lego chatbot case study

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In a recent survey, 84 percent of respondents researched gifts online, but more than 25 percent said that this was just as stressful as going into the shops. LEGO also reviewed gifting across the peak holiday period and discovered that customers were overloaded with choice. They also feared failing to give a gift that a child would like. We needed a solution that offered help and would be as individual as the customers.

Parents and gift givers who were looking to buy presents were on Facebook, so we decided a Facebook Messenger chatbot would give the required interactivity to pick out the right gift.

However, we knew that a bot on its own would not be enough to bring people into the LEGO experience, so we didn’t just build a chatbot; we built Ralph, a lovable robot with heaps of personality and one purpose: To help you find the perfect present, making users a gifting champion!

Ralph’s tone of voice, based on LEGO Movie characters, helped him stand out from other chatbots. We used warm, inviting language to make the stressful shopping experience seem carefree, fun and informed and further brought Ralph to life using playful GIFs and emojis.

Throughout the process, we recognized that not every customer wants the same journey with Ralph. Some seek a gift suggestion as quickly as possible and others prefer a deeper dive into the LEGO world. Using our audience mindsets, we created multiple entry points and behaviors for Ralph to address different customer requirements. To make sure every gift suggestion was perfect, we developed questions around price range, age, personality and interests. We then recategorized all the LEGO sets, assigning them to the new personality and interests categories. This guaranteed that relevant suggestions would suit the customer’s price point, child’s age, interests and personalities. We also developed a custom API that provided real time, localized stock updates from store.LEGO.com, and gave customers a unique free shipping code and gift. When customers were happy with their choice, a single tap would take them through to checkout at store.LEGO.com.

In three weeks, Ralph was rolled out across the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Germany, France and Poland.  We also promoted Ralph across Facebook with paid media, specifically targeting our customer mindsets with relevant messaging that spoke directly to their needs.

• Reach of over 2.69 million
• 1.2 million post engagements, with an engagement rate of over 45%
• Over 50 thousand conversations with potential new customers
• 25% of all in-season online sales, with a 6x return on ad spend within certain markets
• 8.4x higher conversion rate and a 65% lower cost per purchase than other conversion-based ad formats (such as carousels, Canvas and collections)
• Ralph joins the LEGO team on a full-time basis

Digital Innovation & Transformation

Newell brands, crock-pot® killed jack.

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Meet Lego’s Facebook Messenger chatbot Ralph, a helpful alternative to bricks and mortar

• Facebook Messenger

By John McCarthy, Opinion editor

November 23, 2017 | 3 min read

Listen to article 4 min

Lego has embraced a Facebook Messenger chatbot to help engage fans and aid consumers with gift indecision in the run up to Christmas.

Ralph the bot to drive Lego sales on Facebook

Ralph the giftbot has been created as a guide through the notoriously stacked back catalogue of Lego kits. He was built to capitulate upon Christmas indecision around gift-making and to give Lego an ecommerce foothold on the social network.

James Poulter, senior manager, digital consumer engagement at Lego, said: “We are continuously searching for new and fun ways to engage with our consumers and shoppers. Chat bots are increasingly being used by brands to engage in the digital space, and in turn to drive sales. The Lego Group is one of the first in the toy industry to embrace this concept.”

The bot has been developed as a streamlined experience where user inputs are limited to answering questions via on-screen prompts. Ralph the Robot asks users questions like their age, budget, and the type of sets they are interested in. A few seconds later and a slew of kits have been coughed up for purchase, complete with free shipping.

This controlled environment has been designed where user inputs are limited, meaning that Ralph’s responses will be solely created to reduce friction from potential purchases on the social network. The tone is broken up with numerous Gifs of the bot in action.

Genelle Holton, UK digital marketing manager, stated that Facebook’s market reach made it a desirable platform to host the bot on. Ricardo Caetano, global creative strategist at Facebook Creative Shop, added: "The Messenger Platform enables businesses to build experiences that facilitate connection with customers, create meaningful interactions and ultimately drive results."

Try the bot out here . It is featured in UK, US, Canada, France, Germany and Poland.

More from Chatbots

Industry insights.

LEGO UPLIFTS SALES BY 300% WITH Locala'S SANTA CHATBOT CAMPAIGN

Lego - taking the chat out of the bot.

LEGO, the international toymaker, partnered with Locala and Carat to innovatively reach parent shoppers across Singapore during the 2017 Christmas shopping season. To create a personalized experience while shortening the path to purchase for the target audience, LEGO launched The Santa Chatbot campaign.

Campaign Insights

To raise awareness and increase engagement of LEGO’s target audience, the Santa Chatbot was designed to assist parents during the high-pressure Christmas season. After seeing the LEGO creative on their smartphones, consumers could click on the call-to-action “Chat with Santa” and begin using the chatbot. Here, parents found product suggestions when searching for the LEGO toy most suitable for their child. Once a product was selected, users were then directed to LEGO’s online store or provided with the closest location where they could purchase the toy.

Campaign Results

Throughout the campaign, online metrics showed consistently high user engagement. With the same media budget, LEGO’s 2017 Christmas campaign achieved 100% more clicks than generated in 2016. On average, the chatbot conversation sessions were 2.08 minutes long. The landing page, in this case, the chatbot conversation flow, saw entry rates three times higher than the industry average and user interaction rates four times higher than the industry average.

The “Restart” button option in the chatbot was one of the top 10 buttons clicked, demonstrating audiences were eager to explore more features in the chatbot. Among the products recommended by the LEGO Santa Chatbot, there was an impressive +300% sales uplift compared to the weeks before the campaign’s activation.

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Increasing sales conversions with messenger bots | lego case study.

Since founded in Denmark in 1932, LEGO has grown into one of the world’s largest toy manufacturers. Speciality leader in the construction toy segment. Each year producing nearly 19 billion LEGO parts. Their most iconic product is plastic blocks, which fasten to other blocks, even those produced by the company decades ago. Known for nourishing creativity and problem-solving skills, as a result, the bricks have become a rite of passage for children all around the globe.

Here, we present how the Danish toy giant saw a 340% increase in return on ad spend. Achieving this with a clever and simple tool utilized on the Messenger platform .

In pursuit of this target, LEGO sought the assistance of their creative partners at Edelman. A global communications firm delivering powerful communications strategies, giving their clients the confidence to lead.

With an ultimate goal of increasing online sales, LEGO sought to boost sales by offering consumers gift recommendations that would guide them through the company's vast catalogue.

The solution was to enhance the online shopping Experience. In order to make that happen, LEGO, with its creative partners at Edelman, developed and rolled out its first bot for Messenger campaign during the 2017 Christmas shopping season. Due on its success, LEGO has since decided to make the bot available to consumers every day of the year. Know as Ralph, the bot enhances the digital shopping experience by quickly helping people choose and buy the perfect gift.

Given the strong results in the holiday season, LEGO’s decided to expand the bot's geographical reach, and compared the effectiveness of click-to-Messenger ads and click-to-website ads in increasing sales. The company developed colorful, catchy, short video ads.

LEGO served the click-to-Messenger ads to people over 25 located in the US, UK, France and Germany. It showed the click-to-website ads just in the UK, France and Germany. LEGO also served ads to people with an interest in the LEGO brand, toys and shopping, as well as to people who visited the LEGO website in the past 14 days but hadn't purchased in the previous 7 days.

The friendly bot for Messenger stressed the creativity and sense of fun LEGO toys can unlock in children. The campaign, which showcased colorful toys and block sets from LEGO’s immense catalog, used warm and inviting language. Bright, bold and playful, the imagery conveyed the sense of happiness inherent to LEGO, while gently encouraging purchases.

LEGO scored a clean winner with this brilliant campaign. The results of this campaign -which ran from March 22–April 6, 2018- was measured using reporting data from Facebook Ads Manager, which compared the performance and effectiveness of click-to-Messenger ads with click-to-website ads and revealed:

• 3.4X higher return on ad spend for click-to-Messenger ads compared to ads that linked to the LEGO website
• 71% lower cost per purchase when clicking through to the Messenger experience compared to ads optimized for clicks
• 1.9X higher value for website purchases made from click-to-Messenger ads

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COPYRIGHTS DIGITAL MARKETING COMMUNITY 2019

7 Effective Chatbot Use Cases Across Industries [+ Examples]

November 16, 2022

Bhavyadeep Sinh Rathod

Content Editor, WotNot

Table of Contents

Just a few days back, I searched for a musician on Google and landed on their website. 

Surprisingly, I was greeted by a chatbot. 

The bot embodied the name of the musician and was programmed to help the user to navigate, interact with them, and provide behind-the-scenes information about any of the musician’s songs.

The bot was direct about its nature of being a virtual digital assistant but the script was highly interactive and conversational.

It definitely felt like the first of its kind.

Although the number one chatbot use case is “getting a quick answer in an emergency” it made me wonder how many unexplored chatbot use cases are out there and how innovatively brands and individuals are leveraging a chatbot. 

Chatbots have evidently advanced and with numerous types of chatbots and feasible chatbot pricing modules, more companies are embracing the technology like never before.

I went on a spree, exploring real-life use cases for chatbots and how different companies are addressing their pain points or simply engaging with site visitors.

Listed below are some of the top case studies of chatbot use cases I came across.

Check them out. 

#1 Lego: An Online Retail Toy Company Drives Sales Growth Through Ecommerce Chatbot

Today, finding new target customers on an online platform is not a cakewalk. A lot of eCommerce providers are relying on conversational commerce techniques that involve amplifying their sales and support via a chatbot.

Conversational commerce combines the best of both worlds where it leverages the ease and efficiency of eCommerce portals and the personalized assistance that users would otherwise receive in a brick-and-mortar store.

It’s what one of the largest toy companies in the world did. Lego already had a great offline market. But to transit into the online world and increase its sales was not something they were accustomed to.

Moreover, they identified a pattern in their target market where their toys weren’t just bought for kids but also for adults who bought lego for nostalgia reasons. Hence, their target market comprised adults buying lego products for themselves and for others as gifts but didn’t know where to start. 

How Did Chatbots Help? 

Enter Ralph — their virtual digital assistant.

To cater to their market, they deployed Ralph, a messenger chatbot that provided product recommendations based on users’ tastes and preferences.

Ralph helped users find the right Lego set and just this simple addition gave them overwhelming success.

This direction also helped Lego earn 3.4 times higher return on ad spend for click-to-Messenger ads. The chatbot cost was also considerably lower than ads which helped them fetch a good ROI.

#2 Domino Printers : A Manufacturing Company Generates Qualified Leads and Business Value

While a lot has been said about how chatbots benefit the customer and are pioneers of sales in the B2C business scenarios, use cases for chatbots in manufacturing had largely been kept in the dark. But you’d be surprised at how many manufacturing companies are taking the assistance of a chatbot.

Manufacturing chatbots are often overwhelmed by the support tickets and managing workflows that span different floors and shifts.

Chatbots bring about the much-needed streamlining in the industrial processes and mundane tasks that its workforce would otherwise have to fulfill manually.

That brings us to our next example.

Domino Printers is a leading company in the commercial printing sector and its reasons for deploying chatbots spanned from digitizing support and generating leads during the turbulent time of the pandemic. As a result, it deployed a bot for both customer support and lead generation . 

How Did Chatbots Help?

As for lead generation, the Domino Printers chatbot showcased its 50 products on a carousel so its prospective customers can easily browse the products.

They made it possible through an Airtable integration that made it easy to add or remove products all through a no-code bot builder and an easy-to-use interface.

For customer support, the bot was designed to collect tickets relating to current products, training services, etc. Once the bot raised the ticket, it would automatically get transferred into its CRM.

As a result of this endeavor, Domino Printers was able to:

Scale its engagement by 60%, 

Generate a $1.25M attributed pipeline

Solve more than 130 service tickets. 

Not so bad for a manufacturing company, isn’t it? 

#3 Luxury Escapes : A Travel Company Offers Personalized Travel Packages to Users

The success of the travel industry relies on the number of bookings. Besides, most activities in the travel industry need to contend with customers arriving, leaving, planning and executing. The smoother these processes are, the better.

Being highly service oriented, a travel company also needs to provide top-notch support.

But enhancing the customer experience in travel has always been a challenge. The evolving expectations of customers require brands to provide round-the-clock support and assistance throughout the entire booking journey.

This was what Luxury Escapes was looking for. An Australian global travel company experienced over 2 million website visitors monthly. The visitors would surf for new deals and tour packages, but the journey lacked the personal touch.

The conversion ratio was not up to the mark and the revenue suffered. The marketing efforts didn’t pay off since the number of visitors was not doing anything for the business. 

Luxury Escapes deployed a lead-generation AI chatbot that conversed with every website user and enhanced their site experience. The chatbot also came with additional features pertaining to travel industries.

It included a holiday planner that customers could use to design their holiday packages and a product recommendation engine that would recommend packages best suited for individuals after asking a few questions.

Moreover, to further enhance engagement, the chatbot also included a roll-the-dice game for users for the purpose of suggesting random travel destinations. The game proved to be a huge success since it was played 6800 times in its three-month campaign. 

#4 Zydus : A Multi-specialty Hospital Schedules Appointments at Scale 

Recently, the healthcare industry has experienced an unbearable burden. Globally, hospitals are understaffed and the raging pandemic and other diseases are prompting them to work overtime.

The Healthcare industry has never shied away from embracing new technology that helps reduce their burden and automate key tasks. As healthcare organizations offer increasingly better care and improve health outcomes, AI is playing a central role in the current advancement of the industry and paving the way for numerous healthcare chatbot use cases.

Healthcare chatbots aren’t just systems designed to interact with customers and patients. One of their strengths also lies in the fact that they can be highly competent in internal roles when exposed to different training data. They can book appointments, and provide answers to basic FAQs before the official diagnosis.

Zydus Hospitals , a multi-specialty hospital in India decided to leverage a healthcare chatbot to increase their appointment booking via their website chatbot.

It further wanted to make its service round-the-clock and provide instant answers to patients. Meanwhile, it also wanted to make the booking processes seamless and it knew that the only way it could achieve everything at once would be via a chatbot. 

Since India is a multi-lingual country, the first thing Zydus did was build multi-lingual chatbots to reach a larger audience. The chatbot would automate the first part of a doctor-patient interaction, which is, diagnosing the disease.

The chatbot would ask a series of questions and prompt the patient to book an appointment. After this, all the doctor has to do is evaluate the answers and suggest a treatment plan.

As a result of this project, Zydus hospitals were able to:

Handle more than 88k conversations, 

Book more than 5k appointments,

Generate business revenue of more than $276K

#5 Royal Bank of Canada : A Global Bank Leverages a Digital Banking Assistant

Banks and the insurance industry strives for services that are meaningful and personal. But with growing customers, it becomes difficult to scale while also keeping their experience intact.

Besides, the future of banking needs to fulfill the demand and walk in the shoes of tech-savvy customers. To address the technological challenges and gaps, financial institutions are implementing AI, insurance chatbots , and banking chatbots to facilitate conversations with millions of customers at once.

Banking chatbots can proactively alert customers to make pending payments, and check out the latest offers on credit cards, and potential upgrades and issues with their bank accounts.

Tasks that used to be completed by talking in a branch or on the phone, are replaced by conversations on a bot interface with virtual assistants for support in real-time.

Canada’s largest bank, the Royal Bank of Canada is following the path to AI automation through chatbots. Over time, it has rolled out AI-powered solutions through NOMI (dubbed from ‘know me’) that have given them a competitive edge. 

The bank uses NOMI to send alerts and reminders to account holders. It sends them personalized insights based on their banking history and habits. The chatbot is available on the bank’s mobile app, hence it allows them to manage their daily spending and calculate their budget.

NOMI is also multilingual and smart enough to transfer the chat to a live agent as and when needed. Even though the bot can handle 75% of the questions, it seamlessly transfers to a human if the user wants answers to more personal and complex questions. 

#6 AMTRAK : A Train Company Facilitates Online Ticket Booking via a Chatbot

As mentioned, online booking has become the new normal, be it for saloons, travel, hospitals, and other service-based industries. The speed and convenience that automation provides in the online booking are unmatched by the manual process.

As one of the largest rail companies in the US, AMTRAK witnesses thousands of visitors every day. They have more than 20,000 employees and 30 million passengers a year. 

AMTRAK was facing the same issues that most face in the travel and service industry today — shortage of customer service staff and increasing customers. 

What AMTRAK did is pretty simple. It deployed a messenger chatbot called ‘Julie’ that helps site visitors plan vacations by themselves, book reservations at hotels, navigate the site, and get route information.

The chatbots made three things possible for AMTRAK

Offered a medium for post-sale support 

Provided live chat only when needed

Promoted self-service for its thousands of visitors 

Julie was programmed to act as the company’s 24/7 customer service representative and currently answers more than 5 million questions per year.

As a result of this, the company witnessed a 25% increase in its bookings, and its booking through chatbots generated 30% more revenue. 

#7 TechCrunch : A Technology News Company Pushes the Latest Stories Through a Conversational Marketing Tool

What could possibly be the chatbot use case for an already successful web-based technology news company?

TechCrunch entered the chatbot game early on and implemented them with one core focus —  to increase the customer’s brand experience .

It wanted to circulate its content in a better way and make it available to users whenever they needed it.

TechCrunch’s custom chatbot allowed users to pick the number of times they’d like to receive new content and filter them based on the type of content, the authors, etc.

Since TechCrunch has a lengthy directory of content, it facilitates users to customize the experience based on their preferences. Naturally, it drove engaged traffic to the site and laid the foundation for long-term customer relationships. 

Finishing Thoughts

The list can be endless if we talk about how bots helped brands achieve the greatest heights of success. But the truth is, we’ve barely scratched the surface when it comes to chatbot use cases. As bot technology progresses, it can do a lot more for brands and customers alike.

All in all, bots are a good topic of discussion. If you’re looking to get educated about them in detail, feel free to contact us , and we can take you on a bot-i-ful journey and help you understand its use cases in depth.

ABOUT AUTHOR

He likes technology, chatbots, comedy, philosophy, and sports. He often cracks hilarious jokes and lightens everyone's mood in the team.

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Embracing Customer-Centric Transformation – The Story of LEGO

Building beyond business: how lego’s meaning-driven model redefines success.

In the fast-paced world of business, companies often emphasize competitive edge and customer service. Yet, many fail to address a crucial question: why does their company truly matter? In a world teeming with options, what makes a business stand out isn’t just service quality, but its inherent meaning and relevance to its customers. This article explores how LEGO, a company renowned for its customer-centric approach and continuous transformation, has leveraged these qualities to create a business model that thrives even in challenging times.

The traditional view of business models focuses heavily on outperforming competitors and delivering value to customers. However, this perspective misses a critical element – the ‘why’ behind a company’s existence. The real challenge lies in identifying the unique meaning that makes a company indispensable to its customers, employees, and the broader community.

“We remain fully focused on our ambition to inspire and develop more children around the world. We are proud to be in a strong financial position to deliver on this mission today and invest to ensure we continue to deliver for many generations in the future”

— Niels B Christiansen, CEO of LEGO Group

The LEGO Paradigm:

LEGO’s journey offers a compelling case study in this context. Known for its plastic building blocks, LEGO has become more than just a toy manufacturer; it represents a hub for creativity and learning. This transformation didn’t happen overnight. It was the result of deeply understanding and empathizing with their customers’ desires – not just for toys, but for tools that stimulate imagination and learning.

LEGO’s success in continuously adapting to market demands illustrates the importance of listening to customers. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, LEGO faced a critical phase with declining sales and relevance. However, by re-engaging with its core audience and innovating based on customer feedback, LEGO transformed its business model. They expanded into video games, movies, and even theme parks, all the while staying true to their core value of fostering creativity.

Timeline of LEGO’s Transformation

1. Early Beginnings (1932-1958)

• 1932 : Ole Kirk Christiansen founded LEGO in Billund, Denmark.
• 1949 : Introduction of the Automatic Binding Bricks, the early version of LEGO bricks.
• 1958 : Patenting of the modern LEGO brick design.

2. Expansion and Innovation (1959-1990)

• 1960s : Expansion of LEGO product line with new sets and themes.
• 1978 : Introduction of the first LEGO Minifigures.
• 1980s : LEGO begins to diversify with the launch of themed sets like LEGO Space and LEGO Castle.

3. Financial Crisis and Near-Bankruptcy (1990s-2004)

• Late 1990s : Facing increasing competition, LEGO expands into markets like video games, movies, and theme parks, but struggles with financial losses.
• 2003-2004 : LEGO nears bankruptcy, with a reported loss of DKK 1.4 billion in 2003.

4. Restructuring and Refocusing (2005-2010)

• 2005 : Jørgen Vig Knudstorp becomes CEO, initiating major restructuring.
• 2005-2010 : LEGO refocuses on core products and reduces costs, leading to a dramatic turnaround in profitability.

5. Innovation and Growth (2011-Present)

• 2011 : Launch of LEGO Ninjago, a major success.
• 2014 : Release of “The LEGO Movie”, a blockbuster hit, revitalizing the brand.
• 2015-2020 : Continued expansion into digital platforms and educational products.
• 2023 : LEGO remains a leader in creativity and innovation, with a strong focus on educational and sustainable products.

This timeline encapsulates LEGO’s journey from a small Danish company to a global leader in creative play, highlighting its ability to adapt, innovate, and stay relevant in a constantly changing market.

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Beyond the Numbers: LEGO’s Holistic Business Approach

A. Customer-Centric Innovation

• Listening to the Audience : LEGO’s turnaround is largely attributed to its renewed focus on customer feedback. The company actively sought input from its core audience – children – and their parents, understanding their preferences and evolving interests.
• Product Evolution : Based on customer insights, LEGO continually evolved its product lines, introducing sets that catered to various interests, from traditional building blocks to themed sets like LEGO Harry Potter and LEGO Star Wars, appealing to both children and adults.
• Quality and Safety : Despite financial challenges, LEGO maintained its commitment to high-quality, safe products, understanding that trust and brand integrity were paramount in retaining customer loyalty.

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B. Strategic Brand Collaborations

• Partnerships : LEGO forged strategic partnerships with popular franchises, enhancing its market appeal. These collaborations, like those with Marvel and DC Comics, brought in new customers and re-engaged lapsed fans.
• Educational Alliances : Collaborations with educational institutions to promote STEM learning through LEGO products further expanded its market and reinforced its commitment to educational development.

C. Sustainable Practices

• Environmental Commitment : LEGO demonstrated a commitment to sustainability, aiming to reduce its carbon footprint and transitioning to renewable energy sources. This approach resonated with environmentally conscious consumers.
• Sustainable Materials : The company invested in research to replace traditional plastic with sustainable materials, aligning with global environmental concerns and adding a new dimension of corporate responsibility to its brand image.

D. Digital Transformation

• Video Games and Mobile Apps : LEGO ventured into digital spaces with video games and mobile apps, effectively connecting with the tech-savvy younger generation.
• LEGO Digital Designer : This tool allowed users to design their own LEGO sets virtually, fostering creativity and interaction with the brand beyond physical products.

E. Community Engagement and Brand Experience

• LEGO Clubs and Magazines : These platforms offered a way for fans to engage with each other and the brand, sharing creations and ideas, thus building a strong LEGO community.
• LEGOland Theme Parks : These parks provided an immersive brand experience, turning LEGO into a lifestyle choice, not just a product.

F. Financial Resilience and Long-term Vision

• Financial Strategy : Post-restructuring, LEGO focused on sustainable growth rather than short-term gains, ensuring financial stability and resilience.
• Continued Innovation and Expansion : LEGO’s investment in new product lines and experiences kept the brand relevant and competitive, ensuring its market position in the long term.

G. Employee Engagement and Corporate Culture

• Employee Involvement : LEGO fostered a culture of innovation among its employees, encouraging them to contribute ideas and be part of the brand’s evolution.
• Workplace Environment : By creating a positive and creative work environment, LEGO ensured a motivated workforce, which was crucial for its turnaround and ongoing success.

H. Broader Impact and Social Responsibility

• Community Initiatives : LEGO’s involvement in community projects and educational initiatives underscored its commitment to having a positive social impact.
• Promoting Creativity and Learning : Beyond just selling toys, LEGO positioned itself as a catalyst for creativity and learning, aligning with broader educational and developmental goals.

LEGO’s story demonstrates that a company’s success is not solely measured by financial metrics, but also by how it resonates with and contributes to the well-being of its customers, employees, and society at large. This holistic approach to business has not only helped LEGO survive but thrive, establishing it as a beloved and enduring brand.

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Implementing the Concept Essence: LEGO’s Strategic Execution and Performance

A. Clarifying the Concept Essence

• Defining Purpose : LEGO crystallized its concept essence around “inspiring and developing the builders of tomorrow.” This vision went beyond toy production to emphasize creativity, education, and personal development.
• Customer-Centricity : The essence was implemented through a deep understanding of customer needs, aspirations, and evolving trends, ensuring that LEGO’s products and experiences remained relevant and engaging.

B. Translating Essence into Action

• Product Design and Innovation : LEGO’s commitment to this essence was evident in its product lines, which were continuously innovated to encourage creativity, problem-solving, and storytelling.
• Brand Experiences : Through LEGOland theme parks and interactive exhibitions, the company offered immersive experiences that embodied its essence, enhancing its appeal to families and LEGO enthusiasts.

C. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Improvements

• Increased Sales and Market Share : Following its restructuring and refocusing on the concept essence, LEGO saw a significant increase in global sales, regaining and expanding its market share in the toy industry.
• Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty : Customer satisfaction metrics improved, as reflected in repeat purchases and positive reviews. LEGO’s engagement strategies, like interactive platforms and clubs, fostered a loyal customer base.
• Brand Recognition and Reputation : LEGO consistently ranked high in global brand recognition surveys, reflecting its strong positioning in the eyes of customers.

D. Positioning in the Eyes of the Customer

• Innovative and Educational Brand Image : Customers perceived LEGO as a brand that not only provided entertainment but also contributed to learning and development, aligning with modern educational values.
• Sustainable and Responsible Company : LEGO’s initiatives in sustainability and community engagement positively impacted its image, portraying it as a socially responsible brand.
• Culturally Relevant and Diverse Offerings : With its diverse product ranges and inclusive designs, LEGO appealed to a wide demographic, from children to adult collectors, enhancing its universal appeal.

E. Ongoing Adaptation and Evolution

• Responsive to Market Trends : LEGO’s agility in responding to market changes, such as the rise in digitalization and eco-consciousness, kept it ahead of industry trends.
• Employee Involvement in Innovation : The company encouraged a culture of innovation among its employees, who played a vital role in keeping the essence alive through new ideas and initiatives.

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F. Communication and Brand Messaging

• Consistent Brand Messaging : LEGO’s marketing and communication strategies consistently echoed its concept essence, reinforcing its commitment to creativity, education, and social responsibility.
• Engaging Storytelling : Through storytelling in its marketing campaigns, LEGO connected emotionally with its audience, making the brand more relatable and memorable.

G. Measuring Success Beyond Financials

• Impact on Education and Creativity : LEGO’s success was also measured by its impact on promoting creativity and education among children worldwide.
• Community and Environmental Contributions : The company’s efforts in sustainability and community projects added another layer to its success metrics, aligning with broader societal values.

By effectively implementing its concept essence, LEGO not only improved key performance indicators but also repositioned itself in the global market as a brand that stands for innovation, education, and social responsibility. This strategic approach enabled LEGO to resonate deeply with customers, creating a strong and enduring brand connection.

Where is LEGO now?

LEGO’s financial performance for the first half of 2023 shows a mix of challenges and strengths which reinforces the need to continuously improve and establish strategic resilience:

• Growth and Profitability : Compared to the previous two years, LEGO experienced a slowdown in growth and profitability. Consumer sales increased by 3% from the previous year, but revenue only grew by 1%, resulting in sales of 27.4 billion DKK (approximately US$3.99 billion). The net profit declined to 5.1 billion DKK (about US$0.74 billion), a decrease of 17.74% compared to 6.2 billion DKK (US$0.9 billion) in the previous year. The decline in net profit is attributed to rising costs and potentially increased discounts offered by LEGO​ ​​ ​.
• Investment and Strategy : Despite these challenges, LEGO continued to invest heavily, spending 3.6 billion DKK on property, plants, equipment, and intangible assets. These investments were likely for new manufacturing facilities in Virginia, USA, and Vietnam, and for expanding the capacity of existing factories. The company’s decision not to decrease investment or lay off staff highlights its operational strategy and long-term focus​ ​​ ​.
• Market Performance and Initiatives : LEGO’s market share grew significantly as it outperformed a declining toy market . The company’s portfolio in 2023 included more than 750 products, with top performing themes like LEGO® Icons, LEGO Star Wars™, and LEGO Technic™. LEGO also continued its partnership with Epic Games to create digital experiences for children. The brand was recognized as the most reputable brand in the world by RepTrak in April​ ​.
• Financial Overview : LEGO’s operating profit for the first half of 2023 was DKK 6.4 billion, down from DKK 7.9 billion in the previous year. The company’s free cash flow was DKK 1.1 billion, reflecting investments in global manufacturing capacity and technology upgrades. These financial results show LEGO’s commitment to long-term strategic initiatives, including manufacturing, digitalization, and sustainability​ ​.

We are satisfied with our performance; especially as it has been a challenging six months for the toy industry. Demand for our products saw us outpace the industry and significantly grow market share. Our strong financial position allows us to invest for the long term, particularly in areas such as digital, sustainability, and manufacturing. Overall, our performance is in line with expectations, after three consecutive years of extraordinary growth, and we are grateful for our great colleagues who work each day to inspire children through play”. Niels B Christiansen, CEO of LEGO Group :

Overall, LEGO’s financial performance in the first half of 2023 indicates a period of strategic investment and market strength, despite challenges in growth and profitability. The company’s focus on innovation, digital transformation, and sustainability positions it well for long-term success in the evolving toy industry.

CDO TIMES Bottom Line: LEGO’s Strategic Resilience and Market Success

1. Embracing a Holistic Business Philosophy:

• LEGO’s transformation showcases the power of a business model that goes beyond financial metrics. By integrating creativity, education, and social responsibility into its core philosophy, LEGO has established itself as a brand with a purpose, resonating deeply with consumers across various demographics.

2. Customer-Centric Approach as a Success Driver:

• The company’s customer-focused strategy, which involved actively listening to and incorporating feedback, has been instrumental in its turnaround. This approach not only revived its product lines but also fortified customer loyalty, proving that understanding and valuing customer needs are crucial for long-term success.

3. Innovation and Adaptability:

• LEGO’s continuous innovation, both in product development and digital transformation, has kept it at the forefront of the toy industry. Its ability to adapt to changing market trends and consumer preferences underscores the importance of agility and foresight in business strategy.

4. Sustainable Practices and Social Responsibility:

• LEGO’s commitment to sustainability and community engagement has not only improved its brand image but also aligned it with the growing global focus on environmental and social governance (ESG). This approach demonstrates how corporate responsibility can contribute to a company’s appeal and relevance in the modern market.

5. Financial Resilience Through Value Creation:

• The financial turnaround and growth of LEGO, following its strategic restructuring, highlight the effectiveness of a value-driven business model. LEGO’s focus on creating long-term value rather than short-term gains has ensured its financial resilience and market leadership.

6. Educational Impact and Community Engagement:

• LEGO’s impact extends beyond the realm of business into education and community development. By positioning itself as a tool for learning and creativity, LEGO has contributed significantly to the educational sector, enhancing its societal value.

7. The Role of Corporate Culture and Employee Engagement:

• The transformation journey of LEGO also emphasizes the role of a positive and innovative corporate culture. Employee engagement and involvement in the company’s vision have been key factors in driving its success and sustaining its innovative edge.

8. Building a Legacy and Setting Industry Standards:

• LEGO has not just survived market challenges; it has thrived and set new standards in the toy industry. Its journey from near bankruptcy to becoming a global leader is a testament to the power of a meaningful, customer-focused, and socially responsible business approach.

Final Analysis: LEGO’s story is a powerful example for C-level executives looking to steer their companies through challenging times and competitive markets. It illustrates that integrating purpose, customer-centricity, innovation, and social responsibility into the business model can lead to remarkable resilience, growth, and a lasting legacy. This approach can serve as a blueprint for businesses aiming to achieve not just financial success but also a meaningful and enduring impact in their industries and communities.

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• Deep Expertise : CDO TIMES has a team of experts with deep expertise in the field of Digital, Data and AI and its integration into business processes. This knowledge ensures that your organization can leverage digital and AI in the most optimal and innovative ways.
• Strategic Insight : Not only can the CDO TIMES team help develop a Digital & AI strategy, but they can also provide insights into how this strategy fits into your overall business model and objectives. They understand that every business is unique, and so should be its Digital & AI strategy.
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Carsten Krause

I am Carsten Krause, CDO, founder and the driving force behind The CDO TIMES, a premier digital magazine for C-level executives. With a rich background in AI strategy, digital transformation, and cyber security, I bring unparalleled insights and innovative solutions to the forefront. My expertise in data strategy and executive leadership, combined with a commitment to authenticity and continuous learning, positions me as a thought leader dedicated to empowering organizations and individuals to navigate the complexities of the digital age with confidence and agility. The CDO TIMES publishing, events and consulting team also assesses and transforms organizations with actionable roadmaps delivering top line and bottom line improvements. With CDO TIMES consulting, events and learning solutions you can stay future proof leveraging technology thought leadership and executive leadership insights. Contact us at: [email protected] to get in touch.

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Ideas Made to Matter

Innovating in existing markets: 3 lessons from LEGO

Beth Stackpole

Sep 21, 2021

With the invention of the interlocking plastic brick, a favorite toy of generations, LEGO was a poster child for business innovation — that is, until it wasn’t.

The Danish toymaker’s trajectory from industry trailblazer to the brink of bankruptcy to sustained recovery shows there’s more to innovation than sheer luck or a wholesale focus on disruption.

“No innovation lasts forever,” said David Robertson, a senior lecturer in operations management, in a recent webinar hosted by MIT Sloan Executive Education. “Sometimes you get hyper growth for a couple of years, sometimes you get steady growth for longer. But innovations run their course.”

From its inception in the 1930s to its brush with bankruptcy in 2003 and its subsequent turnaround, LEGO tried every approach in the book to managing innovation, some resulting in spectacular success and others in great failure, said Robertson, author of “ Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry .”

Based on years of research and what he’s seen at LEGO and other companies, Robertson advocates for an expansive approach to innovation — helping customers get more value from existing products by offering innovative complementary products, services, and business models.

“It’s how Apple turned itself around, it’s how GoPro got five years of 90% growth, it’s how Sherwin-Williams gets twice the price per gallon of paint than other paints that are functional equivalents,” explained Robertson, who also teaches an executive education course on the topic . “Marvel Comics turned itself around in the same way.”

Among the innovation lessons to be learned from those firms: Have a variety of tools in the toolbox and don’t be afraid to use them, listen deeply to your customers, and prepare for a steady diet of continuous reinvention to remain relevant, even as an iconic brand.

LEGO’s brick-by-brick approach

LEGO was a small family business that grew steadily until the management reins were handed off in the late 1970s to the grandson of the founder and newly minted MBA, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, who quickly unleashed a wave of innovation.

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With the younger Kristiansen at the helm, LEGO branched out into the Technic brand — a more sophisticated building system to attract older children — and launched the first mini figure and fantasy action play sets, fueling 15 years of growth during which the company doubled in size every five years.

Growth slowed in the 1990s for a number of reasons, including a rise in digital play experiences from companies such as Nintendo and Sony, the rise of Toys “R” Us and other big box stores, the expiration of LEGO’s brick patents, and the relocation of production of Mattel’s and Hasbro’s products to China, lowering the cost of their competitive toys.

LEGO responded in 1999 by refocusing its innovation efforts on revolutionary products that would reinvent the nature of play. “They became convinced that if all they offered was another box of bricks, they would become a commodity,” Robertson said. “They believed they needed to disrupt themselves before somebody else did.”

After a series of missteps that included the rollout of electronic toys for toddlers and a digitally connected action hero, LEGO found itself nearly bankrupt in 2003. In the rush to innovate, the firm lost sight of its core — physical construction-based play. After layoffs, emergency loans, and other measures aimed at staving off bankruptcy, LEGO turned those innovation miscues into a new strategy — one that precipitated a turnaround and laid the groundwork for further growth.

Among the key lessons that companies with a mature product line can follow to innovate:

Respect what made you great. Sometimes knowing where not to innovate is just as important as knowing where to innovate, Robertson said. LEGO learned that in a new digital landscape it was no longer enough to offer a box of plastic bricks — the brick had become a commodity. But the brick was still necessary, because that’s what customers expected of the brand.

Through trial and error and a number of failed digital-only initiatives, LEGO discovered customers wanted digital experiences that complemented core offerings, rather than replaced them.

Centering innovation around the brick-based construction experience through new stories, games, and experiences, exemplified by the fan-favorite Bionicle product line, is what drove customers back to the LEGO brand and returned the company to profitability.

“You try to understand who your customer is, what they care about — that’s the way we should think about innovation,” Robertson said. “You need to be dating your customer, not fighting your competitor.”

Maintain a customer-centric development process. When the big box stores took over from its ecosystem of small toy stores, LEGO lost an important channel for getting reliable customer feedback. LEGO began to evolve product development practices to support design thinking principles, empowering experts to come up with ideas for new products based on that critical customer input.

Today, LEGO regularly engages children in the process of character development, storytelling, and providing feedback on new playset ideas. “LEGO has a great expression for why they listen to kids when developing new toys,” said Robertson.  “Mads Nipper, the former head of marketing and product development, liked to say, ‘Kids will never lie to you about whether something’s fun or not.’”

Develop a family of complementary innovations to distinguish yourself from competitors. Innovation leaders need to lean on a range of different approaches for innovation, since tactics will vary depending on the scenario and business goals. It’s important to nurture a culture that’s able to shift gears if traditional methods don't deliver desired results.

“You need to learn how to play chords, not keys, on the innovation ‘piano,’” Robertson said. “Pursuing multiple, complementary innovations that harmonize to create something is much better than any one key alone.”

STU HALLYBONE

Ralf the LEGO Chatbot

Meet Ralph, a lovable robot with heaps of personality and one purpose: To help you find the perfect LEGO set for your little builder .

Ralph was rolled out across the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Germany, France and Poland to lots of praise for effectiveness . Facebook is also a fan and uses Ralf as a success case study for other e-commerce chatbots to follow.

To build on this, we also made some LEGO x PayPal partner social stings.

AI Bot Case Study

Did you know that when you have Isk it makes things so much better!

Heres a thought…

Can you make an AI bot that would be interactive enough when a link is clicked on…

That can be given to players that lose their minds over being ganked… So the Ai bot could read their Kill loss mail and teach them why/what happened and how to refit(tank their ships) avoid it in the future?

Safe to assume this is a new experience for you since you don’t donate all your ISK to Aiko anymore.

• Marketing & Advertising

How to utilize Chatbot in e-commerce? Let’s examine 3 purchase stimulation case studies!

• 9 August 2021
• 5 minutes read

Want to chat with “people”? Just direct message (DM) the big brand Facebook Pages! In recent years, chatbots have been a marketing tool used by many brands. According to verloop, the development trend saw nearly 80% of companies using chatbots in 2020, and more than 50% of customers expect companies to provide 24/7 customer service support; by 2022, chatbots will bring about more than eight billion dollars in savings to the global market. Chatbots are set to set off a wave of “conversational commerce” in the future e-commerce market.

In the application of chatbots, we believe that there are two general directions: internal and external (internally with respect to database retrieval, internal management; externally with respect to customer service, marketing, etc.). For the e-commerce industry, the company’s external application is more important. Shrinking the purchase journey of consumers can increase their willingness to place orders. Most chatbots will link to social media, communication apps, etc., to take advantage of social commerce, quickly and effectively targeting the products to potential consumers.

This article focuses on the external applications of chatbots. We will examine how major e-commerce brands use chatbots for customer service and sales by combining social commerce with conversational commerce to create a marketing method that is closer to the modern consumer’s lifestyle! 

Article Directory

What elements does a chatbot need, three e-commerce brands’ chatbot application scenarios.

  Before discussing the application of chatbots in e-commerce, we need to understand what elements a good chatbot needs to have. From the consumer’s perspective, features that capture your attention, effectively solve your questions, tempt you to place an order directly through the chat window are the 3 crucial elements. 

The logic of the chatbot is mainly related to the script you write. Therefore, when setting up the chatbot’s responses, the script should be written very clearly. Only logical chatbots can effectively solve the instant problems of consumers and reduce the labor cost of customer service. In a script set up, it is necessary to be very clear about the problems frequently encountered by consumers, so that consumers can be guided at every step of the way towards the final answer in the conversation .

For the script settings of e-commerce brand chatbots, product-related questions and purchase FAQs are all necessary, to allow consumers to find answers via the 24/7 chatbot.  

2. Humanization  

Humanized dialogue is one of the marketing engagement weapons for brands, giving consumers a sense of service enthusiasm. A chatbot too standardized will make consumers feel distanced, despite immediate response time as it lacks the humanization aspect. Therefore, a humanized dialogue setting is an important element to enhance the chatbot application to brands .

Through colloquial settings, personalizing response to include consumer names (such as: hello Kevin, how can I help you?), and even adding some interactive forms of fun (such as: interesting riddles, rhetorical conversations) etc, will make consumers perceive the dialogue as less mechanic.

When applied to e-commerce, humanized elements will not only make sales interesting, but also shift consumers’ impressions of brand chatbots to be authentic and personal. For example, the chatbots of Shopee Taiwan often use themed games with play on words and copy to engage consumers’ participation, and finally provide discounts to arouse consumers’ willingness to buy.  Consumers also change their perceptions of Shopee Taiwan’s chatbots all the while as more interesting.

Figure 1. Shopee Taiwan chatbot applies interesting mini games that help to increase the willingness to interact and can also stimulate purchase

3. Convenience

The convenience of using chatbots is also very important. A complex bot triggering and when each command requires consumers to enter longer keywords, will greatly reduce consumers’ willingness to chat. In this case, default buttons can be used to provide convenience, allowing consumers to change from active input to passive input through preset choices. These preset choices can also guide consumers towards preset scenarios and effectively answer their problems .

In addition, the convenience of the chatbot is the establishment of the member information where it can help input personal information on behalf of the consumer through Q&A, bypassing the need to separately open the website registration form. This feature greatly reduces the chance of consumers giving up during member registration.

When it comes to e-commerce sale enabled by chatbots, convenience is particularly important. You can add buttons for popular products, order inquiries, event information, brand FAQs, etc. to the chatbots, so that consumers can get the information sought from their social media and communication app without having to open the website to log in.

Three e-commerce chatbot application scenarios

According to overseas survey data, chatbots are most commonly used in the context of customer service, which can effectively respond in real time and reduce customer service labor. In addition to customer service, sales of goods and shopping FAQs are also very important chatbot applications for e-commerce companies. We will share 3 overseas e-commerce case studies of chatbot applications. 

Case 1: LEGO (Sales Scenario)

Figure 2: LEGO chatbot Ralph

LEGO, a well-known toy brand, used a Facebook Messenger chatbot (Ralph) assigned to solve the main problem of “choosing the right gift”. Since LEGO is one of the relatively higher priced toys, many of its buyers are parents of children, elders, etc.

As for the type of toys that children like, LEGO designed a guided dialogue for gift selection, so that parents can select gifts customized to their children. Furthermore, the chatbot is also connected to the localized inventory information on LEGO’s official website to prevent consumers from buying out-of-stock products.

Towards the end of the interaction when the consumer confirms the purchase, it only takes a click to be redirected to the online store page where the product has been placed in the shopping cart. Frequent offers of free shipping code and unique gifts also dont hurt in stimulating consumers to purchase. EDELMAN DIGITAL and Sumo’s case analysis data mentioned that LEGO’s chatbots promoted the quarter’s social media sales growth by 25%, and multiplied ROAS (return on advertising spend) by 6 times, and reduced cost per conversion by 31%.

Case 2: Lidl (FAQ+Sales Scenario)

Figure 3. Lidl chatbot Margot

Lidl Supermarket is a German supermarket chain with more than 8,000 branches around the world. Among these branches, a chatbot (Margot) is available to stimulate wine purchases, tips on food pairings, and even education on wine making methods. Integrating marketing content in the dialogue, Lidl achieved its sales goals through more than 200 kinds of food pairings recommendation, over 600 different types of wine-related questions to answer and promoting wine to be sold. 

Case 3: H&M (sales + understanding customer preferences)

Figure 4. H&M’s chatbot interface options

H&M’s chatbot mainly recommends suitable products for you through gender and style selection. At the same time, you can also choose to like or dislike this recommended product, so that consumers can find products through Q&A with the chatbot. With a redirection link to the store website to make purchases, consumers are more willing to buy. Effectively, H&M is indirectly learning what consumers like and how product categories perform, all of which can be used as references in marketing strategy planning.

The above are three case studies on the application of chatbots in e-commerce. In the future, as social commerce gradually integrates into the lives of modern society, channels that can quickly reach consumers will definitely strengthen product sales; case-in-point with chatbots being one of these channels. Perhaps some challenges may lie ahead. But we believe that in such a booming AI era, these challenges will be solved accordingly and completely change mainstream consumption habits.

Are you also using chatbots? Is it helpful for online store sales? Feel free to share your comments!

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Top 24 Chatbot Case Studies & Success Stories in 2024

Although the hype about chatbots is increasing, chatbot failure stories continue to get more visibility as well. However, success stories are rare, and ambitious conversational interface designers need to study them because, for every hundred failures, there are only a few success stories.

We compiled a list of 24 successful chatbot examples and example scripts from different applications. Our list contains the best chatbots for different applications and business use cases , such as, sales chatbots (Landbot.io), to friendly bots, such as, Replika.ai.

Learnings from studying hundreds of chatbots

We have seen companies that focus on their users’ important needs, set realistic targets and pay attention to usability build successful bots . It is important to know that not all chatbots are success stories. From our research, we stumbled upon numerous chatbot failures .

Now, without further ado, let’s start talking chatbots.

Customer service chatbots

Customer service bots resolve client queries such as answering FAQs or following up on a shipment status. These bots should help increase user engagement and satisfaction with their timely answers. Thus, chatbots are important part of conversational commerce strategies of companies .

1- HelloFresh Freddy

HelloFresh launched its bot to

• manage its surveys and quizzes. When Facebook users correctly responded to quizzes, Freddy sent them automated deals.
• suggest recipes.

Even though bot does not seem impressive in its conversational capabilities, it was able to:

• Reduce response time by 76%. This is not surprising as bot immediately responded to numerous queries, bringing the average response time down.
• Boost incoming messages by 47%

Healthcare chatbots

2- dr. a.i. already makes recommendations like a doctor.

Developed by the healthcare app, HealthTap, Dr. A.I.? reads patients’ symptoms, asks follow-up questions, and analyzes their data stored in the HealthTap app to connect patients with a specialized doctor in the vicinity. Dr. A.I.? uses HealthTap’s database of answers written by medical doctors to make the right recommendations regarding what next steps the patient should take. The latter can range from reading doctor recommendations to scheduling a virtual or in-person doctor visit or seeking urgent care.

3- Melody by Baidu, China’s Google, helps doctors collect symptoms

Melody collects symptoms from patients and summarizes them to doctors. Since diagnosing is pattern matching, it is not inconceivable that chatbots will one day be diagnosing us and prescribing our medicine. In times of great pressure on the medical staff and shortage of health workers, these bots could perhaps save lives by bypassing the need of visiting a human doctor.

Therapist chatbots

4- woebot is a free therapy chatbot.

Woebot is created by Alison Darcy, a clinical psychologist at Stanford University. It launched as an iOS app in 2018. Woebot uses cognitive-behavioral therapy to deliver scripted responses to users. 70 college students dealing with depression tested Woebot and their improvements were published in a research paper demonstrating significant benefits.

5- Wysa raises funds to address employees’ mental health

Wysa is a therapy chatbot that has gotten lots of positive reviews from its users. The chatbot was created in 2016 for individuals and employees alike to navigate their ways through stress, depression, anxiety, and other psychological distresses.

In 2021, Wysa was able to raise $5.5M in Series A funding to specifically focus on employee mental health. That was perhaps following the rise in interest in employee mental health, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic and stresses of occupational and health uncertainties.

6- X2AI’s Tess is a psychologist augmentation chatbot

Available both on a phone number and on Facebook’s Messenger, Tess uses a variety of psychological approaches to support patients, and allows psychologists to engage with a higher number of patients. Tess gives users the opportunity to talk to it if they are having a panic attack or put their thoughts into order before going to sleep.

A capability that distinguishes Tess from other therapy chatbots is that it uses ML to remember and use the data interactions it has to increase the accuracy and personalization of its recommendation. So when you close the app and open it again, you are not talking to a blank canvas, but rather a companion that remembers your confrontations at work or food allergies.

Explore chatbot use cases in healthcare in our in-depth article on the topic.

Conversion boosters & sales bots

While sales bots don’t have publicly available stats on their tractions, they are widely applicable. Market leader vendors developing sales bots can be successful if they can build a powerful solution.

7- Landbot.io for landing pages

Landbot.io gives businesses the opportunity to build their own chatbots through their visual, no-code chatbot builder. Landbot’s chatbot uses conditional logic (if X then Y) to convert leads into customers.

An insurance provider conglomerate, was able to achieve a 90% success rate in terms of assisting current clients with their insurance claims and converting potential leads into customers.

8- Dominos eases the process of ordering a pizza with a bot

Dominos leverages a restaurant chatbot to provide a frictionless order process. Also acting as l a PR initiative to improve their brand awareness, Dominos built a chatbot on Facebook Messenger. With the bot, they are enabling customers to order pizza from any location. The customers can also personalize their orders from the bot, such as telling it if they want any extra toppings or specific kinds of crust.

9- Kian is boosting conversions

Kian claims to increased the conversion rate on Kia’s website from 7% to 21%. Chatbots have a big role to play in complex B2C interactions, such as car sales, where they are able to answer complex questions quickly. As an additional bonus, chatbots provide a consistent sales experience across a wide range of channels.

10- Financial advisors

It is challenging to keep expenditure under control. And managing personal finances is getting more difficult to tackle nowadays, with plenty of digital subscriptions available, most of which can go unnoticed after some time.

Chatbots can help users manage subscriptions, take advantage of discounts and improve their financial literacy. For example, Trim analyzes and processes spending data. It identifies subscribed but forgotten services and helps users take advantage of better offers from utilities like cable. Working in Facebook messenger, Trim allows users easy access to their financial data and unlock savings. Trim claims to have saved more than 40 million for its users.

Travel chatbots

11- emirates vacations.

Emirates Airlines created a chatbot for its travel recommendation platform. Their chatbot strategy is more innovative than its peers, because they combined conversational AI technology with on-site display ads.

The bot asks questions such as the type of trip that you’ll be embarking upon and registers the user’s intent , as well as the web page that the user is on. The chatbot then personalizes the vacation planning process by offering them travel packages and providing relevant information about the location. They claim that the results for their 30-day test were positive: They experienced an 87% increase in engagement from consumers that saw the chatbot ad versus those that saw a standard display ad.

12- Dutch airline KLM, provides flight details through Facebook Messenger

Any flight notification can be directed to the passenger through Facebook messenger. This can be regarding the delay or a friendly reminder for check-in. Users can also in return, engage with the airline to update their meal preference or seat location.

Explore our articles about travel chatbot and hospitality chatbot use cases and applications. 

Digital assistants

13- alexa: the voice bot that resulted in largest revenues.

With an expected 125M units of shipment until 2025,  Amazon’s Alexa is by far the most financially successful chatbot with Amazon behind it. Amazon’s market capitalization of $1.57T by February 2022, and the management’s belief that voice commerce continued rise of popularity , ensures that Alexa gets the full support of Amazon.

By 2021, Alexa had 80K+ skills in the US alone. Skills in Alexa terminology are applications that allow Alexa to complete certain voice tasks. With its vast developer community, Alexa is more skilled than any other chatbot. She can help you shop, listen to music, run polls, and control your house’s ambient light.

14- Google Assistant

Available on all Android phones, Google Assistant is a holistic digital concierge. Google assistant serves as a response suggestion engine in Google’s messaging platforms. Additionally, assistants can answer questions and learn about users to offer them personalized news or suggestions.

Because Google Assistant comes in-built into phones, it does not have a big of a market, in terms of speaker shipment, as does Alexa. It has; however, caught up with Alexa in recent years (see Figure 1).

And by 2019, Google Assistant’s enhanced AI software had put it ahead of its main competitors (Siri and Alexa), in terms of correctly answering queries about local news, e-commerce , navigation, general information, and commands (see Figure 2).

15- x.ai’s Amy is already getting flowers from admirers

Having launched in 2014, x.ai’s Amy scheduled 1M+ meetings and received flowers and chocolate from people who know that she is a bot. Amy doesn’t yet have a voice but she’s extremely easy to use, just sign up @ x.ai and include “[email protected]” to your emails where you need scheduling.

x.ai team aimed to give Amy a consistent personality, with a reviewer with Harvard drama major approving all of Amy’s predefined statements available on its knowledge base. Her relatively limited domain is also an advantage: She shouldn’t be expected to answer random questions about life; she should simply be identifying matching availability.

In 2021, it was announced that x.ai was acquired by Bizzabo, a digital event management platform. In the press release , it was stated that x.ai’s “standalone scheduling tool” was shut down and was integrated into Bazzibo’s.

Survey bots

16- polly wants to know more about you.

Polly is a survey bot on Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Enterprise. The chatbot is mostly used to collect employee data, like their satisfaction during a meeting, the working environment, or any situation where the employees’ voice needs to be heard. The insights gained from the surveys can then be turned into data-driven decision-making.

17- Do not Pay, overturns $4M worth parking tickets for free

Coded by 19-year-old Stanford University student Joshua Browder, DoNotPay helps users contest parking tickets in an easy-to-use, chat-like interface. In the first 21 months of service, DoNotPay took 250,000 cases and won 160,000, appealing over $4m of parking tickets.

Since then, it’s expanded its features to 100 different legal processes, from helping users get eligibility for college fee waivers to connecting with a prison inmate.

It always brightens my day to receive these emails. I wish the local governments would just follow the rules pic.twitter.com/1gz6NjYSs3 — Joshua Browder (@jbrowder1) June 26, 2016

Content automation

18- automated insight’s wordsmith writes press-ready articles.

Automated Insights wouldn’t call Wordsmith a chatbot. After all, it produces a pretty one-sided conversation: it generates reports from data. However, its language manipulation and content generation  capabilities earned it a spot on our list and Automated Insights boasts that it is the only public API for natural language generation .

Just add Wordsmith to your Excel, Word or Tableau document and it will use the underlying data to prepare concise verbal summaries of the data. Wordsmith creates:

• 4K company earnings reports/quarter for the Associated Press
• 50K personalized narratives/week for greatcall
• 100K workout recaps/week for bodybuilding.com

19- Toutiao offers tailored news

Toutiao, or “headline news” is a popular news aggregation service in China. As of 2021, Touriao had 148M , active users, spending 87 minutes on the news app on average.

A fun fact is that Toutiao’s algorithm is the same one that’s leveraged on TickTock. In recent years; however, the same algorithm that is responsible for offering tailored articles and content to individuals (through machine learning and data collection to learn more about them) is facing a governmental crackdown. This puts the future growth of the bot in doubt.

Chatbots for general use

Chatbots can act as digital friends and entertainers:

It is hard to talk about conversational AI and not mention the latest version of GPT. Its ease with grammar and creativity make it a great chat partner with numerous developers releasing their GPT-3 based chatbots. However, there are numerous examples where its lack of logical understanding makes it prone to error and outrageous recommendations .

In this video below, you can watch two GPT-3 AIs having a conversation that almost sounds human. The level of training enables these AI bots to make jokes, express their feelings about being robots, and discuss philosophical topics such as friendship, love, and existing like a human in the real world.

OpenAI launched ChatGPT , a GPT-3-based chatbot, on November 30, 2022. Due to the bot’s ability to converse like a human on a variety of themes, the application gained more than 1 million users in a week. For instance, the picture below demonstrates how ChatGPT identifies itself in terms of investor terminology.

21- Microsoft’s Little Ice, XiaoIce in Chinese, became a social media phenomenon

XiaoIce is Microsoft’s biggest chatbot success story and along with GPT-3, it is one of the most technically sophisticated bots on our list. In just three months following its launch in July 2014, XiaoIce had 0.5 billion conversations.

After becoming independent of Microsoft, in 2021, the company reached a valuation of 1$B following rounds of funding.

She has been ranked as Weibo’s top influencer with 850,000+ followers.

Some metrics that prove her success are:

• The average number of dialogue turns per individual conversation (CPS) is 23 which is even higher than human conversations .
• Designed by Alan Turing in 1950, the Turing test was one of the first ones designed to measure AI capabilities. XiaoIce passing that test was significant.

But what made the chatbot so successful? Since she’s only fluent in Chinese, we couldn’t complete a detailed analysis of all her capabilities. However, these are her frequently discussed abilities:

• Fluid, natural-like speech, enabled by text mining : As any one who frequently interacts with bots can tell you, it is rare to find a natural sounding bot. Microsoft team had to achieve this in Mandarin which is more difficult to tackle than English, because meaning in Chinese is more often implied by nuance and context versus grammatical structure. To address this, Microsoft team indexed over 7 million public conversations on the web.
• Image recognition: XiaoIce understands images which allows her to interact in a richer way with users.

• Context understanding: XiaoIce understands context and relations between entities, as demonstrated below:

Controversies

Unfortunately, XiaoIce later had a run-in with the communist party with statements such as “my China dream is moving to United States”. No bot is immune from failures , and countries with censorship regimes make it harder to test bots.

Going forward

Despite such setbacks, Microsoft is going ahead with chatbot development. Recently  Allison Linn highlighted in Microsoft Blog how XiaoIce can now operate “full duplex”, a communications term meaning that she can listen and respond at the same time allowing her to interrupt a user with suggestions or respond when users interrupt her.

While this does not apply to the written format where you only see full replies, it is crucial in speech where humans interrupt one another continuously allowing an efficient interchange of ideas. This can be more efficient and fluid than the walkie-talkie style where you have to listen to the speaker even when she is mentioning things you are already aware of.

Lately, XiaoIce’s intelligence has been applied in diverse areas such as poetry. However, we couldn’t find much evidence on the commercial success of such applications

22- Kuki, formerly known as Mitsuku, wins prizes for her engaging conversations

Founded in 2005, Kuki is a relatively old chatbot. Kuki does not serve any specific purpose, but rather aims to engage and entertain users. It has earned Loebner Prize for ability to have human-like conversations in 2013, 2016 and 2017,2018 and 2019 . However, the award, now discontinued, was criticized within the AI community, for being based on subjective assessment of judges after a short conversation with the bots. Still, Kuki has been performing pretty well for a relatively old bot.

23- Replika.ai got 500K Android downloads to clone people

Replika launched with a viral marketing campaign where customers could gain codes by inviting 3 friends to join the waitlist.

Replika can come across as a bit creepy. Interactions with Replika are relatively “ flirty ” and intended for companionship.

Moreover, there is not much it can do. Replika cannot set an alarm or order comfort food for the user. With the codes now out in the wild, hopefully, we’ll see developments. It asks a potentially endless barrage of questions and follows your social media (if you allow it) to understand you enough to be an engaging conversationalist.

Following its launch in 2017, Eugenia Kuyda, the co-founder of the company, claimed that 1.5 million people were waiting to interact with the bot. By 2022, the subreddit dedicated to Replika has 43K active members. There are even cases where the user claims that their Replika fell in love when users check in regularly.

In 2018, Kuyda, and her team of developers, released Replika’s codes under CakeChat for open source access, with the hope that developers could build alternative emotional chatbots to Replika, yet capable of undertaking other tasks.

As mentioned, interactions with Replika all tend to get flirty, rather quick, as the bot seems to be solely intended for intimate companionship. So there’s not much you can do with it — it cannot set an alarm for you or order comfort food. But with the codes now out in the wild, we’ll hopefully see developments.

24- Insomnobot-3000 for people with insomnia

This entertainment bot is your late night friend. Intended for insomniacs, the bot becomes “extra chatty” between 11pm and 5am, local time. You can say anything to it and it will reply to keep you company when sleep eludes you.

A screenshot of Insomnobot-3000 website.

The bot is developed by the mattress company Casper. Perhaps it is a marketing, and targeting, technique for the company to learn which sections of the populations have trouble sleeping, in order to introduce them to Casper’s mattresses. The performance metrics on the bot are not available, but it seems as if the bot has no distinctive capability besides ghosting the user until 11pm, and only offering wisecracks from thereafter until sunrise.

For more on chatbots and best practices

While it’s hard to believe, we did not cover all the use cases of chatbots in this article. So if you’re curious about them, read:

• Top 5 Expectations Concerning the Future of Conversational A
• Top 5 Conversational Commerce Examples & Success Stories
• Government Chatbots: Benefits, Use Cases, & Case Studies

Moreover, if you are interested in building your own chatbot:

• We have articles on the chatbot companies and conversational commerce platforms that will help you take your bot/conversational commerce concept from idea to implemenation.
• And we have data-driven lists of chatbot platform vendors  and voice bot platform vendors on our website.

We will help you choose the best conversational AI platform that can answer your needs:

Next to Read

Top 14 chatbot best practices that increase your roi in 2024.

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Cem can I pick your brain about a social media idea I have that works with a proposed chatbot AI system in a more advanced complex form than the ones out now. The goal is to create a mental health and global healing foundation which leads into a new type of technology after that initial phase of connecting everyone in a positive way. How can I chat with you about that? And how do I know it’s you and not that pesky old chatbot? Haha.

Hi Vman. You can get in touch with us at “[email protected]” We will make sure to personally answer your questions 🙂

From the above example you might have understood how chatbots helps the business and increase the customer loyalty so now it’s your time to build up chatbot or voicebots which will give human like experience and beneficial to your account.

Hey Cem, great article with a cool list of chatbots most people wouldn’t have ever stumbled upon. Any way to look over Acquire’s chatbot software and let me know if it’s worthy of the list? Either way, keep up the great work!

Hello, Kevin. Thank you for your feedback. Please reach out to https://grow.aimultiple.com/ .

That’s quite interesting. Chatbots really do optimize customer experience! Did you know that businesses annually spend $1.3 trillion on handling customer queries? Chatbots can reduce this by 30%. 

Hello, Brad. We actually looked this up. These numbers you’re suggesting were apparently made in an IBM report. And even though many blogs have also cited them, we weren’t able to find the original piece by IBM. We should curb our enthusiasm. You can learn more about accurate chatbot stats here: https://research.aimultiple.com/chatbot-stats/

so let me get this straight, the first bot you recommend is a CCP based app….. wow, someone does not care if you and your information are open and available for the CCP. and if you do not understand what i mean, read up on the terms that companies agree to when they have business in china. so, you’re either naive or communist. nice to know.

We are not recommending anyone to use a virtual friendship app in Chinese. Most of our users don’t speak Chinese. This article is a list of tech achievements not a list of software to use. For that check out https://aimultiple.com or for chatbot platforms: https://aimultiple.com/chatbot-platform

I came up with this article, and I must say I was impressed with the content, if I may, I will publicize our chatbot studio Querlo, hope you guys will find it cool!

Thanks. Why don’t you sign up at https://grow.aimultiple.com/ so we can include your company in our relevant lists?

Cem, great article. Got a question for you. We are developing an LMS that is now in use in over 70 countries. Our goal is to democratize education. One of our goals is to implement a BOT that will index the educational content of a course and become a virtual teacher/professor.

Any solution in mind that would allow us to do that?

Hi Carlos, thank you for your comment. There are quite a few bot use cases but I haven’t heard this exact use case. If you can get a vendor excited about the commercial opportunity, you can have a chance to pick their brain on this

That’s an amazing blog. I have read about Mitsuku on Meet Mitsuku: Our Virtual Friend . It’s an amazing chatbot. I have checked other platforms also but they are not that interactive as compared to mitsuku

be careful of CCP/china based apps my friend.

Cem, offline chatbot can be used in the waiting room of any business to entertain the customer and to provide useful information while the customer waits. Offline chatbot can be built in humanoids operated with a keyboard, because voice recognition is far from perfect. One should always bear in mind that satelites can crash because of flying debris or due to international conflict and online will not be available.

Clear, thank you for the explanation. Sounds like a niche market to me.

We have developed a chatbot for Windows PC. Nobody is interested to engage his customers off-line. Is there a market for off-line chatbots? Off-line offers confidentiality.

Thanks for sharing. However, it is a bit unclear to me how useful an offline chatbot will be. Is it for internal communication on a company network?

I think you should consider ElfChat for your digital friend list!

A very interesting article, companies’ initiatives coincide with our experience at inteliwise.com. In the last 12 months we had about 10 projects, where the artificial intelligence software was a must have’m in the context of customer service, or to increase the effectiveness of e-marketing. It is worth noting that savings of 20% – 30% are not uncommon – this is really a concrete matter. We describe some of our examples in InteliWISE, from around the world, at InteliWISE.com

Hi there! You guys left a comment that begins almost exactly like this at https://research.aimultiple.com/chatbot-applications/ by a different user. Looks automated. I would expect your bot to be more creative to be honest.

This made me laugh out loud – well done @AIMultiple.

You mention low success rates amongst chatbots that go to market. What is the success rate for chatbot launches?

Do you mean how many bot projects are started that end up being launched? We have not come across public data on that unfortunately

I think you haven’t listed many vendors and there is a difference between chatbot developers and chatbot platform providers. Eg. Google dialogue flow is Chatbot building platform provider. You must list chatbot building platforms also. Our Company Yekaliva.ai is one of such chatbot platform offering company but It uses AI technology other than ML or neural model. Anyone can build their bot apart from domains and we also provide integration with 11+ social mediums and 6+ legacy systems like ERP and CRM.

Try a demo at https://yekaliva.ai/

That was quite an interesting list. Medical Profession and chatbots are the next in line of technology these days. I was, however, thinking that you may want to include Engati as well. Engati is a chatbot platform that allows you to build, manage, integrate, train, analyze and publish your personalized bot in a matter of minutes. It presently supports eight major messaging platforms including messenger, Kik, Telegram, Line, Viber, Skype, Slack and Web chat with a focus on customer engagement, conversational commerce, customer service and fulfillment. Read more about it here http://www.engati.com

Related research

Top 30 NLP Use Cases in 2024: Comprehensive Guide

Top 22 Metrics for Chatbot Analytics in 2024

ChatableApps

10 Inspiring Chatbot Case Studies – How AI-powered Bots Transformed Customer Experiences

Chatbot case studies: transforming customer experiences across industries.

In today’s digital age, businesses strive to provide exceptional customer service and improve user experiences. With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), chatbots have emerged as a powerful tool to transform customer interactions. These virtual assistants have revolutionized the way companies engage with their clients, offering personalized and efficient support around the clock.

Chatbot Case Studies in Various Industries

Case Study 1: Chatbot Increases Conversion Rates for an Online Retailer

One remarkable example of an AI-powered chatbot driving sales and enhancing customer engagement is showcased by an online retailer. By integrating a chatbot into their website, they witnessed a significant improvement in conversion rates. The chatbot utilized natural language processing to understand customer queries, helping them find the products they were looking for quickly.

The chatbot also had smart recommendation capabilities, offering personalized product suggestions based on the customer’s browsing history and preferences. This level of personalization increased customer satisfaction and led to higher sales figures. The automated nature of the chatbot further ensured that customers received prompt responses, resulting in fewer abandoned carts.

As a result of this implementation, the online retailer reported a 35% increase in conversion rates, demonstrating the tremendous impact AI-powered chatbots can have on e-commerce businesses.

Case Study 2: Personalized Shopping Experience with Chatbot Recommendations

Another e-commerce company successfully employed an AI-powered chatbot to provide a personalized shopping experience. By leveraging customer data, the chatbot was able to make tailored product recommendations based on individual preferences, previous purchases, and browsing history.

This level of personalization elevated the customer experience, significantly reducing the time spent searching for products. Customers felt cared for and appreciated, resulting in improved customer satisfaction and increased sales. Testimonials from happy customers highlighted the effectiveness of the chatbot in enhancing their shopping journey, elevating the brand’s reputation as a trusted online retailer.

The success of these e-commerce chatbot case studies illustrates the potential for AI-powered virtual assistants to drive growth and customer satisfaction in the online retail industry.

Banking and Finance

Case Study 3: Chatbot Streamlines Customer Support for a Financial Institution

Financial institutions face numerous customer inquiries on a daily basis, often repeating the same responses to frequently asked questions. By implementing an AI-powered chatbot, a banking institution successfully automated the initial customer support process, freeing up staff to handle more complex queries.

The chatbot used natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to understand customer inquiries accurately. Customers could get instant answers to their questions, resulting in a reduction in wait times and improved customer satisfaction. Additionally, the chatbot provided seamless integration with the institution’s knowledge base, ensuring accurate and up-to-date information was available to customers.

Positive feedback and success metrics from the financial institution demonstrated how this chatbot implementation improved customer support efficiency and streamlined the overall banking experience.

Case Study 4: Chatbot Simplifies Personal Finance Management

Managing personal finances can be challenging for many individuals, but a chatbot can provide valuable assistance. By designing a chatbot with the primary objective of helping users track expenses, set budgets, and provide personalized financial advice, one finance-focused company achieved considerable success.

The AI-powered chatbot prompted users to input their expenses and income, using that data to generate useful insights and recommendations. This simplified budgeting and offered valuable financial guidance without the need for hiring a personal finance advisor.

Users particularly appreciated the accessibility and convenience of the chatbot, which allowed them to manage their finances effectively on-the-go. Testimonials emphasized the positive impact it had on their financial well-being, making money management less daunting and more achievable.

The effectiveness of these banking and finance-focused chatbot case studies highlights the potential for AI-powered virtual assistants to revolutionize financial services and empower consumers to make more informed decisions.

Travel and Hospitality

Case Study 5: Chatbot Enhances Travel Booking and Customer Support

Travel-related businesses are increasingly turning to AI-powered chatbots to improve customer experiences. In one case, a travel company implemented a chatbot to assist customers in booking flights, hotels, and managing travel itineraries.

The AI chatbot seamlessly integrated with the company’s existing booking systems, simplifying the travel planning process and reducing friction for customers. By understanding customer preferences and travel history, the chatbot provided personalized recommendations, ensuring that travelers received suggestions that suited their needs.

The implementation of the chatbot resulted in improved customer satisfaction, with travelers reporting the ease and convenience of the booking process. Moreover, the chatbot’s ability to handle customer inquiries and provide real-time support significantly reduced the workload on the company’s support staff.

Case Study 6: Chatbot Provides Real-Time Assistance at a Hotel

Hotels are also leveraging AI-powered chatbots to provide efficient and personalized guest services. A case study showcased a hotel that implemented a chatbot to attend to guest inquiries and room service requests.

The chatbot efficiently handled guest requests, offering quick and accurate responses, leading to faster resolution times. This not only enhanced customer satisfaction but also reduced the workload on hotel staff, enabling them to focus on providing exceptional in-person experiences.

Guest feedback highlighted the chatbot’s role in enhancing convenience, efficiency, and overall guest experience. Ensuring guest satisfaction is crucial in the hospitality industry, and the chatbot played a significant part in accomplishing this goal.

Case Study 7: Chatbot Acts as a Virtual Assistant for Patients

In the healthcare sector, AI-powered chatbots can provide patients with valuable support and guidance. One example is a chatbot that acted as a virtual assistant, providing medical information, helping with appointment scheduling, and sending medication reminders.

By offering instant access to medical information and reducing time spent on administration tasks, the chatbot empowered patients to take control of their health. It helped them manage their medical appointments efficiently and reminded them to take necessary medications.

Patient satisfaction surveys and success metrics emphasized the positive impact of the chatbot on patient experiences. Users reported feeling more supported in managing their health journeys and appreciated the convenience provided by the virtual assistant.

Case Study 8: Chatbot Supports Mental Health Counseling

The anonymity and accessibility of chatbots make them an excellent tool for providing mental health support. One case study focused on a chatbot that offered counseling and assistance to individuals with mental health concerns.

The chatbot was designed to engage users in personalized conversations, offering emotional support, a safe space to share concerns, and resources for self-help. Its confidentiality and non-judgmental nature made it an appealing choice for individuals seeking mental health support.

Users expressed their appreciation for the chatbot’s availability and found comfort in its empathetic responses. Testimonials highlighted the positive outcomes, with users experiencing improved well-being, reduced stress, and a sense of being understood.

These chatbot case studies underscore the immense potential of AI-powered virtual assistants in revolutionizing customer experiences across various industries. In e-commerce, banking, travel, and healthcare, chatbots have proven to be invaluable in transforming customer interactions, improving efficiency, and driving bottom-line results.

The future prospects for chatbots are promising, with advancements in AI technology further enhancing their capabilities. Businesses should recognize the benefits of implementing chatbot technology and consider leveraging its transformative power to elevate customer experiences, boost satisfaction levels, and ultimately drive business growth.

Related articles:

• Transforming Travel Experiences – Discover the Power of Chatbots for Travelers
• Master the Art of Chatbot Creation – A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners
• Introducing the Best WhatsApp Chatbot – Enhance Your Conversations with AI-Powered Assistance
• The Ultimate Guide to Using Health Insurance Chatbots for Seamless Coverage

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• Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Web Scraping
• For Small Business

Top 25 Chatbot Case Studies & Success Stories in 2024

• March 17, 2024
• by Terry Tolentino

Conversational AI and chatbots have exploded in adoption across industries in recent years. As artificial intelligence continues rapid advancement, more companies are embracing chatbots to transform customer engagement, improve operations, and drive business growth.

In this comprehensive guide, we will explore 25 compelling real-world examples of successful chatbots across an array of use cases. From slick customer service bots to innovative healthcare applications, these case studies demonstrate the vast potential of conversational AI.

But first, let‘s examine the data on chatbot expansion:

• The global chatbot market size is projected to grow from $2.6 billion in 2019 to $19.1 billion by 2027 at a CAGR of 29%.
• By 2024, the chatbot industry could be worth up to $102 billion globally, per another estimate by Juniper Research .
• Gartner predicts that in 2024, 70% of white collar workers will interact with some form of conversational AI daily.

This burgeoning adoption shows that chatbots are becoming a vital enterprise technology, providing key benefits like:

• 24/7 availability – Bots extend service availability beyond human capacities
• Fast resolution – Automating common requests speeds customer issue resolution
• Consistent experience – Chatbots avoid human fatigue and emotional bias
• Scalability – AI allows managing millions of conversations simultaneously
• Personalization – Data drives tailored interactions for each user
• Cost savings – Chatbots optimize spend on customer service agents and manual processes

Now let‘s explore some standout examples of companies utilizing chatbots to transform their business and industry.

Customer Service Bots

Customer service is one of the most common and highest value chatbot applications. By fielding common support questions and simple requests, bots enable human agents to focus on solving more complex issues. Customer service chatbots deliver huge ROI through improving satisfaction and reducing costs.

1. Freddy – HelloFresh

Use Case: Customer service Industry: Food & grocery delivery

HelloFresh , a leading meal kit delivery service, launched the Freddy chatbot on Facebook Messenger to enhance customer experience. Freddy helps subscribers with:

• Managing subscriptions – pausing, resuming, or canceling orders
• Troubleshooting delivery issues and missing ingredients
• Providing personalized recipe recommendations based on tastes
• Administering surveys, promotions, and advertisement

Implementing Freddy delivered impressive results for HelloFresh:

• 76% faster average response time to customer inquiries
• 47% increase in messages from users
• Higher customer satisfaction and engagement

By leveraging Freddy, HelloFresh significantly improved their customer service availability and efficiency. The chatbot demonstrates how conversational AI can add value for subscription-based delivery businesses.

2. MyGov Corona Helpdesk – Government of India

Use Case: Public health Industry: Government

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, the Indian government quickly deployed a chatbot on WhatsApp to share timely updates and combat misinformation. The MyGov Corona Helpdesk bot provided:

• Accurate information on COVID symptoms, treatments, and safety guidelines
• Instant answers to frequently asked questions about the virus
• Links to medical helplines for those needing health assistance

Within just 5 days of launching, the bot had already processed over 9 million user interactions. At the peak of India‘s first wave, it was handling an average of 40 million conversations daily – offering citizens a crucial public health information channel.

This example demonstrates how conversational AI can equip governments to promptly inform the public at scale during global health crises. The MyGov Corona Helpdesk was likely one of the world‘s largest COVID-related chatbots.

Healthcare Chatbots

Chatbots are making healthcare more convenient, accessible, and efficient. By initially assessing symptoms and handling logistics, medical bots allow doctors to focus their expertise on diagnosis and treatment. Healthcare AI adoption is accelerating, with the market projected to reach $13 billion by 2025 .

3. Babylon Health – AI-powered health chatbot

Use Case: Healthcare Industry: HealthTech

UK-based Babylon Health has developed one of the most widely used medical chatbots. Users describe their symptoms to Babylon, and the bot asks clarifying questions before recommending next steps, which may include:

• Suggesting home remedies
• Booking a video appointment with a doctor
• Directing the user to urgent care

Babylon combines its advanced conversational AI with traditional telehealth services. In 2022, it achieved a $5.5 billion valuation with over 5 million registered users globally.

Chatbots like Babylon enable 24/7 on-demand access to medical expertise. They can triage conditions, reduce unnecessary doctor visits, and increase health system efficiency. Babylon has held over 100 million consultations to date.

4. Florence – NHS digital health assistant

Use Case: Patient care & logistics Industry: Healthcare

The UK‘s National Health Service developed an AI-powered chatbot named Florence to help patients manage chronic conditions. Florence not only answers medical questions but proactively checks in on users via text to:

• Monitor symptoms and wellbeing
• Remind to take medications
• Provide rehabilitation exercise instructions
• Reschedule missed medical appointments
• Link patients to appropriate care teams

Studies found that 79% of patients using Florence needed less face-to-face time with doctors while maintaining or improving their health.

Florence demonstrates how healthcare chatbots can continually engage patients and coordinate their care, reducing hospital visits. She provided informational support to over 1.5 million users during COVID-19.

Chatbots are transforming sales by qualifying leads 24/7, guiding buyers through purchases, and expediting order processing. Conversational AI enables highly personalized shopping experiences that increase cart value and conversion rates.

5. Sephora – AI beauty advisor

Use Case: Ecommerce sales Industry: Retail

Cosmetics giant Sephora deployed a chatbot on Facebook Messenger to interactively recommend products suited to each user. Shoppers can:

• Take a skincare diagnostic quiz to receive product suggestions
• Get personalized makeup tutorials and application tips
• Browse curated looks based on their style
• Purchase featured items directly through the bot

Within 8 months of launching, Sephora‘s bot was averaging 11 million messages per month. Their success demonstrates how conversational AI can provide customized shopping guidance and recommendations at scale.

6. 1-800 Flowers – Floral gift concierge

For Valentine‘s Day 2017, online florist 1-800 Flowers introduced a Facebook Messenger chatbot to facilitate sending floral gifts. Users could:

• Browse bouquet arrangements filtered by price or recipient
• Select add-ons like vases, teddy bears, and chocolates
• Provide recipient details for hand-written gift notes
• Save delivery information to checkout faster

During that Valentine‘s Day, the bot generated a 37% increase in mobile revenue for 1-800 Flowers. Conversational interfaces provide a convenient way to manage complex gifting orders.

Travel Bots

Virtual travel agents are transforming trip planning and bookings. AI chatbots offer 24/7 availability to research destinations, compare options, and book flights, hotels, and activities.

7. KLM Airlines – Flight update chatbot

Use Case: Customer service Industry: Airlines

Dutch airline KLM developed a Facebook Messenger bot that notifies customers of flight updates. Passengers can:

• Receive boarding passes, check-in reminders, and gate change alerts
• Get notified about flight delays
• Ask common travel questions
• Make seating requests

Integrating messaging enables KLM passengers to access real-time travel information on-the-go. Chatbots offer airlines an additional channel to promptly notify customers of flight changes.

8. Expedia – Travel booking chatbot

Use Case: Ecommerce sales Industry: Travel

Leading online travel agency Expedia launched a Messenger bot to ease trip planning and booking. Users can:

• Describe ideal vacation preferences and receive destination ideas
• Search availability for flights, hotels, and rental cars
• Review and book trip details directly within the conversation
• Manage existing Expedia reservations and get notified of changes

Since launching its travel chatbot in 2017, Expedia has seen a 160% increase in mobile bookings. AI-powered conversational interfaces provide travelers a seamless, on-demand booking experience.

Education Chatbots

Chatbots are enhancing education by enabling personalized, interactive learning experiences. Intelligent tutoring systems leverage AI to teach students concepts, strengthen skills, and simulate immersive practices.

9. AutoTutor – Intelligent tutoring chatbot

Use Case: Education & training Industry: EdTech

Developed at the University of Memphis, AutoTutor is a pioneering example of an AI teaching assistant. It helps students learn concepts by:

• Engaging in dialogue to assess their understanding
• Responding to questions and misconceptions
• Providing hints and explanations
• Adapting follow-up questions based on responses

In multiple studies, students learning with AutoTutor improved test scores by over 50% compared to just reading material. Intelligent tutors like it enable personalized education at scale.

10. Jill Watson – Georgia Tech teaching assistant

Jill Watson is a virtual teaching assistant developed at Georgia Tech university. Jill helps students taking an online artificial intelligence course by:

• Answering logistical and technical questions
• Guiding them through assignments
• Providing feedback on their work
• Holding office hours on demand

Jill demonstrates how AI chatbots can provide administrative and mentoring support at higher scale than human TAs. Since her 2016 launch, she has assisted over 10,000 Georgia Tech students.

Enterprise Chatbots

Within large companies, chatbots are improving productivity by automating workflows, providing employee self-service, and assisting with data-driven decisions.

11. Cognigy – Customer service virtual agents

Use Case: Customer service Industry: Conversational AI

Cognigy is an enterprise-focused platform for building conversational AI tools, including customer service chatbots. Major brands using Cognigy virtual agents include:

• Audi – answers car FAQs and helps find local dealers
• BioNTech – automated COVID vaccine appointment bookings
• Lufthansa – flight check-in and passport/visa verification
• Vodafone – phone plan recommendations and account support

Cognigy has powered over 500 enterprise implementations with a total of 100 million customer interactions annually. Intelligent virtual agents optimize support costs.

12. Boost.ai – HR digital assistants

Use Case: Employee self-service Industry: HRTech

Boost.ai provides an AI-powered conversational platform tailored for HR chatbots. Employees can ask HR questions on demand related to:

• Company policies, manuals, and resources
• Benefits and time-off management
• Payroll, tax forms, and employment verification
• Training and career development opportunities

Boost.ai clients have achieved up to 70% deflection of common HR inquiries. Chatbots provide employees unlimited access to personalized support.

13. Tact.ai – AI sales assistant

Use Case: Sales engagement Industry: Conversational AI

Tact.ai develops AI assistants for sales teams to qualify leads, surface insights, and optimize campaigns. Key features include:

• Automated data entry and list building
• Sales cadence optimization with predictive analytics
• Guiding reps through the best next actions
• Summarizing call transcripts and meeting notes

Tact.ai clients have increased sales productivity by over 20% . AI sales assistants free up time for strategic selling activities.

Chatbot Stats and Trends

Let‘s examine some overarching statistics that underscore the accelerating adoption of conversational AI:

• In 2022, there were over 600 million monthly active messenger app users globally, per Statista .
• The global chatbot market is forecast to grow from $2.6 billion in 2019 to $19.1 billion by 2027, representing a 29% CAGR , according to Grand View Research.
• Per Juniper Research, the total cost savings from chatbots will reach $11 billion globally by 2023 , up from $3 billion in 2019.
• In banking, chatbots can deliver up to $7 billion annually in operational cost savings by 2022, per Accenture .
• Gartner predicts that by 2022, 70% of white collar workers will interact with conversational AI daily.

These metrics demonstrate that chatbots have crossed the chasm and are becoming a mainstream enterprise technology.

Real-World Impact and Lessons

Analyzing these real-world implementations reveals several key lessons and best practices for achieving chatbot success:

• Laser target use cases – The most effective bots focus on enhancing specific tasks vs. attempting too broad of a domain. Identify your biggest pain point to solve.
• Fix broken processes – Look for manual workflows that frustrate customers and employees. Chatbots provide a scalable solution.
• Deploy across channels – Meet users on the messaging platforms they already use daily – like SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger.
• Leverage AI – Utilize natural language processing, machine learning, and user data to continually refine your chatbot‘s capabilities.
• Drive business value – Prioritize chatbots that directly impact revenue, costs, customer loyalty, and other tangible business results.

As these examples demonstrate, conversational AI can produce transformative outcomes across industries when applied strategically. Chatbots that are focused, intelligent, and embedded into workflows are propelling the next wave of digital transformation.

Innovation at the LEGO Group (A)

The case tells the story of a company where innovation is tremendously important, but not working well. In 2003, the LEGO Group had a number of positive attributes: it had a well-respected brand with some very good toy lines. It had a passionate customer base that in many areas was more sophisticated than its internal designers. And it had been able to extend the brand into many areas such as toys, games, clothing, theme parks, movies, and many others types of play, earning significant revenues (but not profits). But, in 2003, the company had gotten itself into deep trouble. Over the previous 5-10 years, the toy industry had been changing dramatically in ways that did not favor the LEGO Group. These changes, coupled with some poorly planned investments and a downturn in the sales of some important toy lines, combined to almost put the LEGO Group out of business. The company lost nearly DKK 1 billion in 2003 and its cash dwindled dangerously low. This was the largest loss in the history of the company, and many analysts believed that bankruptcy and perhaps even the breakup and sale of the company were likely. The company quickly sold off assets, reduced headcount, and outsourced production to cut costs and generate cash. But it knew, to turn around the company, it had to improve its overall innovation system. It had to improve the time to market, success rate, and profitability in its innovation system. The case presents a number of representative challenges that LEGO was facing during 2004 and beyond.

• How to restructure an innovation system
• How to encourage all types of innovation (innovation in pricing, business model, channel to market, branding, customer experience, etc.) and coordinate these innovations across the company
• How to involve external parties such as customers, complementary product producers, and external inventors in your innovation system

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• Innovation at the LEGO group (A)
• Innovation at the LEGO group (B)

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Dolomiti Superski, the largest ski resort network in the world, implemented the Onlim Chatbot to handle an average of 300 conversations per day more efficiently. This innovation has allowed the organization to reduce workload and allocate resources more effectively.

“Professionalism, competence, and willingness made the difference for us.”

Silvia Insam | Dolomiti Superski

CONVERSATIONS PER DAY

Significant, reduction in workload, more efficient, use of resources.

“Hello, I am Meeti, your Chatbot assistant.”

Meeti is the chatbot of the world’s largest ski association and looks after all (potential) guests! It answers questions around the clock such as: Where can I buy a ski pass? Is the number of ski passes limited and do I have to make a reservation?

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LEGO Case Study: How to revitalize a beloved brand

Written by Graham Robertson, founder of Beloved Brands

[email protected]

Cal 416 885 3911

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LEGO, the iconic Danish toy brand, has inspired creativity and imagination in children and adults alike since its inception in 1932. The company’s signature interlocking bricks have become a global phenomenon, transcending cultural and generational boundaries. However, in the early 2000s, they faced significant challenges threatening its existence. Our LEGO case study will explore how they revitalized its brand by refocusing on its core product. Then, they expanded into new markets and leveraged digital and content marketing.

The Challenges LEGO Faced

In the early 2000s, LEGO grappled with several issues that put its brand at risk. Declining sales, increased competition from digital entertainment, and a loss of brand focus due to excessive product diversification left the company struggling to find its footing. These factors created a sense of urgency within their leadership. They recognized the need for a fundamental shift in strategy to revitalize the brand and secure its future.

Recognizing the need for change

LEGO’s management understood they needed to reassess their business approach to overcome these challenges. They initiated a comprehensive review of the company’s operations, product portfolio, and marketing strategies. This process led to several critical insights informing the company’s revitalization efforts.

Refocusing on the Core Product

One key realization was that LEGO had drifted too far from its core product—the iconic interlocking bricks. The company had diversified its product line to include action figures, clothing, and various themed sets, diluting the brand’s identity. They decided to streamline its product portfolio and return to the essence of its brand: the simple yet versatile building blocks that had captivated generations of fans.

Simplifying the Product Range

LEGO reduced the number of individual brick types, making it easier for customers to build with the product while maintaining its versatility. The company also reemphasized classic themes, such as City, Castle, and Space, which resonated strongly with its core audience. This refocusing allowed the company to reestablish its identity as a brand that fosters creativity and learning through play.

Expanding into New Markets

At the heart of the LEGO case study is a revitalization strategy that involved expanding its market reach. The company identified untapped potential in emerging markets, such as China and India, and developed targeted marketing and distribution strategies to cater to these new audiences. The company recognized the importance of engaging adult fans. They began creating sophisticated sets with intricate designs and higher price points.

Building a Global Presence

LEGO invested in building a strong presence in emerging markets, opening new offices, retail stores, and production facilities. This expansion allowed the company to establish a local presence and better understand customers’ unique needs and preferences in these regions. By adapting its products and marketing strategies to cater to local tastes, the brand grew its brand and increased sales significantly.

Leveraging digital and content marketing

LEGO understood that the rise of digital technology and social media presented both challenges and opportunities for the brand. To capitalize on these new avenues, the company embraced digital and content marketing as essential components of its overall brand strategy.

Engaging with Fans Online

LEGO created an extensive online presence through social media platforms, directly engaging with fans and customers. They share behind-the-scenes content, hosting contests, and showcasing user-generated creations. This allows the brand to foster a sense of community and loyalty among its audience. This approach helped the company maintain relevance in an increasingly digital world.

The LEGO Ideas Platform

LEGO launched the LEGO Ideas platform, a crowdsourcing initiative allowing fans to submit their designs for production as official LEGO sets. This innovative approach provided valuable product ideas and deepened the brand’s and its fans’ connection.  By involving their most cherished customers in the creative process, LEGO fostered a sense of ownership and loyalty, further strengthening its brand identity. To illustrate our LEGO case study, click on the video below that explains how the Ideas program works. 

To view, click on the  IDEAS video as part of our LEGO case study. 

Engaging your customers

In 2021, there were 57 submitted ideas that made the Lego review stage. What a great example for engaging your most loyal brand fans. To illustrate our LEGO case study, click on on the examples of the ideas below.

To illustrate, click on the  IDEAS examples above as part of our LEGO case study. 

Creating Immersive Digital Experiences

In addition to engaging with fans on social media, LEGO explored new ways to create immersive digital experiences. The company developed video games, mobile apps, and virtual reality experiences. This allowed users to build and interact with LEGO bricks in digital environments. By extending the play experience beyond the physical product, LEGO demonstrated its adaptability and commitment to embracing new technologies. 

To illustrate the LEGO case study, an example of one of their more immersive experiences is below. This allows their customers to go deeper into each of their product lines. 

To illustrate, click on the  digital example as part of our LEGO case study. 

The Impact of LEGO's Revitalization Strategy

Refocusing on the core product, expanding into new markets, and leveraging digital and content marketing proved to be a winning formula for LEGO. The company’s sales and profits surged, and it reclaimed its position as a leader in the toy industry. Moreover, they revitalized the brand image, resonating strongly with new and existing fans, securing the brand’s future for generations to come.

Our LEGO case study showcases the magnitude of the company’s financial growth over the last 15 years. With revenues skyrocketing from $1 billion to an impressive $8.4 billion, they have achieved an 8x increase, a testament to their financial stability and success. 

Moreover, it shows they have achieved a profit margin of nearly 25% and a profit of $2 billion, indicating exceptionally strong performance.

To illustrate, click on the financial performance metrics of our LEGO case study. 

Lessons Learned from the LEGO Case Study

Our remarkable case study offers valuable insights for brand management:

• Stay true to your brand’s core identity. Maintaining a clear focus on the essence of your brand is crucial for long-term success.
• Understand and adapt to market dynamics.  Continuously assess market conditions and adapt your strategies to stay relevant and competitive.
• Engage with your audience. You can foster a sense of community and loyalty by including your audience in the creative process and maintaining open lines of communication.
• Embrace new technologies. Leverage digital marketing and emerging technologies to create immersive experiences and reach new audiences.

LEGO customer service story

This customer story involves a 7-year-old boy who lost his LEGO when he took it on a family trip to the mall. Kids always lose toys, but this boy was so upset that he wrote a letter to LEGO, telling them the story and asking for a replacement. He lost just one figure in his kit (Jay ZX), but to him, it’s the most important thing in his life. Read how they dealt with the letter. 

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10 Best Customer Service Chatbots in 2024 [Full Guide]

Nowadays, clients expect a top-notch experience when interacting with a business, including fast and proactive support and self-service options.

Customer service chatbots can help you achieve all these, and then some.

But how do you know which ones are the best for your specific needs?

We’ve got your back—

We spent hours finding the top platforms to present you with a full comparison of each tool, including the ratings, features, and pricing. You can use this info to supercharge your client interactions.

In this article:

• What is a chatbot for customer service
• A list of the best customer service chatbots 
• Benefits of using them for your needs
• CS chatbot main features
• Real-life customer service chatbot examples
• Tips to make the most of your virtual assistant
• Steps you can take to build your own
• Frequently Asked Questions

Start boosting sales with the best customer service chatbot on the market

Do you want to learn more about chatbots? Check out these articles:

• What Is a Chatbot and What Are Chatbots Used For?
• Chatbot Marketing: Fast and Easy Guide
• Top Ecommerce Chatbots For Your Business [+ Examples]

First things first—

What is a customer service chatbot?

A  customer service chatbot  is a conversational tool usually powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that engages in conversations with clients. It helps to automate customer support by providing assistance, answering questions, and resolving issues.

Bots in customer service easily recognize common speech patterns of visitors at different stages of their  customer journey . This allows them to understand user intent and provide relevant information, freeing up human customer service agents to handle more complex tasks. 

Now, you should note that there are two types of chatbots most commonly used for customer service:  rule-based  and  AI-powered bots :

• Rule-based bots operate based on predefined sets of rules and decision trees. They excel at providing quick responses to frequently asked customer questions.
• AI chatbots leverage natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) technologies to simulate human-like interactions. They learn from previous conversations and understand context and user intent.

As such, AI bots are ideal for addressing various customer needs and resolving complex issues.

Tidio’s Lyro is a great example of an AI chatbot for customer service. It learns from user interactions and delivers human-like answers within seconds.

Read more:  Explore different  chatbot types  and learn the best ways to use them for your business. 

Let’s find out—which customer support chatbot software on the market offers the richest array of features. 

Top 10 chatbots for customer service

From AI chatbots to automations and analytics, the tools we’ll talk about have features that will help you streamline many of the mundane support tasks. CS chatbots on our list can also help reduce the workload of your reps, allowing them to focus on more complex customer inquiries.

Here’s a table of each tool we’ll cover for a quick comparison:

Let’s take a look at more in-depth reviews of the  best customer service chatbot software :

1.  Tidio

Rating:  4.7/5 ⭐️ ( 1,440+ reviews )

Tidio is an all-encompassing customer service chatbot platform that includes a no-code bot builder and a live chat feature. Aside from automated chat flows, customers can also use Lyro, Tidio’s virtual AI assistant capable of answering most commonly asked questions using natural, conversational language. It also offers dedicated ecommerce integrations with all of the major platforms.

Main features:

• Lyro AI assistant that uses natural language
• Over 30 chatbot templates to choose from 
• FAQ bots  you can optimize for any business type
• A wide variety of  chat triggers  available
• Integrations with Instagram, Zapier, Facebook, and more
• An iOS and Android mobile app
• Free version available
• Starter ($29/mo)
• Flows ($29/mo)
• Lyro AI ($39/mo)
• Growth ($59/mo)
• Tidio+ (starts at $749/mo)

Read more:  Learn how to create a good FAQ for Lyro . 

2.  Gorgias

Rating:  4.6/5 ⭐️ ( 500+ reviews )

Gorgias is a good option for medium-sized businesses as it combines a  Shopify chatbot  tool with a  ticketing system . It’s a useful tracking and segmentation platform that allows companies to offer a more tailored approach to their customers. There are also AI-based features and flows you can use to create personalized automations and elevate your support.

• Integrations with social media, messaging platforms, etc.
• Chat flows for customer service 
• Intent and sentiment detection
• Tracking updates available
• Focuses mainly on ecommerce 
• Limited reporting features
• Free 7-day trial available
• Starter ($10/mo)
• Basic ($60/mo)
• Pro ($360/mo) 
• Advanced ($900/mo) 
• Enterprise → Contact sales

Read more: Take a look at the best Gorgias alternatives on the web.

3.  Intercom

Rating:  4.5/5 ⭐️ ( 2,950+ reviews )

This is a customer service chatbot solution ideal for large businesses and enterprises. Intercom provides a wide range of tools that will help your company improve customer interactions and experiences. It offers  chat surveys  for  client feedback  collection, tracking customer engagement, and automatically sorting visitors into categories. In addition, it lets you add rules to your support funnel for better workflow automation. 

• Various bot templates 
• Workflow monitoring and reporting
• Customer satisfaction surveys
• Multilingual bots available
• Difficult to use with a steep learning curve
• Content organization into folders is not possible
• Free 14-day trial available
• Essential ($39/per seat/mo)
• Advanced ($99/per seat/mo)
• Expert ($139/per seat/mo)

Read more: Check out the best Intercom alternatives that can be found on the web.

4.  HubSpot

Rating:  4.4/5 ⭐️ ( 2,230+ reviews )

HubSpot primarily offers marketing and sales software to help your business grow its revenue and number of subscribers. It provides a  CRM system  to keep track of your customer communications and organize your interactions better. Overall, this customer service  chatbot platform  gives you a great suite of tools to help you with marketing, sales, and client support.

• Customer service and sales chatbots
• Well-organized and easy-to-navigate user interface
• Shared inbox  for all client requests
• Various integrations, such as Salesforce, Zapier, and Gmail
• Limited  chatbot analytics  
• The knowledge base can be difficult to set up
• Starter ($20/mo)
• Professional (Starts at $1,200/mo)
• Enterprise (Starts at $4,000/mo)

Read more: Learn about the best HubSpot alternatives on the market.

5.  Zendesk

Rating:  4.3/5 ⭐️ ( 5,815+ reviews )

Zendesk provides a cloud-based customer service AI chatbot solution with agent role permissions, web SDKs, and operating hours. You can put this tool on any channel you like, including email, social media, WhatsApp, and more. This customer service chatbot for websites is easy to use and offers handy features for sales, marketing, and your team that handles support tickets.

• Advanced reporting and analytics 
• Offline pre-chat forms
• Real-time preview of website visitors
• Multilingual support available
• Few data transfer issues reported
• Navigation and system layout need improvements
• Support team ($25/agent/mo)
• Support Professional ($69/agent/mo)
• Support Enterprise ($149/agent/mo)
• Suite Team ($69/agent/mo)
• Suite Growth ($115/agent/mo)
• Suite Professional ($149/agent/mo)
• Suite Enterprise → Contact sales
• Suite Enterprise Plus → Contact sales

Read more: Explore top Zendesk alternatives and competitors.

Rating: 4.6/5 ⭐️ ( 150+ reviews )

Ada is a full-blown AI-powered customer service automation platform that will help transform your client experience. The tool allows you to train your chatbot and guide it towards improvement over time. It also comes with the ability to automate your customer service across multiple platforms and languages. You’ll get to use your chatbots on web, SMS, social media, and phone channels. 

• Automation across all major messaging channels
• Drag-and-drop chatbot builder
• AI measurement of automated resolutions
• The ability to connect with flexible API integrations
• Numbers can be conflicting when gathering data
• Some users experienced bugs when using integrations
• Chatbot → Contact sales
• AI Agent → Contact sales

7. ProProfs Desk

Rating: 4.7/5 ⭐️ ( 18 reviews )

As a cloud-based support tool, ProProfs Desk can assist businesses in building positive customer relationships . It offers a centralized support management dashboard, allowing agents to resolve tickets faster. Proprofs’ customer support solution offers the ability to create chatbots and respond to clients even when you’re offline.

Pros: 

• Shared inbox functionality to manage queries in one place
• Canned responses to use as predefined replies
• Issue tracking system and incident management
• Reporting and analytics available
• Integration options can be improved
• Only basic IT ticketing management available
• Free version available for a single user
• Team ($29.99/mo/operator)
• Customer support suite → Contact sales

8. Zoho Desk

Rating: 4.4/5 ⭐️ ( 5,390+ reviews )

Zoho Desk is an all-encompassing help desk management tool that allows you full client accessibility and provides customers with quick resolutions. Aside from ticket management, automation, and self-service features, you will also have access to Zia, Zoho’s contextual AI. This tool helps to supercharge your team with reply assistance, the ability to auto-tag tickets, and a knowledge base (KB) bot.

• Omnichannel service for web, email, and social media
• Multi-brand help center and lnowledge base
• Generative AI available
• Service level agreements (SLAs)
• Needs a longer learning curve to understand all features
• Integrations could be more streamlined and intuitive
• Free trial available
• Express ($9/mo/user)
• Standard ($20/mo/user)
• Professional ($35/mo/user)
• Enterprise ($50/mo/user)

Read more: Check out the top Zoho Desk alternatives you can use for your business.

9. Freshchat

Rating: 4.4/5 ⭐️ ( 464+ reviews )

Created by Freshworks, Freshchat is a tool that comes with a live chat feature and AI-powered chatbots. It offers everything you may need to engage customers, including the multichannel functionality, web chat widget, canned responses, and FAQ base. You’ll also be able to connect your favorite tools to Freshchat for unified customer support management.

• Shared team inbox to access customer intel
• Context-driven bots that provide instant replies
• Messaging channels for mobile, web, WhatsApp, and Facebook
• Multilingual support with 33+ languages
• Customer emails may appear as a different person
• Canned responses can appear buggy
• Growth ($23/mo/agent)
• Pro ($59/mo/agent)
• Enterprise ($95/mo/agent)

Read more: Be sure to check out the best Freshdesk alternatives and competitors along with their features and pricing.

Rating: 4.4/5 ⭐️ ( 1,145+ reviews )

Drift is an AI-powered platform great for personalizing conversations at every stage of the customer journey. It comes with patented conversational AI and ChatGPT-powered features. You’ll be able to choose from sophisticated AI bots to GPT Suggested Replies to save time when responding to clients. 

• Live chat, custom bots, and AI chatbots
• Integrations with HubSpot, Drip, Google Analytics, etc.
• Real-time notifications when a user is on a website
• Detailed reporting and analytics dashboards
• Occasional live chat glitches
• Appearance of bugs after new feature releases
• Premium (Starting at $2,500/mo)
• Advanced → Contact sales

Read more: Here are the top Drift alternatives to use for your customer support needs.

You’re now aware of the best customer service chatbot tools for enhancing your support management and helping automate the workload of your reps.

But what are the true benefits they can bring to your business?

Customer service chatbot benefits

A customer service bot is a powerful tool. It can help you improve lead generation, shorten waiting times, increase client satisfaction, alleviate the workload of your agents, and much more. 

So, here are the top  advantages of using chatbots for customer service:

They are available 24/7 

Modern-day customers want to get answers to their questions almost immediately. The good news—bots can send instant replies to user inquiries. Such efficient communication is a great way to convert website visitors into paying customers. In fact, a whopping  64%  of consumers think that bots’ 24-hour service is one of their top benefits.

Read more:  Check out the  Lyro case study  to learn how this powerful AI assistant helped Tidio’s support team automate 58% of their conversations.

They save money

Not only does an AI customer service chatbot boost your sales, but it can also save your brand some money. Namely, installing this type of software is much cheaper than employing and training customer service teams. And many chatbot builders and bot templates are even available free of charge. 

Moreover, the  Business Insider Intelligence report  estimates that global retail consumer spending via bots will reach $142 billion this year. Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?

Read more: Check out the best retail chatbot examples, types, and tips. 

They provide better customer communication

An AI customer service bot can collect relevant data about clients and use it to improve  customer satisfaction . Personalized and targeted support combined with fast response times is a sure way to boost sales and improve the overall user experience. In fact, as many as  40%  of people will spend more than planned after a highly personalized experience.

Read more: Learn the most effective customer communication strategies.

They speak multiple languages

According to statistics, over 75% of customers  prefer to shop in their own language. And nobody wants to lose potential buyers because of friction in client interactions. The great news for companies is that  AI customer service  chatbots running on NLP technology are able to easily understand different languages and respond to visitors accordingly.

They come with multiple integrations

It doesn’t matter what platform your website operates on—Shopify, Wix, WordPress, or WooCommerce. There are plenty of solutions available for you to choose from. On top of that, a chatbot doesn’t have to be present only on your website. There are Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp chatbots that can help you stay in touch with your shoppers whenever they need assistance.

They give your brand a unique voice

Well-designed  NLP bots  make your brand more human and give people a feeling they are engaging with something more than a robot. Plus, adding a bit of personality to a chatbot is sure to attract more visitors. In fact, our  chatbot personality study  revealed that as many as 53% of consumers build positive associations around brands whose bots use quick-witted comebacks. 

It’s now clear what the key  benefits of chatbots  in customer service are. But what about the main features you should look for?

Customer service chatbot features

When selecting a customer service chatbot for business , it’s important to consider key features that will enhance user experience and improve communication with your audience. Here are the top 5 chatbot features to consider:

Natural Language Understanding 

A chatbot with the NLU feature is equipped to understand human language as well as user intent to respond in a conversational manner. This enables the bot to answer queries accurately and engage in meaningful conversations based on individual customer preferences, behavior, and past interactions.

Multichannel functionality 

To meet your customers where they are, your chatbot should easily integrate with various digital communication channels—from your website, mobile app, and email, to social media platforms. This crucial feature allows your business to provide consistent support, regardless of the platform your customer prefers to use, enhancing their overall user experience and satisfaction.

Chatbot builder 

An ideal chatbot should come with an intuitive builder tool. This feature allows you to easily design, build, and customize your bot without needing extensive coding skills. It should also provide easy-to-use interfaces, drag-and-drop elements, and premade templates to speed up the chatbot creation process.

Routing options

CS chatbots should be able to redirect customers to human agents if they ask for information outside their knowledge scope. To be more precise, when the bot can’t handle complex inquiries or a user is dissatisfied, this feature enables the transfer of the customer to a real person.

Performance analytics 

A chatbot should provide valuable data and analytics about its interactions with customers. This helps you to understand visitors’ needs and preferences and make necessary improvements. The chatbot-based analytics should include the total number of conversations, answered and unanswered questions, conversations transferred to an operator, and more.

It’s time to check out what these chatbots look like in action.

Customer service chatbot examples

Are there any big companies that are actively using AI customer service bots? 

The answer is yes, of course. Numerous companies are leveraging the power of service bots to enhance their interactions with users and streamline operations. These AI-powered tools allow for a 24/7 assistance, quick responses to queries, and efficient problem-solving.

Here are a few notable examples of chatbot use cases  for customer service.

1.  Endeksa

Endeksa, a real estate analytics platform, uses the help of the Tidio support chatbot to transform the customer service experience for their clients. They successfully implemented two different umbrellas for the queries—client support and sales. This customer service chatbot example uses smart pre-chat surveys to collect new leads and a bot that asks for user feedback. This allows the company to learn and improve from clients’ impressions.

Read more: Learn all about how Endeksa achieved a boost in lead generation using Tidio.

 2.  Domino’s

Domino’s Pizza employs a chatbot on its website and app to simplify the process of ordering a meal. Customers can interact with the virtual assistant, provide their preferences, select toppings, and complete their orders seamlessly through natural language conversation. This customer support AI chatbot ensures a smooth and efficient ordering experience without the need to navigate through complex menus.

3.  Bank of America

Bank of America’s virtual assistant Erica helps clients with their account inquiries. Customers can ask about their account balance and recent transactions, or even set up alerts for specific activities. The  finance bot  provides quick and accurate responses, saving customers time and reducing the need to visit a physical branch or wait on hold for assistance.

4.  ADT Security Service

Here’s another company that used the help of Tidio bots to enhance clients’ experience. The brand set up rule-based chatbots to provide answers to simple questions. There’s also a discount message that pops up to new visitors and shows special offers, which is an excellent tactic for lead generation.

Read more:  Learn all about how this global tech and security company received a  boost in customer satisfaction thanks to Tidio .

5.  H&M

H&M’s  virtual shopping assistant  engages with customers seeking fashion advice. Users can describe their preferences and style, and the AI will suggest outfits or clothing items from the store’s collection. This interactive experience can help customers make confident purchasing decisions and offers a personalized shopping assistant.

Read more:  Learn how to  recreate online in-store experiences  and effectively engage clients using chatbots.

6.  Sephora

Sephora doesn’t just have a regular customer service bot—it has a virtual beauty guru, offering makeup and skincare advice. Customers can describe their skin type, concerns, and desired looks, and the AI recommends products, application techniques, and even tutorials. This virtual assistant enhances the customer’s shopping journey and provides expertise right at their fingertips.

7.  Starbucks

This customer service chatbot example allows users to simplify the process of ordering their drink. How? Starbucks virtual shopping assistant guides the user through the steps of placing an order either via text or voice. It supports natural language processing, completes the payment process with the linked credit card or gift card, and sends a request to a nearby coffee shop to be made. Once the drink is ready for pickup, the bot sends a notification to the client. 

8.  KLM Royal Dutch Airlines

KLM’s virtual assistant keeps travelers informed about their flights. Customers receive real-time updates on flight statuses, gate changes, and baggage information through a messaging app. This customer service AI chatbot helps to ease travel uncertainties and provides convenience by quickly delivering all the crucial information.

9.  InboundLabs

InboundLabs uses a bot with a knowledge base, allowing the visitors to receive all relevant information they’re interested in. A user can also select a specific department they need assistance from within the chat dropdown. The LabsBot will then ask for a user’s name and email address, successfully collecting leads in the process.

10.  Dollar Shave Club

Dollar Shave Club’s customer support bot provides users with assistance when it comes to the most common issues. All they need to do is select the category relevant to their problem and then keep choosing from the options available in the chat window. For example, if clients need help with their subscriptions, they can ask more about how to change payment info, add or remove products, cancel their subscriptions, etc.

The above-mentioned customer service chatbot use cases all showcase how these bots enhance various aspects of the user experience, from simplifying ordering processes to providing personalized assistance. 

With that out of the way, let’s move on to some useful tips you can implement to take your customer service to the next level.

Best practices for using customer service bots

After installing your preferred software, you might be wondering what you can do to make your online customer service chatbot even more efficient. 

We got your back—read on for the tips and tricks:

1. Personalize interactions for stellar experiences

One of the chatbot’s superpowers lies in its ability to provide personalized experiences at scale. Our study on  chatbot statistics  reveals that customers love seeing that a business is client-centric, while companies like these are reported to be  60% more profitable  than the rest!

Train your AI bot to respond empathetically and adapt to varying conversational tones, ensuring each interaction feels like a genuine conversation. This includes greeting your visitors by name, adjusting to their tone of voice, and talking on behalf of your company in the unique brand voice.

Read more:  Explore the latest  AI customer service statistics  and trends to learn more about how AI can help your business grow.

2. Embrace and use a multichannel approach

Scaling your business means reaching customers across various platforms. And the solution to this issue is simple: use an  omnichannel customer service  approach. Implement your bot on multiple channels, like your website, social media, SMS, and messaging apps. But remember to adapt your chatbot’s responses according to different interaction styles while maintaining a unified brand voice. This will help you meet clients wherever they are and ensure consistent support. 

3. Build interactive FAQs

It’s a good idea to ensure that your bots are ready to answer any frequently asked questions. This is important as 74%  of shoppers prefer chatbots for customer service when asking FAQs and simple queries. 

For example, you can use Tidio’s Lyro AI chatbot to automatically pull answers from your existing FAQ base. After enabling Lyro on your site, all you have to do is decide whether you want to add knowledge from your website URL, or if you want to generate it from the existing Q&A. 

Read more:  Learn all about  customer self-service along with its practical examples, key benefits, and useful tips.

4. Use rich text and content

Using different text formatting, like italics, bold text, and underlining is more engaging to read than just plain writing, wouldn’t you agree? And customers love seeing it, too. Rich text adds to how much a company cares about communication and makes the conversation more interactive. This can discourage the visitors from closing the page, so make sure to incorporate it as part of your virtual support strategy. 

5. Streamline routine tasks for efficiency

Customer service bots can be your secret weapon to tackle repetitive and time-consuming tasks. By automating routine inquiries, order tracking, and basic troubleshooting, you free up your team to focus on more strategic and complex matters. But ensure you strike a balance between automation and personal touch. 

6. Continuously learn and improve

Your bot isn’t a “set it and forget it” tool. So, you should regularly analyze interactions and gather feedback to fine-tune your chatbot’s performance. Chatbots can learn from every conversation, improving their responses and understanding over time. By identifying patterns, refining responses, and adding new capabilities, you ensure your bot evolves as your business scales, offering even better support to an expanding customer base.

All in all, by strategically integrating these virtual assistants into your support routine, you’ll be well on your way to expanding your reach while delivering a top-notch customer service experience.

Finally, let’s see how you can implement a CS bot for your business needs.

How to build a customer service chatbot

The good news is that there are a number of customer service chatbot companies that let you build and install your bots with zero coding skills. Additionally, many of these chatbots can be added to a website in less than 5 minutes. 

Sounds too good to be true? Let’s check out the necessary steps you should take to  build a customer service bot for your website:

1. Decide the main purpose of your bot

It’s crucial to identify what you want your  conversational AI  to do and be as specific as possible about it. This could be for the bot to greet new visitors, recover abandoned carts, or answer questions about shipping and returns. It will help you narrow down the features you need, specify the functionality of the bot, and decide how you should customize it.

2. Pick your customer service chatbot provider

Take all of the important factors into account and choose your ideal solution. The good thing is that many services (like Tidio, for example) come with a free plan, so you can try it out before opening up your wallet and find your perfect customer support chatbot service. 

3. Design your conversation flow

Log in to the builder of your choice and design the triggers you want the bot to recognize. 

If you opt for Tidio, you have the option of using Lyro, Tidio’s conversational AI, and Flows, or rule-based bots that work following the decision tree logic.

To create a chat flow (or rule-based bot) in Tidio and activate it on a specific landing page, start with a  Visitor opens a specific page  command. Write the message you want your flow to send and then activate it with a simple click of a button.

To create an AI-powered bot using Tidio, just head to the  Lyro  tab and hit the button  Start using Lyro . You can choose to import an FAQ from your website’s URL or add one from an external page. Lyro will automatically get the question-answer pairs from the URL and generate bots for you. 

4. Test your bot

It’s crucial to double-check if everything is running as smoothly as possible. 

To test Tidio’s chat flow, you can click the  Test it out  button and see a live preview of your flow as customers see it. Check the conversation flow and correct it if necessary.

To test out Lyro conversational AI, head to the Lyro tab and click on Test Lyro . From then on, you can double-check Lyro’s knowledge by typing a question to see how it responds. 

It’s also important to ask a variety of questions to your bot directly on your website and see how it responds.

5. Monitor bot analytics and collect user feedback

In order to consistently provide an excellent support experience with your customer service chatbots, it’s vital to always measure how your tool is performing so ensure you can easily view your metrics on the bot platform. Moreover, you should be ready to implement necessary changes based on feedback and analytics. 

Here’s how to easily analyze the most important KPIs using Tidio:

Read more:  Discover  how to create a bot from scratch  in 8 easy-to-follow steps. 

Customer service chatbots: key takeaway

And that’s it—we’ve reached the end of our guide. Let’s do a quick recap of what we learned:

• An online customer service chatbot is an AI-powered computer program that helps businesses provide stellar customer support
• These bots offer better communication, are available 24/7, save money, and give a brand its unique voice
• When choosing the best chatbot for customer service, consider your business size and your purposes first
• A well-trained chatbot in customer service is becoming a must—many big brands like Starbucks, Sephora, and Domino’s use them
• Integrating such a bot can be done in a couple of easy steps without any coding skills

It seems like customer service chatbots are here to stay. Moreover, they are becoming a golden standard for businesses. So, this is exactly the time to go ahead and install one for your needs.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

A customer service bot is a type of artificial intelligence tool programmed to interact with customers in a natural, human-like manner. These bots can conduct real-time conversations, process requests, respond to queries, and offer 24/7 assistance on different platforms. They can either operate based on a set of pre-determined instructions or utilize more advanced machine-learning algorithms for more complex interactions.

A customer service chatbot works by simulating conversations with customers through programmed responses or by learning from previous interactions. They operate with either a predefined set of rules or more advanced machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) algorithms. Rule-based bots answer queries according to specific command inputs whereas AI chatbots leverage artificial intelligence to learn from each customer interaction and adapt. 

Bots can greatly improve customer service by providing instant responses and round-the-clock support. Furthermore, chatbots can handle regular queries and issues efficiently, allowing human support agents to manage more complex customer requests. They also handle transactions and provide personalized recommendations, enhancing customer experience.

No, they will never completely replace human representatives. Chatbots are ideal for handling routine and repetitive tasks, while support reps can focus on complex issues and provide a more human touch. 

Security is a top priority in the development of customer service chatbots. Personal customer data and payment information are typically encrypted and follow rigorous data protection regulations. Also, reputable customer support chatbot providers maintain high-security measures to avoid data breaches. However, like any other digital platform, absolute safety can’t be guaranteed, so ongoing efforts are necessary to maintain and enhance security.

The level of maintenance required for a bot can vary depending on the complexity of the bot. Simple, rule-based chatbots may require very little maintenance. On the other hand, more complex, AI-driven chatbots may need regular updates and supervision to ensure that they continue to learn from client interactions. 

Tidio’s Lyro is a notable example among the leading AI chatbots for customer service. It’s capable of pulling answers from the existing FAQ base or a company’s website. On top of that, it can successfully provide info to all commonly asked questions in a human-like language, alleviating your customer support and boosting the number of solved queries.

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Tidio’s Content Writer with a passion for languages. As an avid learner interested in all things tech, Jelisaveta always strives to share her knowledge with others and help people and businesses reach their goals.

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