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As of March 2024 we have renamed Apexchat to Blazeo. We are excited to share the next part of our journey with our customers and partners.
The name ApexChat implies that we are primarily a chat company, which is no longer true. Now we have many offerings, such as call center services, AI, Appointment setting, SMS Enablement, Market Automation, and Sales acceleration (Q2 2024), that go beyond chat. The new name will not only allow us to convey the breadth of our offering but will also better convey our company’s mission and values.
Blazeo, which is derived from the word Blaze, evokes a sense of passion, speed, and energy. A “Blaze” is captivating, illuminates, and represents explosive growth. Blazeo encapsulates our mission to ignite such growth for our customers and partners by delivering innovation with passion, speed, and energy.
Chatbots are commonly set up to communicate with customers visiting a business's website. But are there better alternatives out there?
There’s a good reason why you'd want to have chat functionality set up for your website: Chat provides a fast, easier way for consumers to communicate with businesses. However, businesses interested in chat are faced with a choice: Chatbot or live chat? Is 2020 the year of the chatbot?
Both live chat and chatbots help interact with customers and move visitors down the sales funnel via your website. But what specifically do consumers like about live chat vs. chatbots?
Upsides
Downsides
Where chatbots come up short is empathizing with customers on a human level, which actually makes a huge difference. Forty-eight percent of consumers agree “it feels creepy if the chatbot is pretending to be human,” according to Mindshare UK’s “Humanity in the Machine” report.
That’s probably why 71 percent of people would rather interact with a human than a bot if given the choice, according to PwC.
How much a chatbot costs may also vary. The more affordable options on the market won’t be able to have complex conversations.
Adding chatbots to your website frees up your team to do other tasks. However, their scripts take a considerable amount of time to troubleshoot and test. You’ll also probably need a team member to review the chatbot conversations to be sure customers’ needs are being met.
Upsides
Downsides
Live chat covers all the benefits that chatbots bring to your website, but with a human touch.
Agents can field basic questions about your business from customers, qualify leads for the business and free up your team members for other tasks.
While some chatbots are faster and cheaper for businesses, live chat agents are able to empathize and understand customers' questions better than chatbots following a pre-defined script.
It’s no wonder that 71 percent of Americans would rather interact with a human than a chatbot or other automated process, live chat leads to a good customer experience.
When it comes to chat, scripting on an affordable bot may seem like a good idea. But it can easily backfire if the bot’s limits affect customer experience. In fact, more than half of consumers would never do business with a company again after just one bad experience, according to NewVoiceMedia.
This is why the following stat is especially relevant: 53 percent of consumers found chatbots to be “not effective” or merely “somewhat effective,” according to eGain.
This is especially relevant today, customers value a seamless experience when chatting with businesses online. People are fine with bots. But if a human is available, they're going to choose the human every time.
When deciding between chatbots vs. live chat on your website, you need to evaluate what exactly your business needs to get a good customer experience.
Overall, chatbots are cheaper, faster and easier to employ. However, chatbots aren’t capable of empathizing with customers, usually aren’t equipped to handle complex questions and may break when spelling errors are introduced in the chat. Machine learning and chatbot development time are definitely a factor to consider, as the limitations of chatbots can negatively impact customer experience.
If you have a very simple business model and tend to receive the same customer questions time and time again, then using a chatbot might be the better solution.
Keep in mind, the way you implement your chatbot dictates whether or not customers actually find it useful. While a chatbot can seem like a good idea, it's a thin line between an effective bot and a bad customer experience. This doesn’t look like it’s changing just yet.
Live chat provides your customers with a more in-depth, helpful experience. However, depending on your provider it can be more expensive than bots - and more time-consuming. The best live chat services will offer affordable, flexible pricing such as pay-per-lead pricing, as well as a team of third-party human agents to handle chats for you.
Live chat costs vary depending on the provider. If you can find a live chat service that provides you with a team of chat operators available 24/7 and an affordable cost structure (such as pay-per-lead) then you’re almost assured a positive return. All without risking bad customer experiences.
If your business has a large catalog of services or products, receives a wide range of support requests or offers a specialized product or service, then live chat might be the best option.
While we believe AI can streamline a chat, it can’t take the place of human intelligence and empathy. Customer expectations are at an all-time high, so why not give them the best customer service as possible?
Both live chat and chatbots are customer-centric tools that help businesses save money, time, and energy. One thing is certain, you shouldn’t alienate your customers by providing ineffective support on your website.
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