Chatbots Could Save Retail, Banking, Healthcare Billions Annually

The adoption of chatbots in retail, banking, and healthcare will save companies $11 billion each year by 2023, according to new research from Juniper Research.

In a press release highlighting the new research, Juniper said that the cost savings from chatbots will hit $6 billion in 2018 and that the savings going forward will come from the reduced amount of time spent dealing with customer service inquiries. According to Juniper, using chatbots will cut response and interaction times via phone and on social media by a dramatic amount with businesses and consumers combined saving more than 2.5 billion hours by 2023 in those three sectors. The research: Chatbots: Banking, eCommerce, Retail & Healthcare 2018-2023, also found that retailers stand to benefit the most from chatbots with Juniper estimating that by 2023 over 70 percent of chatbots accessed will be retail-based. Customer service and eCommerce will be major use cases for chatbots but retailers will have to invest in the functionality of the chatbots to meet the growing expectations of consumers. Juniper pointed to artificial intelligence as a way retailers can create chatbot experiences that will draw the user in, keep them there and coming back for more. Some of the benefits retailers could enjoy include cost savings, up-selling, marketing and cart recovery, the researcher said. Juniper thinks that by 2023, eCommerce transactions through a chatbot will hit $112 billion.

Chatbots are commonly found on messaging apps but Juniper predicted that as the technology takes off chatbot-enabled apps will increase among retailers, financial institutions and healthcare providers. Juniper forecasts that by 2023 over 50 percent of the chatbots accessed will be through apps instead of embedded in messaging apps. Juniper isn’t alone in its upbeat assessment about the role chatbots will play. In February market research firm Gartner predicted chatbots will be used in 25 percent of customer service and support operations by 2020, up from just 2 percent in 2017.