In a fast-paced digital world, getting your business out there will involve having it online, to connect with your customers. How you want to sell your product or service will determine how your customers will interact with you to avail of your product or service. 

Building a unique app and a chatbot are two ways to go about getting your business to your customers. While both of these have their pros and cons, it takes a lot of time and resources to develop your app in contrast to building your own chatbot to meet your customers’ needs in an efficient and affordable way.  

If you’ve been weighing on developing an app on a tight budget and schedule, here are a few reasons why a Chatbot might be a better option for you:

1. Chatbots are cheaper to make 

Building an app takes up time, money, and a considerable amount of manpower. After the app is developed, it has to be tested, edited, then submitted to app stores. Not to mention that OS updates are tied up with your app, and you need a dedicated team to make sure that it’s compatible, else risk being inaccessible to your customers. 

2. App fatigue is a reality for users

People are tired of apps. A report by App Annie details that app downloads have plateaued despite the increase of digital device usage. But this doesn't mean that people have stopped downloading new apps that come out — they’re only using what they already know or whatever’s popular.

There’s an app for everything, and building your own puts more pressure for it to stand out and perform well to get back your investment. 

On the other hand, messaging apps are very popular, and using them to host your chatbot is a cheaper and efficient way to connect with your customers. It makes it more convenient for them to reach you, which is always a good thing. 

3. Customer engagement is at the forefront

Apps can make your customers navigate through different parts to find ways to contact you for their business needs or questions. It may make them less satisfied with your app and, consequently, your business. 

Chatbots simulate talking to humans, and as human agents are not available 24/7, chatbots can attend to concerns or tickets the issue to be attended to by an active agent in the morning. These directly contribute to an increase in customer satisfaction by resolving issues on time, or ensuring that it will be resolved ASAP. 

Chatbots are easy to interact with, and they add a human touch by communicating with them like a customer service agent helping them out.  

4. Chatbots are flexible to a growing business’ needs 

App servers have a certain capacity. When your business grows, traffic will increase, and it’s possible for it to reach an overcapacity. Your app can crash and be unusable for the majority, if not all, users. 

Your customer service team, too, has limitations. If there were three hundred people waiting for assistance, and your team only has three people on the clock for it, you risk losing customers due to long waiting times. 

Having a chatbot to operate 24/7 to assist them makes it easier for your team and lets them work on resolving more complex customer issues or other tasks that require decision-making.

This isn’t to say chatbots will replace apps completely. We still need applications for our daily lives. But if you’re working within a resource and time constraint, developing a chatbot instead of a unique app would be beneficial to your business. 

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Even if you have the capital to develop your app, business owners recommend building a chatbot to assist your team in handling customer service requests. So you can put more focus and priority to meaningful tasks, and improve your services and products for your customers. .