For many marketers, artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots have now become an integral part of their customer care arsenal. 

Why? Because they enable brands to offer customers a seamless experience, fast responses, and 24/7 support. 

However, chatbots are not perfect. All automated chatbot systems have limitations that, if not managed, could lead to problems for your business. 

One of the major challenges with the use of AI chatbots is security – consumers want to trust that if they share their data with your chatbots, you will only use it to complete their transactions or offer personalized experiences. 

Your chatbot should therefore only ask for relevant data, and it should also have systems in place to protect this data from malicious individuals looking to mishandle or misuse it. These include virus protection, firewalls, and strong passwords. 

Another challenge is the ability to make your chatbot likable, or help it understand human emotions – if your chatbot delays or offers unhelpful responses, the customer may leave your website and may never return. Additionally, if the chatbot fails to understand user emotion, it can lead to horrible customer experiences. 

But there are also important benefits. 

To provide more context, check out this infographic, which provides a full overview of the various considerations in developing an effective chatbot, and the pitfalls to avoid.

A version of this post was first published on the ShaneBarker blog