Right now, we are at a point in time where technology is advancing at an increasingly rapid rate. In the past, new technology was reported on and spoken about, and then some time would pass before businesses adopted it. Fast forward to the present day, and once a new technology has been reported on, you can be pretty sure that many corporations have already invested in it. In an increasingly competitive world, businesses take whatever opportunities they can to earn themselves an advantage. Much of the technology designed for business has a focus on saving time and boosting efficiency – both of which are highly sought after benefits.
It is now commonplace for businesses to use technology that was previously considered the domain of science fiction and fantasy; virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI). Here’s how this developing technology could help your business save time and increase efficiency.
Chatbots
Want to decrease the number of visitors that exit your website without making it through to checkout? If so, chatbots can help. Using artificial intelligence, chatbots pop up on your website, offering help to visitors to decrease the number of abandoned baskets on your site. Chatbots enable visitors to your site to ask any questions that they may have about your products or services that could be preventing them from making a purchase. The chatbot can suggest answers to these questions, whatever time of the day or night it is. This means customer service staff don’t have a backlog of queries to answer, and your website visitors aren’t left waiting for a reply to a question they asked during the night.
Robotic Process Automation
Robotic Process Automation, aka RPA, is a developing technology which has significant potential for helping businesses to save time. Robotic Process Automation can take over many repetitive tasks that are either time consuming, labor-intensive, or both of these things.
Robotic Process Automation uses artificial intelligence to learn how a task should be performed, and the copies this in a virtual environment. This enables the job or business process to be completed quickly and efficiently.
The Internet of Things
The Internet of Things has been a growing area for a while now, but it is becoming an increasingly popular way for businesses to introduce time and efficiency savings in their operations. Due to its very nature, the Internet of Things offers limitless opportunities for businesses to harness this technology and make it work in whichever way that they need it to. For example, supermarkets using ‘scan as you shop’ style systems are able to reduce the number of cashiers on the shop floor. The speed at which scan as you go transactions can be processed means that queues do not form and fewer cash desks are needed. Some of these systems utilize the technology further by enabling customers to pay for their shopping via their phones. This means that the supermarkets save time and money, and consumers save time and have more control over their shopping experience.