ChatBots: Redefining Customer Service for Growing Business

Lily Caroline

Digital

“A goal of a chatbot should not be to create a perfect simulation of a human
conversation but to satisfy the customer’s needs” – David Cancel

What is a ChatBot ?

A Universal statement is – A chatbot is a computer program which conducts a conversation in natural language via auditory or textual methods, understands the intent of the user, and sends a response based on business rules and data of the organization.

A more simple way to define it is – It’s nothing more than an automated extension of your team that can help drive qualified and quality conversations with the customer across multiple platforms.

Chatbots are the new-gen tech. They are literally everywhere. No more squandering time to incorporate them into your business. Chatbots are a very well timed middle ground between automation, AI, and the changing use of the internet. ChatBots are not just a notification tool. They are the brands automated assistant and they need to incorporate a broad range of capabilities from being a pre-purchase assistant to post-purchase customer care.
Also Read: Extending Five-Factor model to Chatbot Personality

There are two types of Chatbots – Simple Chatbot And AI Powered Chatbot.

Simple ChatBot scans the keywords in a query and delivers the pre-packaged answer

AI ChatBot has AI and ML combined. They are more sophisticated and uses natural language processing to create complex responses.

Example :

User: Hello, What is the opening time of your store in DC today?

Simple Chatbot: Hi! We are open until 10 pm today.

AI Chatbot: Hi Dhruv! We are open until 10 pm today. It’s raining in DC, so don’t forget your umbrella!

AI-powered ChatBot actively learns from conversations and they are seamlessly integrated with CMC and CRM, thus allowing them to tap into customer information to provide a personalized experience. The following are the ChatBot benefits that a business can’t ignore.

Chatbot Benefits – That A Business Can’t Afford to say “NO”

• Money & Time Savings – Chatbots allow companies to save money and are easy to configure to meet different needs. Once they have been built the costs of keeping them updated are relatively low. As per reports, implementing virtual agents or Chatbots can help businesses to save up to 30%.
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• Chatbots give support and solve repetitive queries of the customers and as a result, customer service agents will be able to handle more complex queries and provide better service to the customers. Therefore, Chatbotsfensure lucrative productivity from the investment in agent or employees. Hiring agents for 247365 and adding resources to give support to the customers round the clock can be too costly for the company.
• Automation of Repetitive Work – Chatbots can handle a high volume of requests with similar responses. This makes them perfect for dealing with frequently asked questions. Besides, chatbots don’t need time to search for answers as human agents do. .
• Improved customer service -Chatbots act like a bridge between brands and customers by providing 24/7 interaction. They communicate like a human being, but reduce human error and don’t get frustrated, like humans often do. Chatbots can perform routine tasks simply to enhance customer service. They also provide customers with complete product details..
• Increase Engagement & Influence Decisions -Chatbots can strike up a conversation with any customer about any issue at any time of day. They engage in friendly interactions with customers. Besides, virtual assistants only give a bit of information at a time. This way they don’t tire customers with irrelevant and unnecessary information. Chatbots can maintain conversations and keep customers on your website longer and also influence decisions

Advantages of AI Chatbots for customer service :

A company’s image depends on the customer service that is provided. A once unsatisfied client is unlikely to use the product again. That’s why each opportunity is golden.

Here are the awesome advantages of deploying AI chatbots to improve
customer experience and make it part of the digital strategy

• Rapid Answers – Customers needs don’t allow arise during the business hours, so they need a way to seek out answers to vital questions at times when the customer service staff members are unavailable. Chatbots don’t need to sleep. They can tackle issues no matter if its 12 am or pm. The best chatbots can also offer the customer the feeling of conversing with a live operator at any time. There is no learning curve for users to engage with a chatbot and also they can be seamlessly integrated into the website or apps.
• Cross-platform experience – The modern customer is everywhere, so Bots are where customers are. Chatbots are able to provide a seamless engagement experience across platforms to make the experience stress free.
• Simplifies the apps – offering just to say or type something rather than to shift and switch through multitudes of pages to find the information that they are in the lookout for.
• Breaks the language barrier – The chatbot dialogue interfaces are constantly perfected and so they can react immediately. Bots are trained to communicate in the language of the customer whereas its very difficult for a live agent to do so. It simplifies the process and brings about customer satisfaction.
• Bye-Bye, IVR, Less stress– The biggest issue of the customer service process is the use of IVR (interactive voice response) during the customer support calls. Based on the user’s voice response the call will be routed to a preprogrammed destination. IVR induced frustration reduces greatly when using Chatbot because the customer feels like their voice is being heard and moreover understood which reduces the time needed to get to a representative, resolve issues, and streamline the entire experience. IVR induced frustration reduces greatly when using Chatbot because the customer feels like their voice is being heard and moreover understood which reduces the time needed to get to a representative, resolve issues, and streamline the entire experience.
• Endless ?, Zero % of Sass– Us humans are restricted to the number of things we can do at the same time. If it goes beyond 3-4 then we are bound to meet errors. Chatbots, on the other hand, do thousands of things simultaneously with no error. If the customer is inclined to have the same query asked multiple times a day to find clarity the chatbot won’t mind a bit. They have been developed to have not only intelligent conversation but also to do dull and repetitive tasks such as calculations & database searches.
• ChatBot = Personal Assistant– Customers can use Bots for personal advice on shade of makeup, travel choices, clothing recommendations This would provide personal touch from the chatBot. Also, the ChatBot will remember all the choices the next time the user visits.
• Streamline Payments – The best feature of chatbot is it acts as a streamlined payment system. Without leaving the chat interface the customers can actually pay and it also stores payment details for faster processing

Types of Businesses Implementing ChatBot :

AI is being used in business more and more frequent, together with chatbots, and this is what does change the interaction between clients and service providers. Any business that uses online chats along with chatbots will resolve issues faster than ever. Being online, the team members can take up the running to respond the income messages.

One of the basic reasons for chatbots expansion is so-called “being tired of apps”. Consumers are annoyed by the need to install special applications to their mobile devices.

Many consumers showed reluctance to use new applications. Along with that, it is clear, that it is unprofitable to create, promote and bring into operation some new application, that will ultimately make no use.

E-commerce is the main area where chatbot has become very successful since people like answering questions from AI by means of a chatbot. Healthcare and Telecommunications are followed closely in 2nd & 3rd. There is a huge potential for businesses to ensure that they respond to clients in a fast manner because reports suggest that they can lose clients in less than 5 mins after the approach if they don’t respond in a timely manner. Chatbots are really the simplest way to solve the problem. As when the consumers expect to get an immediate response, the chatbots can offer it.

2019 & Beyond – Future Predictions

“Gartner predicts that by 2020 people will have more conversations with chatbots than their spouses.” – Christi Olsen

There is a possibility of Conversation-As-A-Service being at the forefront for the future. Conversations are shaping to be the next major human-computer interface. Messaging apps are becoming the entry point to the internet so companies are sure to heavily invest in messaging apps as bots and apps offer everything under the skies. Every brand is going to have its own virtual assistant to represent them and be a bridge between them and consumers in the near future.

The major untapped zone is adopting a open framework to build their own chatbot. This can allow them to integrate to multiple channels without being constrained. Consumers are preferring chat over email and thus more and more businesses are figuring it out.

The chatbots of the future not just responds to queries but also talks, thinks, draws insights from knowledge graphs. And finally forms a emotional relationship with customers.

How can Intellectyx help businesses?

“When a customer come first, the customer will last.” – Robert Half

A big shift in the way we think about interactions occurs when designing conversational interfaces. Websites and apps have more signifiers and affordances than chatbots. That means that for the chatbot to work the words have to work harder to deliver utility, clarity and cohesion for the user.
This is where we at Intellectyx come in. The designers realize the importance of the role they play at defining how each conversation is scripted and the behaviors users can expect when interacting with bots. Thus the designers here acknowledge the change in paradigm and they rewire their brain, their design process, and their deliverables to create positive bot experiences.

• fIntellectyx will ensure that the ChatBots are
• Aligned with the brand image
• Working seamlessly across platforms
• Providing proper answers for queries and well-defined tasks
• Professional & error free

Conclusion :

In the age where the speed of service matters more than ever, chatbots are helping companies stay a leap ahead.People are eager to talk to businesses via new channels. Customers don’t expect to have human-like conversations with automated technology. They only want to get the information they need without unnecessary hassle.

AI chatbots can perfectly meet customers’ expectations of how customer service should operate. When implemented well, virtual assistants can make the customer experience efficient. In fact, they can resolve most of the chat sessions. ChatBot and AI part of the same sphere and they will continue to evolve. Thus ushering a new era of text- and voice enabled user experience that will reshape the customer experience.

Bottom line :

When the value of having a conversation within a ChatBot and action taken on a website or app is given an equal percentage, then only can the Concept become life and as a Result, ChatBots can thrive.