{"id":23490,"date":"2020-04-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-29T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.helpshift.com\/customer-service-chatbot\/"},"modified":"2024-04-07T22:59:47","modified_gmt":"2024-04-08T05:59:47","slug":"customer-service-chatbot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.helpshift.com\/customer-service-chatbot\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Help Your Business Now with Customer Service Chatbots"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Increasingly, brands are looking for innovative ways to meet rising customer expectations and remain relevant in a digital-first world. One such tactic is to use chatbots and automation to streamline manual and time-consuming processes and to improve the customer experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Customer service chatbots are specially designed to help customers self-serve, troubleshoot problems quickly, and escalate to a human agent if needed. They are particularly valuable during volatile times when demand on a customer support team may dramatically increase because they can be built and deployed easily and are able to scale instantly to meet surge capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Customer service chatbots leverage automation, sometimes in combination with artificial intelligence (AI), to answer basic customer questions via a messenger system. This might range from pricing and product options to simple troubleshooting. They are particularly effective when used in conjunction with a human customer service team, who can step in for more complex inquiries, and existing resources like FAQs and knowledge bases. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A bot, for example, can signpost a customer to a FAQ article based on keywords and phrases that it identifies in a customer\u2019s message. Vitally, it can be programmed or trained (via machine learning) to give responses that differ according to a customer\u2019s needs and through a brand\u2019s preferred voice and tone. It can also be tailored to different customer groups, like lifetime VIP customers or newly onboarded customers. In this way, an enterprise customer will have a different experience and response compared to a start-up customer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Live chat is another channel used by brands to provide rapid support. Live chat differs from chatbots in that the interaction is carried out by a human. This has obvious limitations, because humans need to sleep and have breaks while a chatbot provides continuous cover. Live chat can also be siloed, in that the information gathered from a customer may not always be stored for future inquiries or for another agent to pick-up on a different channel. If a customer accidentally closes the chat window or leaves for more than five minutes, their conversation history is lost and they\u2019ll have to start again. Meanwhile, customer service chatbots, working in tandem with asynchronous messaging<\/a>, can store all customer inquiries and touch-points in a central system for quick handover to a human agent. Furthermore, chatbots can handle multiple simultaneous conversations at the same time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are many reasons to invest in a customer service chatbot, as it can benefit your entire support function from the first contact to resolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brands that use customer service chatbots tend to value efficiency and customer experience. These bots don\u2019t try to engage audiences with small-talk, nor try to sound human. Instead, their aim is to lead customers through a streamlined channel of information to resolution as quickly as possible. In doing so, it helps to free-up a support team\u2019s resources and time to focus on value-added activities like relationship-building. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Chatbots can also help a customer support function scale without a large increase in agent headcount. Support capacity can be rapidly adjusted to respond to market or economic changes, new product launches, and new market entries. Given that the current uncertainty is predicted to continue, with recession looming, brands may need to innovate<\/a> to survive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In this way, you can also more easily adapt to a growing global customer base with localized and multi-lingual support. Plus, you can serve people across multiple digital channels<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Using a chatbot also empowers customers to access support 24\/7, regardless of your office hours. If a customer engages with a customer service chatbot and the issue is too complex for the bot to resolve, then it can escalate to a human colleague and let the customer know when to expect a response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unlike a human team, chatbots are consistent regardless of ticket volume or external factors. Agents may feel quickly overwhelmed if an influx of requests suddenly come through, during the holiday season, for instance. This can impact their responses and tone. However, a chatbot will always provide instant responses with the same voice. For chatbots where machine learning is applied, they can continuously iterate and improve their responses to different types of customers based on feedback. This improves the quality of the support you offer over time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Aside from these benefits, there is a caveat when using chatbots. When a customer is feeling frustrated or confused, it\u2019s better to hand the interaction over to a human agent. As advanced as automation and AI has become, it will never be able to emotionally relate to a customer or offer a human-level apology when needed. <\/p>\n\n\nThe benefits of using chatbots<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
An improved customer experience<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Greater scalability<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Increased self-service<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Consistency and continuous improvement<\/h4>\n\n\n\n