EOS Chatbot Survey 2021

How do companies use chatbots?

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More and more companies in Europe are using chatbots

The technology offers a lot of potential for communication and thus benefits not just companies and customers, but employees as well.

Two out of three companies in Europe are already using chatbots. The results of the recent Chatbot Survey 2021 by the EOS Group provide fascinating insights into how chatbots are currently being used and what expectations will be imposed on them in the future.

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Overview of key findings

A further five per cent of companies intend to introduce a chatbot in the next 12 months and ten per cent in the next 5 years.

The intelligence level of the chatbots is in the midfield so far. One in four is very simple and rule-based.

According to the study, the biggest challenges in the introduction are data protection and the revision of data structures.

Chatbots are very popular in companies, but there is still a lot of untapped potential.

The 2021 Chatbot Survey by the EOS Group show what companies are using chatbots for and where they are not using them.

Almost two-thirds of European companies already use a chatbot - and the trend is rising. As the results of the study show, almost all companies use chatbots for initial contact (97 per cent), followed by customer service (51 per cent) and product advice (39 per cent).
Collecting data is considered a major advantage of chatbots, but in practice it is only used by 29 percent of the companies surveyed. The main reason: the complex data protection issues. Seventy per cent of the respondents see these as the biggest hurdle for the use of chatbots.

The chatbot revolution.

Hardly any communication tool is more efficient today than the chatbot. A prime example is the bot of the World Health Organisation (WHO): the bot answered 13.5 million questions via the messenger service Whatsapp alone - and in 19 languages! So it is not surprising that many companies also want to take advantage of the communication skills of digital helpers. But how many of them really exploit the potential of this trendy technology?

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What is a chatbot?

A chatbot is a virtual assistant capable of conversing with human beings in natural language. Users ask a question via text or audio inputs and receive an immediate automated response from the chatbot. The intelligence level of chatbots can vary enormously. In their simplest form, they answer predefined questions with standardized information. However, when supported by artificial intelligence (AI), they can now also address very specific requests from users.

Chatbots relieve people of a great deal of work, and thus improve employee satisfaction.

Chatbots offer a win-win situation for companies, employees and customers.

More and more companies are using chatbots as part of their customer communication. Their goal is not only to increase customer satisfaction (62 per cent agreement). 64 per cent of the companies surveyed also stated that they wanted to improve the well-being of their employees through the use of the technology. Chatbots are able to relieve employees of simple tasks and thus reduce their workload. At 62 per cent, cost savings also play a major role for companies. However, there is still a lot of potential for them to increase the intelligence of their systems.

Humans and chatbots – a match made in heaven?

They are available around the clock and offer quick help. But will digital assistants soon compete with their human colleagues - or merely relieve them of tedious routine tasks? Read why in the end all parties can benefit from the use of digital assistants: employees, customers and the companies themselves.

Read the article

Increasingly, EOS is using modern technologies like self-learning AI applications in its day-to-day operations. More and more of the EOS Group’s national subsidiaries are also using chatbots in their communication with defaulting payers. The findings of the EOS Chatbot Survey 2021 provide insights into how widespread and well-developed the technology already is in European companies and what these companies expect for the future.

Structure of EOS Chatbot Survey 2021

Respondents

2,800 companies from 14 European countries
Companies in the B2C segment, with a minimum workforce of 20 and annual revenue of at least €5 million (with the exception of Croatia)
200 computer-assisted phone interviews per country

Countries

Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, France, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and Russia