Why chatbots suit India better than apps

I use what’s considered a low-cost smartphone. It cost me US$90. That means that I don’t have enough storage to download apps outside of the essentials – for me, those are Ola for ride-hailing, Swiggy for food delivery, and WhatsApp. Most of my time is spent on WhatsApp.

That’s why I was excited when chatbots entered the fray.

They’re automated, artificial intelligence-powered accounts that you can chat with to make decisions online. They let you do things like indicate toppings, size, and delivery address of a pizza before ordering it.

I found Recharge Bot on Facebook Messenger and nervously said hi.

The best thing is that all of this can be done right inside a messaging app – without having to download anything extra.

The movement really took off in April when Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg opened up its Messenger app to bots. Line soon followed suit.

It was a huge deal for India, where cheap devices are accelerating the annual growth in smartphone adoption to a massive 36 percent each year for the next five years.

With chatbots, India’s millions of app-averse, low-cost smartphone users have the opportunity to do new things right inside of their messaging apps. If done right, that means more people that aren’t limited by storage or monthly data issues – and more people online.

Talkative

I decided to try out a Facebook Messenger bot called Recharge Bot. It allows for prepaid mobile credit top-ups. I don’t add money to my phone often enough to have apps like Freecharge installed, so I was excited to see what it could offer.

I found Recharge Bot on Facebook Messenger and nervously said hi. It responded with a list of language options, and I chose English. Others included Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, and Telugu.

Then, it asked me to enter my phone number and gave me the option to type in “share” if I wanted to refer a friend to get a discount for my next transaction. It also offered to remind me every time that I was low on balance. I’m usually pretty averse to notifications, so I declined.

After listing some options – “extra”, “full”, and “top-up” – it gave me seven different plans. I selected one and was met with a “click to pay” button, which directed me to a PayUBiz gateway. There, I had the option to pay with a debit, credit, or net banking account. I was also offered the option of using an e-wallet provided by PayUBiz, but I picked net banking.

Teaching bots new tricks