Customer Service Chatbot: Top 7 Vendors & Use Cases in 2024

With the improvements in conversational and generative AI technology, more users are enthusiastic about using a chatbot on their contact center software. For example: 

• 40% of shoppers said they do not care if they are interacting with a bot or a human agent, as long as their issues are resolved 
• 69% said they’d prefer a chatbot for receiving instant responses, especially for service-related customer queries. 

However, there are plenty of customer service chatbot vendors in the market. In this article, we compare the top customer service chatbot vendors in the market and explain the use cases of a customer service chatbot.

Customer service chatbot vendor selection criteria

* Ratings are out of 10. The vendors are listed in descending order based on the average ratings they received.

As there are various vendors offering chatbots for customer service, we narrowed down our benchmarking based on certain criteria, such as the popularity of the product within the market through the number of B2B reviews. We selected these criteria as they are public and verifiable through vendors’ websites or software review platforms. We included companies with:

• Have more than 900+ employees as stated on LinkedIn
• Have more than 200+ user reviews on review platforms G2, Capterra and Trustradius
• Have an average rating above 8.5 (out of 10)

Top 7 customer service chatbot vendors

If you are interested in knowing other chatbot vendors, explore our data-driven lists of:

• Voice AI vendors
• Chatbot & conversational platform vendors

Key features of customer service chatbots

1- Live agent handover

The live agent handover feature in e-commerce chatbots is an essential tool in ensuring seamless customer support. This function allows a chatbot to recognize when it is unable to assist with a customer’s request and transfer the interaction to a human customer service agent.

2- Chatbot analytics

Chatbot analytics is another key feature of ecommerce chatbots. This feature enables the collection and analysis of data regarding customer queries and interactions with the chatbot. The gathered insights can be invaluable for online retailers looking to understand their customer’s preferences, behaviors, and pain points.

3- Server connection

The server connection feature enables ecommerce chatbots to access real-time data from the servers, ensuring the most up-to-date information is provided to customers. In an online store setting, this feature is crucial for offering current information about product availability, order status, and other relevant data. The ability to provide real-time information enhances the customer experience by offering accurate and timely responses to inquiries, showing customers that the business is reliable and trustworthy. 

4- Social media integration

Being present in social media platforms where customers spend time is important. Most chatbots have at least one social media integration besides a website. However, knowing which social media channels a chatbot vendor offers is important to align your selection with your needs.

Read more: 11 must-have contact center software features.

Top 10 use cases of chatbots in customer service

You can use a chatbot to provide AI customer service on the following tasks:

1. Answer FAQs

FAQ chatbots can answer common customer questions in multiple languages, eliminating the need for:

• Customers to navigate lengthy FAQ sections
• Customer service agents to spend time answering them

Moreover, going beyond just answering a question, the data captured by the customer service chatbot can be used for lead generation and cross-selling efforts. For example, if a customer asks “What payment methods do you accept?” this could indicate purchasing intent. Or if they ask, “How does [Product A] compare to [Product B]?,” they could be reached out for a personalized sales call to explain the differences.

2. Schedule appointments

For businesses that deal with appointments and reservations, like healthcare organizations or repair services, a customer service chatbot can handle scheduling and modifying appointments.

Chatbots can be linked to the organization’s CRM and ERP to: 

• Give information about staff availability and empty time slots 
• Instantly schedule and modify appointments 
• Proactively notify users if their reservation has to be changed for whatever reason

The benefit of automating this task is it prevents double bookings, minimizes scheduling errors, and allows reservations without involving customer support agents.

3. Cross sell

Using personalization models, chatbots can recommend users additional products and packages that can generate additional revenue for the company. This is referred to as conversational commerce.

If you are looking for real life examples of conversational commerce you can read our Top 5 Conversational Commerce Examples & Success Stories article.

4. Book tickets

Chatbots can guide the customer through the process of purchasing tickets for activities and events such as conferences, concerts, shows, tours, etc.

For example, Shell, the multinational oil and gas company, used a Facebook Messenger chatbot to sell tickets to their annual Shell Eco Marathon, attended by 25,000 visitors.¹

5. Process orders

Digital ordering is on the rise. In the food industry, for example, online food ordering has grown faster than dine-in, since 2014.² For young people (18-24 years old), social media is becoming the primary search engine for product discovery and ordering.³

Figure 1. Source: Statista ⁴

Companies can use customer service chatbots to automate order placement. eBay, for instance, used Facebook Messenger to inform users about the upcoming promotional campaigns. Moreover, these chatbots can be programmed to send payment gateways so customers can finalize the process without changing channels.  

6. Track orders

Chatbots can be integrated into a company’s larger AI powered customer support framework. So by connecting with supply chain logistics applications, a customer service chatbot can fetch and provide shipments’ tracking details, including:

• Current package location 
• ETA 
• Shipping delays 

7. Process returns and refunds

Users can ask the AI customer service chatbot to process their refunds. Once the request is made, the chatbot will follow a rule-based model and: 

• Check the customer’s purchase history 
• Verify their identity 
• Lookup the status of their returned item 
• Verify the reason for the return 
• Process the refund in the backend system through API calls to payment gateways or internal financial systems
• Provide confirmation 

8. Process membership requests

As the economy moves towards subscription and membership-based service models, companies who generate revenue this way can use chatbots to: 

• Apply, renew, or cancel a membership 
• Provide usage terms and conditions 
• Offer free trials 
• Give information about different membership packages 
• Give pricing and payment methods and billing cycles 
• Send renewal reminders so users can renew/cancel

This expedites and streamlines the conversion process.

9. User onboarding

Many products and software require onboarding for first time users. 

A customer support chatbot can guide users throughout the customer onboarding process, such as sending them tutorial materials, offering interactive product tours, explaining functionalities and features, and sending them a list of onboarding tasks they need to complete.

10. Troubleshooting and technical support 

For enhanced customer satisfaction and faster troubleshooting without involving the customer service reps, chatbots provide pre-made troubleshooting guides to specific technical questions. 

This is especially helpful for SaaS vendors who might offer new or innovative products that are prone to technical problems. Companies can collect data on the most common questions they get and create a thorough troubleshooting guide for the chatbot to give to users.

FAQ

Further reading

• Chatbot Lead Generation: Top 8 Benefits
• Top 25 Chatbot Case Studies & Success Stories
• MSP ChatGPT: Leveraging Conversational AI to Drive Success

External links

• 1. “Mobile case study: Shell uses Facebook Chatbots to sell event tickets”. Digital Training Academy. Accessed 4 October 2023.
• 2. “18+ Food Delivery Statistics [2023]: Online Ordering Industry Numbers You Need To Know – Zippia300%”. Zippia. Retrieved on 29 November 2023
• 3. “Google exec suggests Instagram and TikTok are eating into Google’s core products, Search and Maps | TechCrunch”. TechCrunch. Retrieved on 29 November 2023
• 4. “Online Food Delivery – Worldwide | Statista Market Forecast”. Statista. Retrieved on 11 December 2023