CRM agents, as they can be easily integrated into messaging platforms, where people spend most of their time online.

Given these broad use case scenarios, let’s take a look at some of the better-known CRM chatbot examples.

Bold360

Like Twyla, Nanorep also helps customer service employees by answering common questions. The Nanorep chatbot understands what the customer is asking and provides a specific answer. Nanorep does this by importing the content of a company’s existing knowledge base, FAQs, websites, and other sources. It then performs a semantic search to understand the user’s and provides accurate, personalized answers.

Fireflies

Fireflies is a chatbot that records, transcribes, and organizes calls data. It mines data from audio conversations and finds relevant information to feed to the CRM. It also organizes the team’s knowledge in one place by capturing everything that was said at meetings.

Salesforce CRM Chatbot

The CRM chatbot from Salesforce extracts relevant data from slack communication with a customer, analyzes it, and feeds it into the CRM. From a variety of data present in a Slack conversation, it only fetches the relevant data that needs to be fed.

Here are some chatbot platforms could you consider for SMBs

We recently deployed a chatbot for our website, and it has been doing brilliantly for us. In about two weeks, the chatbot has cataloged over 1000 visitors and helped us classify them as business prospects and job seekers. Our interaction with both the audiences are at an all-time high. This happened just about the time when we needed to hire 100+ people.

Here are a few chatbot platforms we considered. You could take a look at them too if you are just looking for a simple enough no-code SMB solution.

• Continually
• Drift
• LiveEngage
• Boost.ai
• Chatfuel
• Bold360

Most of them come with free trials for limited page views, so you could see what works best for your business.

How to build your enterprise chatbot?

Now that you have got enough inspiration to borrow, it is time you build your enterprise chatbot if you do not already have one. Your chatbot should have the capability to integrate with multiple transactional systems within your enterprise.

Determine what business problem your chatbot is going to solve. The chatbot use cases and examples of chatbots listed in this blog could be a source of ideas. Then choose a platform on which you propose to build the chatbot. Here are a few articles to help you get started.

• Best chatbot platforms to build a chatbot
• How to start building a chatbot
• Battle of the Bots: Rasa vs. Google Dialogflow vs. AWS Lex

Here is another article and some design principles. We suggest you follow them without being bound by them. Here are the design principles:

• Never pretend to be a human.
• Don’t hide your bot; make it easy to find throughout your company.
• Optimize that chatbot UX for the end-user, not the customer support teams. Keep your users’ goals in mind, as they have come to your website with a goal in mind. Your bot needs your help to complete it as quickly as possible.
• Make your chatbot relevant to the user journey; use a separate sequence for your homepage, product pages, and Facebook Business Page.
• Keep your chatbot incredibly simple by following linear conversation flows; avoid complicated branching paths.
• Start simple, then move on to more complex cases. Once a simple customer experience is flawless, create a chatbot with fundamental secondary interactions.
• Ensure every chatbot interaction is short and precise. Do not drop an entire app directly into a chatbot conversation; bots are supposed to communicate one usable piece of information at a time. Remember…every bot interaction is about call and response.
• Avoid friction. If you can allow the user to complete an entire transaction in the chatbot window itself (rather than jumping to the website), then do that.
• Use chatbots to create intimate experiences by creating conversations that sound human and friendly.
• Make your bot humorous. Build your bot to be informational and conversational, with a little humor where possible. Don’t be afraid to have fun.
• Collect user data to improve retargeting; it allows you to send deals or promotions based on user preferences.
• Allow the user to interact with a real human being. Chatbots cannot solve every problem, which is why you want to offer easy access to live support, if possible.

We have been building chatbots for several years now. If you would like to get our thoughts on how to architect an enterprise chatbot, please reach out to us via the chatbot here or email us at contactus@ideas2it.com. Good luck with your chatbot project!