Talking to a customer service executive can be a time-consuming and frustrating experience that almost every consumer goes through at least once in the buying cycle, whether it is to fix a problem on an existing product or deciding on a product to buy which best suits their needs. To address this problem, the industry moved to messaging and online chat which provided some respite to the users.
According to a 2016 consumer survey1 conducted by Ubisend, 50% of respondents said they prefer using a messaging app over a telephone call to communicate with a company. But the comfort level and ease of solving a problem was still not where it should be. Customer executives would take too long to respond, and the wait didn’t go down well with the consumer.
Moving forward toward enhancing the customer support experience, businesses have begun to replace person-to-person messaging with “chatbots” or virtual agents. Chatbots are computer programs that use Artificial Intelligence to understand and partake in human conversations to solve customer problems. A Gartner report2 claims that by 2020, customers will manage 85% of their relationship with an enterprise without having any need to interact with a human.
Chatbots are not only beneficial to consumers but also to businesses. For one, they are more cost-efficient than having a team in taking care of customer service. According to a July 2016 Business Intelligence report3, chatbots have the potential to reduce customer care costs by 29%. Facebook has already a taken a big step by integrating chatbots into its messaging app, Facebook Messenger. In fact, six months after it announced and brought chatbots to Messenger, there were more than 30,000 such bots created on Facebook Messenger. With the world’s biggest social media website betting big on chatbots, it becomes even more important for enterprises to invest in or at least explore the potential of chatbots.
Here are three ways how using chatbots can help your business.
1. Better Service
When it comes to using virtual assistants or chatbots, they are available to solve your customer’s problems 24x7. Using chatbots also means that multiple customers can be handled at a time, thereby doing away with waiting till the next customer care executive is available. Chatbots can take the pressure of routine interactions off your customer care executives, as they can be given to handle questions that are generic and repetitive in nature. In individual cases, where required, chatbots can route the customer to a human rep.
2. Better Website Navigation
Apart from fixing problems, chatbots can also assist customers in deciding what product to buy and where to find it. The moment an interested buyer lands on your homepage, the virtual assistant can offer its assistance to help the person find what he or she is looking for. Additionally, based on their browsing pattern, a chatbot can identify visitors who are unable to find what they are looking for and intervene to help. In the case of ecommerce, for example, a chatbot can help in routine transactions like Return & Exchange issues.
3. Better Data Analytics
While bots are monitoring users’ queries and browsing patterns, they are simultaneously gathering lots of data and analyzing it in real time. This information can help companies understand the kind of problems that their customers are facing and what needs to be done to deliver a better customer experience .
References:
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Ubisend report: https://insights.ubisend.com/2016-mobile-messaging-report
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Gartner report: https://www.gartner.com/imagesrv/summits/docs/na/customer-360/C360_2011_brochure_FINAL.pdf
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BI Intelligence: http://www.answerdash.com/blog/chatbots-are-revolutionizing-customer-service
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Chatbots magazine: https://chatbotsmagazine.com/how-with-the-help-of-chatbots-customer-service-costs-could-be-reduced-up-to-30-b9266a369945
