Many brands are already using Twitter
and other social media sites as vehicles for dealing with customer
service issues. It’s only natural when customers have questions or are
dissatisfied to bring up their issues on social media.
As a result, it becomes necessary for
brands to respond to customer service issues on social media as well.
Twitter has become the go-to platform for dealing with customer service
issues.
Recognising this trend, Twitter is now
offering customer service chatbots that companies can use when sending
direct messages to customers.
These chatbots, according to
www.entrepreneur.com, allow brands to send out auto replies to customer
service-related direct messages, to help customers get help without
human intervention, or to assist customers who want to contact a real,
live person.
Tesco, Airbnb, Spotify, and other brands
have eagerly taken advantage of this new opportunity to automate
engaging with their customers. Chatbots are now also a major part of the
Facebook Messenger experience.
In a way, this is a bit like automated
telephone systems for the Internet. The only difference is that
consumers are more educated and more empowered than ever. The salient
question is: are chatbots the future of customer service, or are they a
bad idea?
The ability to respond immediately could be a benefit
Everybody understands the frustration of
asking a question, lodging a complaint, or even making a suggestion,
and then receiving no response for days. As a business owner or
marketing professional, you likely also understand the frustration of
trying to be both responsive and thorough, and being criticised.
The simple act of giving people an
automated acknowledgement to let them know that their complaint or
inquiry has been received can go a long way towards customer goodwill.
It could be a chatbot greeting a customer, clarifying the customer’s
issue, and then giving an approximate timeline of when they should
expect a response.
Chatbots may not be appropriate for every industry or issue
One issue with chatbots is that they
aren’t 100 per cent accurate when it comes to the responses that they
give. In fact, they tend to max out at around 85 per cent accuracy. It
is important to understand that even this number is under ideal
conditions.
The average customer service situation
isn’t going to represent those conditions. Because of this, real world
accuracy is going to be much lower. In some industries, this can be a
real problem. For example, is it a wise idea for an engineering firm to
use a chatbot and risk an unacceptable rate of error?
Then, there is the B2B industry to
consider. As a general rule, B2B is slower to adopt newer technologies
and solutions than the B2C. This is due in part to the issue of accuracy
mentioned above. Then, there is also the cost and complexity of
implementing new solutions in general.
For the B2B, using chatbots could mean
dealing with integration issues, training employees, and ensuring
regulatory compliance. Until the effectiveness of chatbots is proved,
many B2B companies will probably balk at the thought of using chatbots
in most instances.
Finally, sensitivity is an important
issue. There are some issues and even entire niches in which a human
touch is necessary throughout the entire customer experience. For
example, a funeral home using a chatbot could be seen as being quite
insensitive and lacking the needed human element that people doing
business with a funeral home would expect.
Brands must properly gauge customer reaction to chatbots
Today, the more automated phone systems
have technology in place that allows these systems to detect when
customers are becoming agitated and frustrated. Unfortunately, it isn’t
as easy to detect emotion from someone using social media or chat
software. Unlike with voice systems, there is no way to detect uneven
voice patterns, volume, or interruptions.
Because of this, brands that are
considering chatbot solutions need to think carefully. How will their
customers react? Do they need to limit the use of chatbots to certain
problems or to certain areas of their website? These are all things that
should be taken into consideration.
Non-complicated tasks could be an ideal opportunity to use bots
One undeniable positive regarding the
use of chatbots is the ability to make life easier by helping them to
navigate simple, automated tasks.
For example, a customer enters an
e-commerce website and signs into their account. A chatbot appears and
asks what they want to do. In this case, let’s assume that the customer
needs to modify their shipping address. The chatbot simply takes that
information and provides them with the steps needed to take based on
instruction sets that are embedded in the AI software driving the bot.
Businesses can use chatbots for proactive customer service and education
Many companies offer tutorials or have
other ways of providing product education to their consumers. Others use
tutorials to help customers navigate their website or otherwise enhance
their user experience. This is great, but currently limiting. There is
often no interaction, or when there is interaction, it is canned. The
software simply reacts according to binary responses.
By using chatbot technology, there is
great potential for improving upon this. Chatbots using artificial
intelligence can automatically react to customer responses and actions
to provide real-time customisation to these educational experiences. In
addition to this, it may be possible in the future for chatbots to
proactively determine when a customer needs assistance and when to
escalate things, even before the customer requests help.
There is no denying chatbots are here to
stay; and that they can certainly add value. Brands such as Facebook
wouldn’t have heavily invested in this technology if that were not the
case. On the other hand, businesses that are considering using this
technology should weigh their options carefully. Cost, business model
and accuracy are all important things to consider before buying into the
use of chatbots as a customer service tool.
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