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Chatbots

Key Chatbot Statistics You Should Follow in 2023

Daria Zabój

9 min read

Jul 12, 2022

The first chatbot (Eliza) dates back to 1966, making it older than the Internet. Yet the technology had to wait a bit to flourish at scale. It was not until 2016 that Facebook allowed developers to place chatbots on Messenger. Brands started to develop their chatbot technology, and customers eagerly tested them to see what they were capable of.

Although the interest in chatbots started to subside in 2019, the chatbot industry has flourished since the pandemic.

To stay afloat, many brick-and-mortar shops turned into ecommerce stores and began facing new customer service challenges. Companies started willingly implementing chatbots to cope with customer support interactions, improve customer experience, and lower support costs. The chatbot trends show that online shoppers have gotten used to chatbots over the past few years and are more likely to interact with them.

I gathered a few chatbot statistics to show you how chatbot usage has evolved over the past few years. Let's jump in!

1. Customer preferences

Research shows that customers have already developed their preferences for chatbots. Consumers eagerly turn to them to handle minor issues or when they are in a hurry. They don't mind if they're served by a chatbot as long as the bot responds to their questions in real time and helps them quickly resolve their problem.

However, customers expect brands to let them connect with a real person when the complexity of a problem goes beyond the chatbot's scope.

• 62% of consumers would prefer to use a customer service bot rather than wait for human agents to answer their requests. (Tidio)
• 74% of internet users prefer using chatbots when looking for answers to simple questions. (PSFK)
• 65% of consumers feel comfortable handling an issue without a human agent. (Adweek)
• 69% of consumers prefer to use chatbots because they provide instant responses. (Salesforce)
• 40% of web users don't care if they are served by a bot or a human agent as long as they get the customer support services they need. (HubSpot)
• 48% of users prefer to interact with a chatbot that solves issues over a chatbot with a personality. (Business Insider)
• 64% of consumers claim that 24/7 service is the most helpful chatbot functionality. (The Chatbot)
• 23% of consumers still prefer face-to-face interaction when the issue's complexity increases, such as with payment disputes or complaints. (Inc)

2. Chatbot usage

Younger generations are especially keen on chatbot technology. Millennials like to handle support issues independently, and chatbots are the perfect solution. Data shows that more and more companies, including market leaders such as LinkedIn or Starbucks, are incorporating intelligent assistants to handle customer interactions.

• 60% of millennials say they have used chatbots. 70% of them say they had a positive experience. (Forbes)
• The statistical user sends 4 inquiries to the bot during one chat session. (ChatBot)
• Virtual customer assistants help organizations reduce call, chat, and email inquiries by 70%. (Gartner)
• 57% of executives said that chatbots bring significant ROI with minimal effort. (Accenture)
• 90% of businesses report large improvements in the speed of complaint resolution. (MIT Technology Review)
• Giants such as LinkedIn, Starbucks, British Airways, and eBay continue using chatbots in 2022. (Business Insider)
• 58% of websites that use chatbot software are for B2B companies. (Boomtown)
• The chatbot market will reach $77 million in 2022. (Fortune Business Insights)
• 58% of businesses invested in conversational marketing tools to respond to Covid-19 customer support challenges. (Drift)
• 80% of customers who have used chatbots report the experience as positive. (Uberall)

3. Chatbot market statistics

The rising popularity of messaging apps and the higher demands of customers in the banking, health, or wellness industry is giving chatbots a boost. And as they're proven to lower operation costs, business owners worldwide are more eager to implement them on websites and messaging platforms such as Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp, as well as mobile apps. (Insider Intelligence)

• North America is the center of chatbot startups. The chatbot market has the largest share, with 40.4% of the market size. (AllTheReserach)
• The chatbot market is supposed to amount to $454.8 million in revenue by 2027, up from $40.9 million in 2018. (Statista)

• 25% of travel and hospitality companies worldwide use chatbots to enable users to make general inquiries or complete bookings. (Statista)
• 23% of customer service organizations are using AI chatbots as their brand communication channel. (Salesforce)
• The chatbot market has been classified into Large, Medium, and Small businesses. (GlobeNewswire)
• Larger companies adopt chatbots much faster than smaller organizations. Their segment accounts for over a 46% share in the chatbot market and will grow in the near future. (AllTheReserach)
• The worldwide chatbot market has been divided into Marketing, AI, and Human Intelligence. Marketing is predicted to get the most significant market share, growing at a CAGR of 23.7% by 2030. (GlobeNewswire)

4. Social media and messaging

Social media is changing how people communicate, influencing the frequency, time, and duration of interactions. People exchange messages with friends and family members non-stop. Their new communication habits translate into new ways to reach out to businesses. This shift became a real challenge for brands, and chatbots help them to face it.

• 1.4 billion people use messaging applications and are eager to communicate with chatbots. (Acquire)
• 55% of consumers are willing to interact with a business via messaging apps to solve a problem. (HubSpot)
• There are over 300,000 chatbots on Messenger. (VentureBeat)
• Mobile apps account for 10 out of every 11 minutes people spend using their mobile devices. (App Annie)
• ​​In 2021, users spent over 3.8 trillion hours using their mobile apps. (App Annie)
• YouTube (62%) and Facebook (61%), and WhatsApp (52%) are the most popular social networks. (Statista)
  
• There are over 260 million new conversations on Facebook Messenger daily. (TechJury)
• Messaging apps are used by 5 billion users monthly. (HubSpot)
• Conversations between brands and customers via Facebook Messenger have a 30% better ROI than retargeting ads. (Business Insider)
• 74% of millennials say that their perception of a brand improves if the company responds to their social media inquiries. (Microsoft)

5. Benefits for business

Customer service bots

There are over 2 billion digital buyers worldwide. Given the current trends that intensified during the pandemic, there’ll be only more customers in the future that require support. 

Therefore, customer service bots seem to be a reasonable solution for brands that wish to scale or improve customer service without increasing costs and the employee headcount.

• In 2021, there was a 43% rise in the number of chats compared to 2020. (LiveChat)
• Businesses spend over $1.3 trillion per year to address customer requests. Chatbots can help to reduce customer support costs by 30%. (IBM)
• 64% of customer service agents who utilize AI chatbots are able to spend most of their time solving difficult cases. (Salesforce)
• On average a customer service agent handles 17 chats daily. (LiveChat)
• 67% of internet users have used social media, live chat, or texting to contact customer service. (eMarketer)
• 56% of customers prefer to message rather than call customer service. (Outgrow)
• Chatbots can take care of 30% of live chat communication. (LiveChat)
• 83% of customers are satisfied while being served by a chatbot in the Insurance industry. (LiveChat)
• In 2022, the average queue waiting time was 5 min 16 sec. Chatbots could shorten that time helping companies to increase customer satisfaction. (LiveChat)
• 29% of customers drop the queue when a brand doesn't respond to their questions instantly. (LiveChat) 

Chatbot marketing

The advancements in chatbot technology and machine learning enable chatbots to deliver a more personalized customer experience.

But chatbots not only help businesses offer personalized support at scale, but more and more brands also use them to promote their products and services, generate leads, and boost website engagement.

• 74% of companies declare they want to use conversational marketing tools. (Drift)
• 82% of companies that use conversational marketing tools say that they are essential elements of their sales and marketing strategy. (Drift)
• 17% of businesses want to achieve their marketing and lead generation goals using chatbots. (Tidio)

Chatbots in sales

The trends show customers jump from one channel to another while searching for products. This means that the more touchpoints you offer, the greater the chance the customer will stumble upon your offer and select your products.

However, managing effective customer service on multiple selling channels is becoming more difficult as the modern consumer's patience threshold has lowered. Customers expect brands to respond to their sales inquiries instantly, and chatbots can help achieve that goal.

• 41% of all business chatbots are used for sales purposes. (Intercom)
• 35% of business leaders declare that virtual agents made it easier to close sales deals. (Intercom)
• 67% of US millennials are willing to buy from providers that offer chatbot support. (Chatbots Magazine)

6. Voice

While talking about chatbot statistics, it's impossible not to mention voice technology. Although it isn’t as popular in customer support and marketing operations as chatbots, voice technology is developing in its way.

Brands such as Google and Amazon fuel the voice trend by creating more personalized and approachable interfaces, and many others are following in their footsteps.

• 16% of Americans have used voice assistants like Alexa or Google Home for shopping. (Chatbots Magazine)
• 1 in 6 Americans owned a smart speaker in 2018. (NRP and Edison Research)
• The top popular keywords in voice search phrases are "how", what," and "best." (Frontier Marketing)
• 20% of searches in the Google App are now done by voice. (Think with Google)
• 71% of consumers are satisfied with the voice assistants on their mobile devices. (Forbes)
• 43% of voice device owners use it to shop. (Review42).
• The most popular voice searches on smart speakers are asking for music (70%), the weather forecast (64%), fun questions (53%), online search (47%), news (46%), and directions (34%). (Adobe)
• 28% of consumers call a local business after doing a voice search. (BrightLocal)
• Google Home is reported to answer 81% of the queries correctly. Amazon Alexa does worse, as it correctly answers 34% of queries. (CNET)

7. Chatbot industry & AI technology forecast

Chatbots have become well-established in customer communication, though companies are still learning how to make the most of them. More and more businesses are going to invest in virtual assistants and AI to reap the benefits in the future.

• Up to 73% of healthcare admin tasks could be automated by artificial intelligence by 2023. (Business Insider)
• By 2023, chatbots are going to save the banking, healthcare, and retail sectors up to $11 billion annually. (Business Insider)
• Over 50% of enterprise companies are predicted to spend more money on chatbot development than on mobile app creation by 2021. (Gartner)
• By 2025, the global chatbot market will reach over $1.2 billion. (Grand View Research)
• 70% of consumers will replace their visits to brick-and-mortar shops or banks with voice assistants over the next three years. (Capgemini)
• By 2024, retail consumers will spend over $142 billion via chatbots — up from $2.8 billion in 2019. (Insider Intelligence)

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