Who’s Doing It Best: The Top 10 Industries for Chatbots

Chatbots are all the rage, but who’s using them best? What are the top 10 industries for chatbots today and in the future? Conversational UI can be revolutionary in nearly any setting. Some industries have embraced chatbots and iterated on them better than others. Mostly, they react to personal taste, preferences and needs (which chatbots are perfectly suited for).

Do you need inspiration on chatbot use cases—or are just looking for a cool bot to chat with? Look no further than our list of top 10 industries for chatbots. Together, they can help you accomplish nearly any task you want done.

Customer Service and E-commerce

Let’s start with the obvious industry: customer service and e-commerce. Thanks to their availability around the clock to answer queries, chatbots are set to replace annoying customer service phonelines or overwhelming search tools for e-commerce sites.

EBay’s ShopBot shows the potential chatbots have for helping consumers find the exact products they want with the help of a digital shopping assistant. Meanwhile, Evernote’s Twitter-based support bot demonstrates the handling of automated customer support through a conversational UI on social media and chat.

Health

One of the most important and best uses of chatbots lies in the health sector. Chatbot analytics makes it possible to enhance the performance of these life-saver bots. Talking to a doctor can be difficult to schedule and costly for less-serious ailments. The alternative—researching symptoms yourself online—can be downright scary. While you should always seek a professional for serious ailments, chatbots can provide advice or reminders to take medication when suffering from an affliction. They are available in the palm of your hand.

HealthTap is one such app that provides free access to healthcare information and lets users speak to a medical professional. Available on Facebook Messenger, HealthTap shows how chatbots can be used for social good.

Productivity

If your team uses Slack, you may already be aware of the vast amount of productivity bots available today. From tracking progress on collaborative projects to managing files, note taking to inbox management, there’s a productivity bot ready to handle any task you need done. These bots are easy to integrate into a workflow. Also, they can help both individuals and groups get stuff done. Because you can accomplish so much with them, the productivity and web tools industry is among the best uses of chatbots.

Check out Slack’s extensive bot library to see what you can do to work smarter, not harder.

News and Publishing

Media thrives on the internet by anticipating and acting on users’ interests. Therefore, personalization is essential for media companies’ success. Because chatbots provide highly personalized services, they might be the ideal medium for delivering content to readers and viewers online. CNN launched a bot exactly for this purpose. By adding it to Facebook Messenger, users can receive alerts tailored to their interest each day.

Beauty and Fashion

Operating in another industry that thrives on personal taste, fashion and beauty companies use bots to learn users’ preferences to deliver content, products and information that’ll help them pull off a stellar look. Sephora’s bot on Kik, for example, offers beauty tips and tutorials to match the style customers have in mind. This customer-centric, personalized focus is exactly why beauty and fashion is among the top 10 industries for chatbots.

Entertainment

Because chatbots provide a new medium for fun, novel experiences, their benefits to the entertainment industry are obvious. Games, movies and even musical bands now use transmedia storytelling—spreading a brand experience across different media—to expand their worlds and connect with fans.

For an example of how the industry’s using chatbots, check out Alpha 5 from the recent Power Rangers film. Lionsgate made the character available on three platforms for fans to chat with. This conversation opens into a fun experience. It also lets fans experience what it’s like to be a Power Ranger themselves.

Social Tools

Chatbots and AI can help make conversations more fun for users, working in the background to provide contextual options and activities based on the topic of discussion. In addition to making it easier to set plans, chatbots can provide games, polls and other functions when necessary.

Microsoft’s Cortana, for example, now sits in on Skype chats, ready to accomplish tasks when needed. Facebook’s M, which debuted in beta as a concierge service, has pivoted in a similar direction by offering contextual options like calling for a ridesharing service when users mention they’re about to leave. Because chatbots are themselves social, it’s easy to see how social tools is one of the best industries for chatbots!

Dining

Lots of services have cropped up to make ordering a meal or drink as seamless as possible: web-based platforms, branded apps, courier delivery services and more. Recently, chatbots have also entered the fray from companies like Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. With the help of a bot, customers can quickly place an order from their phones or desktops without having to call or install an app—one of the best uses of chatbots for hungry users!

top 10 industries for chatbots

Travel

Planning a trip can be incredibly overwhelming. The process includes booking transportation, lodging, finding things to do and more. But with the help of a digital travel planner, travelers can rest easy while the bot handles the busywork. Travel is among the top 10 industries for chatbots because it makes an intimidating process so easy to handle. We’ve written a whole guide to the top travel bots, so check it out to see how they’re revolutionizing the industry. 

Real Estate

If arranging a trip is difficult, just think of the challenge in buying or selling a home! Chatbots are the essential matchmaker in real estate deals these days. They help buyers find homes and helping sellers find prospective buyers. Holmes from Structurely does just that. Users simply tell it what home they want in plain language, and Holmes finds applicable results. If you’re selling a home, Holmes will get you started through an easy question-and-answer interface.

For realtors, chatbots can dramatically free up time they would otherwise spend on customers who eventually decide not to pursue a property. This is because they can handle the basic questions that buyers will use to determine if a home is right for them. 

At Botanalytics, we help your bot be awesome by providing conversational analytics. We’d be happy to boost your bot’s performance. Sign up for free to enjoy our rocking features!