CHATBOTS – AN INTERACTIVE TECHNOLOGY FOR PERSONALIZED COMMUNICATION, TRANSACTIONS AND SERVICES

Chatbots as a new information, communication and transaction channel enable businesses to reach their target audience through messenger apps like Facebook, WhatsApp or WeChat. Compared to traditional chats, chatbots are not handled by human persons, but software is leading through conversations. Latest chatbots developments in customer services and sales are remarkable. However, in the field of public transport, little research has been published on chatbots so far. With chatbots, passengers find out timetables, buy tickets and have a personal, digital travel advisor providing real-time and context-relevant information about trips. Chatbots collect and provide different data about users and their journey in public transportation systems. They include travel, product, service and content preferences, usage patterns, demographic and location-based data. Chatbots have many advantages for both companies and mobile users. They enable new user touch points, improve convenience, reduce service, sales and support costs, one-to-one marketing, new data collections and deep learning. Using chatbots, smartphone users can reach a company anytime and anywhere. The questioned users of an investigated prototype are remarkably open to new mobile services and they quickly adapt to this technology.