Currently, there are about 2.5 billion unique users on messaging apps globally. Apps are fast becoming the alternative platforms for news, search and e-commerce.
In china and other Asian nations, embedded chatbots is the new vogue on messaging platforms such as Wechat, WhatsApp, Kik, Telegram and Slack.
- Telegram has opened up its chat API, such that there are now 120,000 bots serving its 5 million users
- WeChat, China most used chat app lets users shop, pay bills and book appointments
- Just recently, YC-incubated Chatfuel and demo-ed its platform at W16 Demo Day
- Jumia recently launched a chatbot using Facebook Messenger in Nigeria
Chat Apps have come to stay, and like social, your business needs to plug in to provide solutions to your users who already live on mobile.
With the rising bar of customer expectations, there’s a need for faster, safer and highly personalised solutions.
Companies are looking for ways to provide stand-out services that will improve customer relations. Based on the trend and the Gartner report predicting that by 2020, customers will manage 85% of their relationship with the enterprise without interacting with a human, I believe it is necessary to start thinking of bot implementation now.
As it stands, Nigeria is ranked in 17th position in a global ranking of countries in love with smartphones. We are said to have 23.1 million smartphones in 2015, with a projection to increase to 34 million in 2018 as provided by eMarketer.
I believe the financial Services and Telecommunication sector would benefit tremendously from this, Imagine a chatbot to help you with your DSTV subscription, or one to help you make decisions with your investment portfolio; which also can advise on next steps when your ATM card get stuck in a machine. The possibilities are Endless
The Big Question will be – is your business ready ?