Should you invest in a chatbot for your company?

Customer service needs to at the core of your business, no matter what you do. Whether you are a customer or business-focused startup, it is incredibly important to think with the end user in mind, and work from there. You wouldn’t be the only one, far from it – international heavyweights like Amazon are notorious for having a customer-centric business focus, which is instilled in the company’s DNA by frontman Jeff Bezos.

The rise of artificial intelligence has given a whole different dimension to this, as customers are more often able to interact with so-called chatbots.

While chatbots are not very well defined, they should be seen as are virtual agents that can aid your startup. Powered by artificial intelligence, they can understand and answer a wide variety of customer questions, which will ultimately lead to better customer experience and retention rates – if applied correctly.

But, how do you go about doing that, and is it even necessary for your business to have such a chatbot? That is the red line through an article by Harvard Business Review, which delves further into the pros and cons of chatbots, as well as how to set one up.

Use of chatbots might become commonplace and inevitable in the future, and a good measure to save on costs. But is it ready right now for your comapany? That's what HBR tries to answer here.