What Do Customers Really Think of Chatbots?

Gartner predicts that 85% of customer interactions will be handled without humans by 2021. This might be a scary idea for agents who are sensitive to job security, but rest assured that jobs performed by humans will not disappear.

Why? The Contact Center remains inherently a forum for human participation. 85% of the interactions that agents can free themselves from, thanks to the use of chatbots, are repetitive inquiries and questions that can undermine their productivity. For this reason, bots and virtual agents will be a complement to their human counterparts, not a substitute, helping call center employees to achieve a more satisfactory customer experience (CX).

Used correctly, chatbots can become an agent’s best friend, enabling them to meet and exceed operational performance KPIs, CSAT (Satisfaction Survey) and NPS (Net Promoter Score).

What Do Customers Think of Chatbots?

The answer to this question is that consumers want bots and technologies that allow them to solve problems on their own. Thus, while 84% of users say they are more willing to do business with a company that offers self-service options, only 61% indicate that organizations facilitate self-service.

In other words, companies must work to create an enriching and satisfying self-service experience for customers. To do this, the first step is to open those self-service channels and offer users the ability to resolve issues themselves, if they choose not to speak to an agent. When it comes to chatbots and / or virtual agents, there are some best practices to consider:

1) Know What Problem You Want the Chatbot to Solve

It is convenient to have individual bots and each of them has an area of expertise. Chatbots are only as good as the information they contain, so putting too much information in just one, or asking a single bot to solve too many use cases, will confuse you.

Why? Because chatbots are taught to recognize key words or phrases. Multiple use cases for a single bot can have overlapping keywords, causing the chatbot to misinterpret the problem the customer wants to solve.

If the customer has to connect with an agent, not only will they be frustrated, but because they left the chatbot session, the agent will also not have the advantage of seeing the data collected from the bot to provide a personalized service. This large-scale problem can and will affect CSAT, NPS, and FCR (First Contact Resolution), among others.

2) Chatbots Are a Workforce

Implementing chatbots or virtual agents is not a fixed practice. While virtual agents have the advantage of machine learning, as they take advantage of factors such as natural language processing (NLP). For chatbots, making sure information is kept up-to-date (this can mean new products, promotions, processes, etc.) is an absolute imperative. Depending on the speed of change in your products and services, it is possible to implement a dedicated resource to monitor the bot making updates.

3) Have a Live Agent at Any Stage of the Interaction with a Chatbot

If the user decides to solve the problem on his own, he may become frustrated if he does not achieve his goal and end up calling to speak with an agent. Again, this does not favor human agents because the data that the chatbot collected will not be presented to the agent.

So ensuring that the option to connect with a live agent at each stage of interaction with the chatbot will go a long way in keeping data intact, agents informed, and customers generally satisfied with self-service options.

Bots, Automation and Contact Center Results

It is no secret that call center leaders are looking for ways to adapt to the increase in call volume, Artificial Intelligence (AI) in its various forms is a good tool in the call center for this.

A chatbot or virtual agent can help manage volumes and take routine problems away from human agents or take advantage of AI-powered workforce management to help contact center leaders accurately forecast and easily schedule.

Artificial Intelligence helps call centers achieve their goals, enables users to help themselves, and ultimately leads to stronger connections, greater opportunities for repeat business, and greater customer loyalty. Leveraging this technology improves CSAT, NPS, and FCR.

Chatbots and other self-service options provide agents with time during the day to focus on helping customers with more complex issues and also allow them to focus on learning and development, improving their performance and helping contact centers achieve their goals, and even many times exceeding them.

Also, data analysts understand architecture and statistical reporting; In addition, they can support the integration of disparate data, structure or categorize data, support workflow and customer journey mapping. Evaluating past interactions and documented processes will help to understand if chatbot development can be contracted or if a managed service provider or systems integrator should be used to help build your own chatbots and virtual agents through an outsourced model.