What types of chatbot are there?
Although the use of chatbots has become widespread among businesses, the benefits they can offer largely depend on their configuration and functions. Read on to learn about the different types of chatbots that exist.
While the thought of a chatbot may immediately bring artificial intelligence to mind, this is not necessarily the case.
we believe a proper classification of chatbots can be made by following three parameters:
The way it interacts with users.
Its practical application.
The technology used.
Types of chatbots according to their way of interacting with the user
Although the use of chatbots has become widespread among businesses, the benefits they can offer largely depend on their configuration and functions. Read on to learn about the different types of chatbots that exist.
While the thought of a chatbot may immediately bring artificial intelligence to mind, this is not necessarily the case.
Moreover, a chatbot does not have to be linked to AI, nor is it something limited to large companies due to the elaborate configuration and maintenance they require.
Among the types of chatbots, there are very simple ones that solve straightforward yet very useful problems, accessible to any business. Beyond distinguishing between dumb chatbots and smart chatbots (also known as AI
chatbots due to their use of AI techniques), at Aunoa, we believe a proper classification of chatbots can be made by following three parameters:
The way it interacts with users.
Its practical application.
The technology used.
Types of chatbots according to their practical application
Chatbots can also be classified depending on their intended use. Thus, we can distinguish between three types of chatbots: those used for marketing tasks, those used for customer support and customer service, and chatbots for sales or ecommerce.
1. Marketing chatbots
Chatbots in marketing are basically used to generate leads and facilitate the collection of customer data, with which to subsequently create campaigns or simply improve the user experience.
2. Chatbots for support and customer service
In customer support and customer service, chatbots represent a huge step forward in the improvement and automation of processes. They offer immediate service, and with absolute availability, solving one of the great historical problems of customer service centers, especially in times of campaign or peak.
Simply put, automating the questions that users ask most frequently has been shown to have a very high impact, as most user questions tend to deal with very similar issues.
3. Chatbots for sales or eCommerce
In the case of sales and e-commerce, this type of chatbots act as shopping assistants, facilitating the entire purchasing process from the beginning to the final payment. They make suggestions to users based on their profiles, help find products, inform the user about the status of their order or its return, and ultimately create a shopping experience that builds user loyalty.
What are the types of chatbots based on the technology used?
Depending on the recognition and response technology they use, they can be classified into four types of chatbots: text interaction response or ITR, machine learning, keyword recognition and cognitive.
1. RTI chatbots
They do not usually use Artificial Intelligence. They work in a very simple way, with predefined menus and decision trees, like navigation.
Although this type of chatbot is not used for complex issues, it is very useful for the user or customer to be able to self-manage some services without the need for human attention, such as reporting incidents.
2. Machine learning chatbots
They use Artificial Intelligence and, therefore, their development and training is more complex.
They are capable of holding natural conversations and learning from experience, i.e. they use NLP (Natural Language Processing) and ML (Machine Learning) technologies and represent a very important qualitative leap, both in technology and functionality.
To this end, they work with large volumes of data and require constant training, both for improvement and to avoid falling into inappropriate behavior due to learning the negative traits of use of some users, a very common phenomenon in the field of AI.
3. Keyword recognition chatbots
They are somewhere in between. They do not use Artificial Intelligence, but work by identifying keywords in the conversational environment and providing programmed responses to those words.
Although they are simple and have obvious limitations, they can be very useful, especially as a complement or replacement for a traditional search engine in the function of answering frequently asked questions.
4. Cognitive chatbots
Also based on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, they go a step further and are able not only to understand natural language and user intentions, but to interpret them within a much larger context.
This contributes to a much wider use of the chatbot, as it allows the user to change the linguistic context at any time, in other words to change the subject whenever he considers without the assistant ‘losing the thread’ of the conversation.
This last type of chatbots are the most complete, they combine the best of all models and are capable of carrying out all types of tasks, and although technologically they are infinitely more complex than those in the first block, the current state of the art allows their use is not unattainable for commercial use by companies.
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