Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, Complete Guide to ChatGPT & Prompt Engineering (62-slide PowerPoint presentation). Everyone has heard of ChatGPT. Immediately after launch, it gained both fame and infamy, and grew to become the fastest growing application of all time. But, have you used it? And, more importantly, do you understand how to maximize its usage to derive the greatest value for your work or [read more]
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Let’s cut to the chase: your business most likely needs AI chatbots and live chat. The key is figuring out when to use each and who to involve. Should you hire another support agent or invest in AI chatbot development? Let’s break it down. For quick answers, check the table below. For deeper insights, keep reading.
When Should You Use a Chatbot?
Ideally, your AI chatbot should interact with your customers and assist them at a level comparable to that of a human. It should analyze the question against its knowledge base and give an answer.
Here are the key things to know about AI chatbots:
Availability: 24/7, ideal for global markets.
Scalability: Handles thousands of chats simultaneously.
Personalization: Data-driven recommendations.
Query complexity: Excels at FAQs and order tracking.
Yes, AI responses can sometimes feel robotic or slightly awkward, but if you think customers dislike chatbots, think again.
In fact, they expect them! About 73% of modern consumers expect a website to have a chatbot because it’s so quick and easy to use. 87% of people say that their chatbot interactions were neutral or positive.
Even more telling: when asked, “Would you rather talk to an AI or wait 15 minutes for a human?” 62% choose the chatbot. So, when does it make sense to use a chatbot in ecommerce?
Handling common questions. Chatbots ace queries about shipping options or “where’s the payment info section on the site?”
Managing traffic spikes. During Black Friday sales surges, it’s smart to let a chatbot handle initial customer interactions, escalating to a human if needed.
Recovering abandoned carts. Chatbots excel at this!
Providing 24/7 support. For some businesses, a live agent 24/7 is a must. For others, AI can cover the night shift while your team sleeps.
Supporting multiple languages. One travel company saw a 25% increase in online bookings after implementing a chatbot in 15 languages. Pretty impressive, right?
When Should You Use Live Chat?
As great as AI chatbots are, most people still prefer live chat. This isn’t surprising: we’re social creatures and tend to trust humans more. Also, chatbots can struggle with nuanced, complex, or emotional customer questions.
On top of that, people often hesitate to share personal info with chatbots. And that is totally fine, especially from a cybersecurity perspective.
Here are the key things to know about live chats:
Availability: Limited to business hours (unless you have staff worldwide or a 24/7 team).
Scalability: An experienced agent can handle up to 4–5 chats simultaneously. A growing business requires additional staff, increasing wait times, and costs.
Personalization: Empathetic responses, less data-driven.
Query complexity: Better for complaints, returns, etc.
Cost: About $61,550/year per agent.
So, when should you bring in a human for live chat?
Solving complex issues. If a company botches a gift order’s card for a customer’s grandma or a buyer is just unhappy with a product, a human is likely to handle it better.
Building trust. Some brands, especially luxury ones, position themselves as human-oriented, and customer experience means the world to them. For these, live chat can be a better fit.
Post-sale support. Order mix-ups? Delivery issues? Suggestions for improving your service? A real human is usually better equipped to handle these and to comfort the client.
Today, chatbots and live chat aren’t rivals — they work together and make a great team. For many businesses, a hybrid approach might be ideal.
A chatbot can step into an interaction and handle simple, initial queries. If the issue is beyond its capabilities, the chatbot just hands it off to a live agent — seamlessly and without mess. The conversation history stays intact, so your employee doesn’t need to gather the client’s info from the beginning. Sounds like a win-win, doesn’t it?
This is a primer to ChatGPT and includes foundational concepts to understanding the application, including GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) and Prompt Engineering.
First, what is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is a pre-trained language generation model developed by OpenAI. It uses deep learning [read more]
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From the ambitious vision of the Dartmouth Conference in 1956, which proclaimed that "Every aspect of learning or other feature of intelligence can, in principle, be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it," to Larry Page's futuristic dream of AI as the [read more]
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Let’s cut to the chase: your business most likely needs AI chatbots and live chat. The key is figuring out when to use each and who to involve. Should you hire another support agent or invest in AI chatbot development? Let’s break it down. For quick answers, check the table below. For deeper insights, keep reading.
