5 Factors To Consider In The Implementation Of Chatbots In Customer Service

Before investing in chatbots, organizations should consider what is the objective behind this initiative. Why are chatbots relevant to the organization and its customers? What results do you hope to achieve ultimately? What factors have to be taken into account in the implementation of chatbots in customer service?

By establishing this vision, call centers improve the efficiency of the process and increase the chances of finding the best possible solution. However, the best solution does not guarantee the success of the initiative or automatically produce the desired results.

The effectiveness of the bots depends largely on the environment in which they operate. If the company does not set the best possible scenario for the new technology, it will not be able to take full advantage of the potential of the solutions. The organization will know what it hoped to achieve, but in reality it will not achieve those goals.

According to CCW Digital, the elements related to people, the process and the general environment of the contact center have a great impact on bot technology.

5 Factors To Consider In The Implementation Of Chatbots In Customer Service:

1) Journey Mapping

Bots are not a contact channel per se. They are tools to improve the experience offered at points of contact that already exist (or should exist) in the customer’s journey.

To guarantee a satisfactory experience, the organization needs a detailed and real-time map of the trajectory of its customers. Where do customers prefer to manage certain problems? Where do they bear the most “dissatisfaction” throughout the experience? Using this information, organizations can determine the best way to implement bots.

When deploying the bots, the company must continue to monitor and map the customer’s journey. How is the use of the channel changing? What problems tend to give the bots more problems? Is there a change in the types of interactions that are scaled to live agents? What are the longest calls? Once these aspects are analyzed, you can begin to solve the problems, determine what data will be needed and optimize the interactions.

2) Operational Transformation

In addition to focusing on how bots impact the customer experience, organizations must pay attention to the impact on the operational landscape. All bots (customer oriented or business oriented, based on rules or conversational, proactive or reactive) have ramifications for the call center. They change the way the organization involves customers.

From the point of view of the delivery of the customer experience, the company must take into account factors related to the performance metrics, scalability and routing processes and the voice of the customer.

If the bots handle most of the support queries, the organizations will not require the same live agent workforce. This will not necessarily imply the end of the workers, but it can imply the modification of their roles within the operation.

3) Good Knowledge

The bots are as good as the intelligence that drives their operation. Cultivating knowledge, consequently, represents a fundamental component of the bot strategy.

The bots based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) have a great base on which to acquire knowledge, since they learn based on their real interactions, but the organization continues to play an important role in the optimization and expansion of that knowledge.

The organization determines the systems in which the bots are integrated, the types of interactions that the bots handle (and in this way they can learn) and the variety of questions the bots ask (which, in turn, determines what information they collect from the clients).

The organization also plays a role in driving the AI engine. By approving and rejecting certain responses, the human hand conditions the behavior of the robot.

4) Retraining Of The Agents

If the bots have a role in the client’s commitment, they need a degree of agent retraining.

Believing that bots will handle the most simple and transactional issues, some organizations think that agents will focus on the most complex issues. Agents must be trained for this new dichotomy. They cannot simply be “support representatives”, but must possess the experience, comfort and personality necessary to think critically and connect emotionally.

Organizations that foresee a more complementary role for their bots should still consider the agent element. Agents must be trained to interact with, and potentially educate, bot technology.

5) Scalability

By replicating, automating, simplifying and / or improving tasks, bots allow the organization to perform beyond the limits of its human workforce. Scalability, in fact, is a fundamental principle of bot technology. Instead of enjoying that benefit, companies focus on ways to extend the impact of bot technology. Thus, based on the results of a channel or a problem, they develop plans to know how robots can contribute to other elements of the journey of the customer experience.