Integrate conversational AI chatbots: A how-to guide

Chatbots have become increasingly popular especially with the introduction of conversational AI. These chatbots serve as a powerful tool for businesses looking to enhance customer engagement and automate support.

By integrating AI-powered chatbots, businesses can expand their platform capabilities and improve their efficiency and overall customer experience.

But how can you use conversational AI to automate workflows and achieve key business goals? Read on to learn the benefits and steps to seamlessly integrate a conversational AI chatbot into your existing platforms.

Conversational AI chatbots aim to simulate natural interaction between two people as closely as possible. This is why businesses today are turning to conversational AI to help automate support, provide and streamline communication and personalize the customer experience.

The key differentiator between traditional and conversational AI chatbots is that conversational AI can recognize speech and text inputs and engage in human-like conversations. As mentioned earlier, conversational AI uses NLP and NLU to understand the context and respond accordingly.

Traditional chatbots, on the other hand, are generally rule-based and programmed to address specific commands and keywords. While rule-based chatbots are programmed to solve simple tasks such as “common FAQs,” they can still be conversational. However, their ability to be “conversational” varies depending on how they’re programmed.

In other words, conversational AI provides personalized experiences, whereas traditional chatbots are generally used for transactional purposes. But to do both, your business needs to connect different pieces of the puzzle. And the easiest way to do so is through system integration.

The conversational AI market is predicted to reach $30 billion by 2028, with a forecasted CAGR of 22.6% within five years. Besides the fact that it’s a popular trend, many companies expect conversational AI to have a positive impact on their business. Here’s why:

So, before we dig too deep into the integration process, let’s briefly discuss the business benefits of conversational AI chatbots.

Advanced technologies such as Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML) enable conversational AI to extract and analyze useful data about customers’ likes and buying habits to provide seamless and highly engaging end-to-end customer experiences.

As a result, businesses can deliver highly personalized experiences and tailored recommendations while enhancing the user experience and building customer loyalty.

Conversational AI chatbots can operate 24/7 and provide instant responses to customer queries, reducing wait times and improving customer satisfaction.

As a result, customers can engage more interactively with your business at any time without waiting to receive the help they need.

By automating certain repetitive tasks, chatbots can significantly reduce the contact center load and time used by support agents, leading to cost savings for your business.

As a result, businesses can optimize operations, streamline customer interactions, and improve overall agent efficiency by allowing them to focus on more complex tasks.

Delivering tailored communication with a personal touch allows you to build stronger customer relationships that foster loyalty and satisfaction.

As a result, you deliver exceptional experiences that turn into happy customers who are more likely to stay loyal and spread positive word-of-mouth, leading to lifetime business value.

Conversational AI works like a proactive salesperson, allowing businesses to engage with potential customers in real-time.

As a result, businesses will collect valuable data and nurture leads through personalized interactions and recommendations, ultimately leading to higher conversions.

Before you start thinking about integrating or building an AI chatbot, it’s essential to clearly define its purpose and goals. Ask yourself what value it will provide users and how it aligns with business objectives.  

You can either get a chatbot built from scratch according to your custom requirements or can choose among various dedicated tools that allow adding an AI-based chatbot into an existing app easier.

The best way to integrate services is through an Application Programming Interface (API) that acts as a middle layer. An API determines what can be done with the system on the other side, providing the right access to write the data. It controls how a tool can interact with other tools and establishes the terms for other services to engage and perform actions with it.

Integration allows the chatbot to access customer data, perform transactions, and interact with other systems seamlessly. But we can’t forget about data privacy. Businesses should always take into account data privacy and compliance requirements to ensure secure and reliable integration.

On the other hand, our chatbot-building platform, Answers, allows you to build and deploy custom chatbots with pre-defined workflows on your client’s preferred channel and integrate with your existing systems, third-party CCaaS, or CRM solutions through open API.

Here we list two great examples of how customers are driving ROI with Answers:

Our AI chatbots can be completely integrated into your clients’ business tech stack. They can also be deployed on multiple channels, including SMS and messaging apps like WhatsApp, Messenger, Apple Messages for Business and Viber.

Now that you’re more familiar with the integration process, let’s find out how you can integrate an AI chatbot.

Here are the five steps you need to do to integrate a chatbot into your product, website, or application:

Croatia’s first fully digital insurance provider, LAQO, wanted to improve customer service with 24/7 availability, accessibility, and personalized support. Together with Infobip’s chatbot building platform Answers and Azure OpenAI Service, LAQO was able to launch a generative AI-powered assistant that:

Infobip partnered with Master of Code to create a Generative AI commerce chatbot for BloomsyBox to drive user engagement and personalized experiences on Mother’s day. Bloomsybox was able to launch a generative AI chatbot that:

The largest regional food company, Podravka partnered with Infobip to create an AI digital assistant, SuperfoodChef-AI by Coolinarika. The AI assistant is conceptualized and designed based on human-centered design principles and nudge architecture. SuperfoodChef-AI can:

Integrating Infobip’s conversational AI chatbot enables System Integrators (SIs) to enhance their value proposition and create differentiators for their clients. Through our Partner Connect Program, we will co-create solutions to help you:

We help SIs extend and enrich their portfolio with omnichannel conversational solutions to reach new market segments from SME to Enterprise. Our cloud communication platform will help you build recurring revenue streams and bring your clients the latest technology.

By partnering with us, SIs can leverage a growing conversational commerce market, set to reach $290 billion by 2025.

It’s a win-win situation, SI’s will have a direct impact on the platform, and we, in turn, will empower you to drive revenue, streamline internal processes and offer scalable solutions to your customers.