Companies turn to bots to engage millennials

The growing population of millennials around the world and their unique spending habits has gotten companies brimming with activities on new ways to gain their attention and make them loyal to their brand.

A millennial is a person reaching young adulthood around the year 2000. They are people within the ages of 18-34. They are also referred to as the Generation Y.

Two major characteristics of millennials are that they are easily distracted and find social media and texting hard to resist. To keep them occupied long enough to notice a brand, companies have to come up with different innovations. Artificial intelligence (AI) is one way a few of the companies are achieving that.

Chat bots according to the UK Guardian are programs that mimic conversation with people using artificial intelligence. In simple language, it’s a piece of software that you chat with to get things done or be entertained. The service could be any number of things, ranging from functional to fun, and it could live in any major chat product such as Facebook Messenger, Slack, Telegram, Text Messages, etc.

For instance, if you wanted to buy a phone from Slot Nigeria online, usually you will go to their website, look around until you find the type of phone you wanted, and then buy. But imagine if Slot Nigeria made a bot, rather than go to their website while you are chatting on Facebook, you would simply ask Slot on Facebook. It would ask you what you are looking for and once you tell it, it will show it to you.

The unique capabilities of chat bots include interacting with users mostly via conversation, exist on a variety of platforms, get better at performing their use case as usage progresses, and collect a unique set of information about their users.

Chat bots can be used for buying shoes, checking the weather, order groceries, inform whenever something happens in the news, profer solutions to problems, manage money better and so on. In China there is a bot called Xiaoice, built by Microsoft, which over 20 million talk to as their friend. These young people are texting the bot every day to cheer them up and unburden their feelings – the bot remembers just enough to keep the conversation going.

There is a TriviaBot for answering trivia questions. Forbes recently launched a Forbesbot which pings users with news stories or run a search. Apple has Siri that’s built into the operating system of an iPhone. Rather than text, Siri responds only to voice but it remains a chatbot because it’s conversational. A startup called Heek wants to make building websites as simple as chatting over text and answering a few questions using a bot.

At the moment, chat bots are basically replacing individual apps. Rather than closing Facebook Messenger and opening Wakanow, you can simply message Wakanow and ask for a flight booking. “It’s technology that’s inevitable,” says an Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO.

According to a consensus poll released on Wednesday by TechEmergence a marketing research firm for AI and machine learning, chatbots and virtual agents will be the top consumer applications of artificial intelligence over the next five years.

With mobile apps revenue opportunities declining rapidly, some developers are looking forward to using chatbots as a major source of generating revenue and making mobile software that people might actually use.

How do chatbots engage millennials? First, it empowers a company’s customer service. A chatbot, unlike a human being, can field questions for 24 hours a day – repeatedly and accurately without becoming tired or irritated. In the same vein, millennials prefer text-based communication (instant messaging, text messaging, etc.) and absolutely despise waiting on the phone.

Biz Carson, a tech expert, writes “Chatbots could change everything about how you surf the web. In the future, you just say “I wonder if it will rain today” and a chatbot would know your location and able to answer conversationally whether you should bring an umbrella. No apps. No search box.”

For businesses, a chat bot can focus on three key areas, namely content creation, customer service and productivity (including commerce).

According to Edelman, a PR firm, “While there is the potential for mass distribution, assume marketing your bot will be similar to SMS or email acquisition strategies. Users have to find your bot through links, posts or ads and send a message (opt-in) before your bot can work its magic. It is important to note that users can block all messages or sponsored messages, so avoid too many sharing messages or it come as spam.”