Why small and mid-sized companies have to boost their customer service with chatbots?
McKinsey reports that in 2016 companies invested $26B to $39B in A.I. Currently, more and more businesses see market leaders reaping the rewards of this modern technology and many of them are starting to look for the best way to incorporate it into their business strategy. The emergence of chatbots in customer service is a natural consequence of artificial intelligence development.
It was a few years ago, when messaging apps caught on in the business sphere. To date, they have become the primary communication tool for many customers. In many cases clients don’t have the time, or the will to look for answers in the FAQ or on websites’ pages. To meet customer needs, companies are using live chat solutions, which help them to manage online customer service. While, having a live chat installed requires almost real time responses, that’s what people have come to expect and they’ll quickly become frustrated if the support isn’t there for them (it’s called Live chat after all).
When analyzing incoming questions, companies see that many of the queries are repeated and their employees must answer them over and over again. In business, if a task is done repeatedly then shouldn’t we automate it? Doing activities repeatedly can be both time-consuming and frustrating, especially when it comes to small and mid-sized companies where resources are limited. Having that in mind, chatbots offer a fitting solution for this matter.
In spite of the artificial intelligences trend spreading far and wide, many small and mid-sized businesses still think that AI is reserved only for large tech-savvy companies. The truth is completely different. Nowadays, implementing chatbots to improve customer service doesn’t require a dedicated IT department. Hence, it’s high time for small and mid-sized companies to jump into the world of chatbots.
The most time-consuming part of creating bots is to prepare a bot scenario. In the first step, you should define the customers’ most common issues. The next step is to gather the most essential data about your audience. The more we know about our target groups, the better our service will be for them. Note, that chatbots are designed to interact with customers and ask predefined questions that will be then analyzed to understand their preferences, likes, and dislikes. On that basis, organizations can plan their personalized services and product specifications for target audience.
There are a couple of places where companies can implement chatbots. They are able to integrate them with social media profiles or just add a chatbot widget to their websites. Both solutions can be done in a really simple way. Chatbots also integrate with live chat platforms that expedite online communication with customers. What is more, bots are able to handle an unlimited number of conversations, providing that there is an issue foreseen in a bot scenario.
When a company manages some more advanced services like software development, chatbots can be set up to answer technical questions with links to articles from the company’s knowledge base. In this way, it can be great facilitation for customers who don’t have to dig through documentation, but just get the links directly in the conversation window.
Chatbots are also great tools to use in digital marketing strategy. Using them allows companies to create a modern image. Bots can be personalized, have their own character and look which are related to the brand.
Unfortunately, we have to remember that chatbots aren’t perfect conversationalists yet. They still have troubles tailoring the conversation to the customers’ moods which it’s crucial for the customers’ experience. What is more, some of our customers may not feel comfortable during the conversation with the chatbots as they still treat them like robots. As a result, these conversations are based mainly on the commands given by the customers to chatbots. We should be heartened by the fact that it will change.
Using chatbots in customer service requires companies to stay up-to-date with all analytics of the conversations between them and their customers. While, it seems to be time-consuming, it’s the only way to get the know-how needed to perfect a solution worthy of the AI label.
I’m the Head of Research & Development at LiveChat. We’ve recently rolled out BotEngine, a chatbot factory that will allow any business to benefit from artificial intelligence. BotEngine beta version is now open and free to use.
