Chatbots for customer service will help businesses save $8 billion per year - IBM Watson

A new study releases this week by UK-based Juniper Research supports our prediction that chatbots will redefine the customer service industry, with healthcare and banking industries expected to benefit the most. The new report titled "Chatbots: Retail, eCommerce, Banking & Healthcare 2017-2022," estimates that chatbots will help businesses save more than $8 billion per year by 2022, which is a huge increase from the $20 million estimated for this year. Call centers and customer service departments should already be investing in these new conversational technologies if they want to stay competitive and cost-effective as companies across industries grow their investment in building chatbots to help service customers faster, across any channel, device or platform, 24 7. Advancements in technology continue to transform customer service interactions. From improvements in loyalty and brand reputation to new revenue streams, the pathway to real-time self-service in customer service brings huge opportunities to forward-thinking businesses. Juniper also forecasts that the success rate of bot interactions in healthcare sector, completed without the assistance of a human agent, will increase from the current 12% to over 75% in 2022.