How chatbots take the pressure off service teams
Digital assistants are there for our customers and interested parties immediately, never sleep and always have an answer or solution at the ready. They save the service team an enormous amount of time, saving you valuable resources that you can use elsewhere. According to forecasts by Gartner, there is potential to digitalise 85% of all customer interactions in the service sector.
The focus in the use of chatbots is on simple, well-structured service cases. Information that can be mapped in FAQs is predestined for chatbot conversation structures. And who likes searching through long FAQ lists instead of asking a question quickly and easily and receiving the right answer within seconds around the clock? If something is still open, it is forwarded to the "human" counterpart.
The best areas of application for chatbots are precisely these standard processes that cost the service team a lot of time but can be handled digitally in no time at all. Accordingly, chatbots are particularly popular in surveys, support and the pre-qualification of service cases.
How to make the implementation of virtual agents a success for you
In practice, chatbots are at the beginning of technology adoption. The use of virtual assistants in the service sector has increased significantly over the last 12 months. Currently, around 1/3 of companies in the DACH region use chatbots in customer service. Now is therefore the ideal time to get in early as a service pioneer and adapt your technology accordingly.
However, projects are often delayed due to doubts such as the complexity of maintaining conversations or the use for the wrong subject areas. However, the technology is already so far advanced that the right solution can be found for every company. Success and acceptance are already pre-programmed with the decision in favour of a suitable chatbot. Here are a few helpful practical tips from us:
The chatbot language shapes the relationship with your customers and influences customer loyalty. The right language is often associated with a feeling of good service support. You can influence this through consciously chosen signals. Verbally, you should choose a language in which your target group is at home. Visually, you can score points with appealing or personalised avatars. Audibly with laughter or other human behaviour from your chatbot. And the most important thing is the fast response time. When your customers speak to a digital service agent, they want to take advantage of this rather than being put on hold on the phone or waiting days for an email response.
The use of a chatbot is crucial for a successful experience and the associated customer satisfaction. For complex topics or special enquiries, the chatbot should always forward to an assigned specialist department and ideally provide an outlook on the expected response time. In standard cases, the chatbot can usually act on its own and the stored cases can also be automatically enriched with the latest technologies.
The chatbot's communication channels are best located where the target group feels at home. For B2C products, this could be WhatsApp or Facebook, for example. In the B2B sector, primarily on the website or via chat. If you use chatbots multiple times, you should ensure that they also have access to a 360° profile in a CRM system so that they can respond to previous conversations.
Use chatbots as a lead generation tool. It is often easier for customers in the information phase to ask a quick, "anonymous" question to a digital agent than to send a direct enquiry to a company. The hurdle to making direct contact is also often lower with digital assistants. However, you can recognise genuine interest from such questions in the early phases of the customer journey and convert the chatbot contacts into leads.
Technology pioneers are already hitting the ground running with AI
Solutions with machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are already being used to give chatbots even more power. Complexity is reduced and efficiency is further improved with digital intelligence. Even a virtual agent learns from experience, almost like a human being who is constantly developing in their job. Conversations can be optimised based on customer insights. The 360° overview of each customer relationship can be included in order to pick up on interesting topics for the respective contact or to push the preferred services. These extensive networking options can be used to automate further processes and adapt them to actual customer needs in the long term.
Our conclusion
AI-based chatbots offer an effective solution for processing service requests, generating leads and improving customer relationships while saving resources.
By using chatbots, you can both save time resources and give your customers a standardised answer to their question immediately. This allows your service employees to focus on complex issues and further increase customer satisfaction.
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