How Chatbots And Human Agents Together Will Transform Contact Centers

Chatbots today can simulate human-like conversation and resolve simple and many complex customer issues. Especially chatbots can easily take over handling simple tasks such as sending an instant response to a customer eg: ‘Okay, we will look into it.’, or answering Frequently Answered Questions (FAQ),  from human agents. This greatly improves agent productivity as usually most customer service questions are low-level and repetitive.

Responding immediately is a very important determinant for customer satisfaction. In this regard, chatbots help companies garner satisfaction and trust from their customers.

Another benefit of using chatbots is that they can be used to handle customer care at odd hours of the night. Unlike for humans, time is not a parameter applicable to chatbots.

If you were to look at the benefits of using chatbots in contact centers, the most important factor is the reduction in cost. In fact, CNBC reports that chatbots are expected to cut down business costs by as much as $8 billion by the year 2022. Some of the economical benefits of adopting chatbots for customer service are:

• Reduced Labour Costs – Organizations that have integrated chatbots as a first line of service in their customer service team have seen a considerable reduction in labour costs. While a human chat agent can effectively chat with about three customers at once, efficient chatbots can handle an unlimited number of interactions simultaneously. This means that a chatbot could be employed to handle as many customer concerns as possible, transferring the service process to a human agent only in case of very complex queries.
• 24/7 Presence – Customers today are extremely demanding due to which it is a good idea for companies to have round-the-clock customer care. Because let’s face it, customers pay for more than just the product. They pay for good service too. But in order to employ human agents for 24/7 service, the cost required is huge. So what can a company do to provide good customer service WHILE cutting down on costs? Use a chatbot. Using chatbots to handle after-hour queries with an option to escalate to a human agent only when required, is practical. This way, customers trying to establish contact do not feel deprived either. The company too is happy as no additional resources need to be hired.

  And the greatest thing about chatbots is that unlike humans they don’t charge by the hour. Whether you have implemented a chatbot for 9 hours in a day or 24, it costs the same.

• Lower Training Costs – Customer care agents need constant training in order to keep them updated with ever-evolving products and processes. Additionally, every new hire also needs to be thoroughly trained. But the cost of training these resources can quickly add up and get out of hand. Chatbots on the other hand are capable of constant learning. Even in case of newer data, an update can be made to the centralized chatbot builder platform and revision cascades to the overall chatbot operation. They also pick up on customer behaviour patterns to deduce what the best response to specific questions might be.

According to Gene Alvarez, Managing Vice President at Gartner, more than half of the global organizations have already invested in automated solutions such as chatbots for customer care, as they realize the advantages of automated self-service. Gartner research also reports that organizations report a reduction of up to 70 percent in call, chat and/or email inquiries after implementing an automated solution such as a chatbot. According to the Aspect Consumer Experience Index, 70 percent of millennials report positive experiences with chatbots, and many prefer chatbots for the convenience and immediate gratification. Along with increased customer satisfaction, a 33 percent saving per voice engagement has also been noted.