Chatbots are an important business tool and need regular updates to stay up to date. It is the digital identity of a company in front of customers while dealing with their issues online. The better chatbot performs; quicker will be its problem-solving ability. Therefore, it requires regular maintenance and optimization for a varied spectrum of operations. Due to the lack of timely updates, chatbots might rot beyond recovery. Nobody wants their most-prized asset to turn into a liability. But before providing solutions, it is important to know about the reason of bot-rot. 

In many cases, companies don't review their chatbots. As a result, they become outdated. Every technology requires regular updates to stay relevant with time. The major reason behind "Bot-Rot" is sheer ignorance or oversight from the company. It results in a laggy and glitch-prone interface for the users. It also results in a bad experience for users, thus lowering the reputation of the business gradually. A chatbot can be the greatest technical asset for a company, but ignorance from management will render it useless within a short period. An ideal user experience entails breaking the user's hesitation to use the chatbot service again and again. It is achievable with the help of proper data feed into the machine learning engine to train it. Bad bot service will cause the users to restrain from using the service eventually. 

How to prevent "bot rot."

As technology advances, user expectations rise. An ideal chatbot should be able to withstand customer expectations. There has been a considerable time since the inception of chatbots. Now, customers expect minimum errors and maximum service. For staying relevant in today's competitive world, the chatbot needs to be updated periodically with the help of a chatbot development company. It will not only help the users but also make the chatbot more intelligent. 

For prevention of bot-rot, the bot needs to be synced with new-age tools and innovations. Achieving this feat might require assistance from machine learning and NLP. For natural language processing, sentiment analysis must be integrated with various apps to understand the requirement of the customer. The chatbot must be given ample opportunity to stand out of the crowd with its intelligence; else it won't sustain with fast-growing technologies.

Here are some useful ways to prevent bot-rot:

1. Try to monitor chatbot interactions

Chatbots use some highly sensitive technologies. Once it is set-up, it must be reviewed regularly and fed with the latest data for upscaling. It might also need extra information on a new technology fed to it by the user or repairing of a part that has been causing glitches lately. In this way, the chatbot's user interactions will increase substantially and can be used to monitor the chatbot's growth. Remember, about 57% of consumers like chatbot's instant delivery. 

The developer must keep in mind that there are certain points when the bot hits a dead-end. As a result, the user simply disconnects and move on to other platforms. Such conversation killers must be detected and removed with the help of bot development companies. Areas where the chatbot lags must be identified and resolved. A chatbot can be updated only through proper machine learning and training. 

2. Proper training must be done

A chatbot must be introduced only after proper market research by AI/Machine learning development companies in India. Chatbots requires a rigorous checking which should not be rushed. If the bot is fed with too much data at once, it might misbehave or even crash. A chatbot's success lies solely on the training method employed. Better training, better will be its performance. Let the training be crowd-sourced. End-user reviews are the best in case of any technological development. Initially, the bot must master all simple process of workings. Complex training should be initialized later on. Versatility must be embedded in the system of AI chatbot. There might be instances when a question is asked using different words. In case the bot fails to respond, the training process has to be re-initiated.

3. Prepare the bot for unintended queries

At times the customer asks a question for which the bot is not trained. The question might be very much related to the organization. Not answering it might prove fatal for the brand's reputation. In that case, the bot fails to find an answer; the user might disconnect. Why think about negative possibilities? In many such cases, the bot repeats the previous answer or shows a wrong answer. It is bad for the customer experience. Therefore, the developer must go through every failed user interaction and train the bot accordingly for the future.  

4. Train beyond capabilities of the bot

The developers always try to push the bot off its limits by training them more. It is good for the company when the bot is self-sufficient in striking conversations. In case the chatbot fails to deliver such performance, don't lose your heart. They can be re-trained using repositories. In this way, when the chatbot fails to find a response, it searches the nearest repositories and finds a suitable response. In this way, user interaction doesn't fail. Along with this, it helps in building the good brand value of the company.  

5. Prevention of user helplessness

There will be moments when the AI chatbot won't be able to deliver a suitable response despite all the training. It might be disheartening for the developer, but along that the users are left feeling unattended. In such a situation, the bot must transfer a conversation to a human representative. In this way, the user can get a suitable solution for their query without feeling dissatisfied

Chatbots are the future of technology. They are being used across a wide spectrum of domains. In 2017, a report predicted that banks could be automated by 90% using chatbots by 2022. Bots are everywhere, and in 2015, mobile messaging using AI chatbots, surpassed social media application. Various other businesses are now trying to integrate chatbots with their applications. Therefore, all bot development companies must work together with businesses. These companies can offer their periodical bot maintenance services and reduced the bot rot.