Bots are computer programmes that perform pre-programmed activities over the internet. They are automated, which means they operate in accordance with the instructions they get rather than requiring a human user to manually start them each time. Human behaviour is imitated and replaced by bots.

Bots are responsible for more than half of all internet traffic. Bot traffic can be as high as 90 percent for some e-commerce businesses. Bots comb through material, connect with websites and social media accounts, and converse with individuals.

Bots are usually networked; they account for more than half of all Internet traffic, reading content, interacting with webpages, talking with people, and looking for attack targets.

Some bots are useful, such as search engine bots that index information for searches or customer service bots that help users.

Other bots are "evil," and they're trained to break into user accounts, search the internet for contact information to send spam, and do other bad things.

Types Of Bots –

• Chatbots:

These bots are most commonly utilised to improve a company's customer service department. A chatbot is a piece of artificial intelligence (AI) software that can mimic a natural language conversation (or chat) with a user through messaging applications, websites, mobile apps, or the phone. A chatbot is frequently referred to as one of the most advanced and promising kinds of human-machine communication.

• Web Crawlers/ Spider Bots:

These helpful spider bots crawl the internet to index and retrieve web content by following hyperlinks. They're made to operate in the background and pull data from websites and APIs on a regular basis. The finest example of a spider bot is the Google Bot, which crawls the web to make content search quick and convenient.

• Social Bots:

These bots are used to perform a variety of functions on social media platforms, such as account creation and raising the number of followers for certain accounts. They're meant to automatically respond to particular words and phrases in social media posts, for example, by reposting or commenting to all of them at once. As a result, they may be utilised to influence the audience or promote a specific viewpoint. Such bots are extensively utilised on Twitter.

• Spam Bots:

A spambot is a computer programme that automatically sends out large amounts of spam emails. It automatically collects email addresses from a number of web sources. A spambot builds mailing lists and uses the enormous amount of email addresses gathered to deliver junk mail, often known as spam.

• Transactional Bots:

Customers may execute a transaction while interacting with a transactional bot.

• Monitoring Bots:

These bots are used to keep track of a website's or system's health. Downdetector.com is an example of a third-party website that gives real-time status information about websites and other services, including outages.

Advantages Of Bot

• Bots can help you learn more about your customers:

Conversational bots can assist you in learning more about your consumers. They help you determine their needs and requirements, as well as the products or services that they are interested in, and make strategic decisions to optimise the experience.

• Bots are salespeople:

Your bot might be an excellent partner for pushing new items and giving proactive notifications. They may also give quick help to your potential consumers, reducing the time it takes for them to make a decision.

• Availability of customer support at all times:

One of the most significant advantages is that bots are accessible to assist clients 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They also respond to every query swiftly. This assures that your audience will always be able to address their problems, regardless of the time of day.

• Increases client satisfaction:

People are all different, and so are their communication styles. As a result, it's critical to reply appropriately and empathically to each enquiry.

How businesses can use Bots?

When compared to other modes of communication, people currently prefer texting. The great majority of people prefer to communicate with businesses through text messages. This is when knowing how to make a business bot comes in handy. Bots allow businesses to automatically communicate with consumers via chat apps, SMS, and text. Messenger bots have a high open rate and are successful in converting customers while remaining unobtrusive.

Using a marketing bot for your business will almost surely increase your return on investment. In the United States, Facebook Messenger is the most popular chat app.

Determine why you want to use Messenger bots in your business, such as to increase engagement, find new leads, or generate sales. Then, throughout the user experience, write customised bot text that educates and entertains consumers.

How do bots work?        

Bots, for the most part, operate on a network. Bots that can communicate with one another will use internet-based services like instant messaging, Twitterbot interfaces, and Internet Relay Chat (IRC).

Bots are composed of algorithms that help them complete their duties.

Examples and uses of bots:

• Instant Messaging platforms that incorporate chatbots include Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Slack, and Telegram.

• Chatbots include Google Assistant and Siri, for example.

• To notify the public about the coronavirus epidemic, the World Health Organization established a WhatsApp bot.

• National Geographic built a talking programme that reportedly spoke like Albert Einstein to advertise their show Genius.

• Facebook Messenger may be used to search for and share music on Spotify.

Consumers increasingly expect businesses to provide an automated channel via which they may communicate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The contemporary customer dislikes being put on hold or having to wait for a callback. Customers want to interact with your brand whenever they want, not when you're accessible or ready to respond. Today, it makes sense for a company to adopt a bot-building approach.