5 ways that chatbots can help improve business automation

With technology changing the way customers communicate, companies have no choice but to look beyond Google’s Micro Moments to find a more convenient, engaging and effective way to improve their customer service according to their data findings. The result is a chatbot. And, whether you like it or not, these types of communication encounters are fast becoming the way of the future, to help businesses boost sales, assist with business automation and improve the entire customer-to-business experience.

While the benefits of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty are endless, intelligent AI resources and chatbots can also help to grow your bottom line in a number of different ways. Here are just 5 ways that chatbots can help improve business automation:

Reduce the need to interact with humans

The more your chatbot learns, the easier it becomes for the software to determine customer intent before an action is made. Chatbots don’t only need to be utilized in moments when customers need to speak to an agent, they can map out a customer’s website interaction, suggesting the relevant information that suits their searches. If, for example, a chatbot has stored information about a customer paying their account late, it’ll be able to guide them with suggestions on how to avoid interest repayments.

While there are so many variations in how a chatbot can effectively communicate with their customer, companies and customers don’t test these boundaries nearly enough to see how far they can push them. And pushing them is the only way to grow them and make them more humanized.

Companies which utilize chatbots should be advertising their chatbots well enough for customers to choose to self-serve themselves before turning to an agent the minute they need some help. This type of action will train society to accept this concept for what it is: the future of customer service.

Related: Chatbots are cutting call center costs

Used properly, chatbots in your business automation strategy will save you money

Chatbots can save your business money when used correctly. For example, a chatbot that doesn’t understand intent is as good as not having one at all. To be able to make a difference in the way your business operates, you’ll need to make use of a bot that is intelligent and can easily integrate with existing business automation systems. It’ll need to be able to present user-specific responses based on data from back-end systems and elicit human conversation with context. Of course, in the early stages, there are going to be queries or tasks that may be too complex for chatbots to complete, but over time, they’re going to learn how to execute transactions on behalf of users and be proactive with their service.

Divert customer interactions from live agents

With chatbots, the more you allow them to handle routine questions and tasks, the more they’ll slowly eliminate the need for calls, email, and chats with live agents. While many people feel that these bots will take their jobs away from them, it’s only making things easier for them and better for the customer’s experience. Agents will be able to spend less time dealing with unhappy humans on tedious tasks and be able to redirect that focus to higher-value interactions. Having a chatbot isn’t just about keeping up with the trends. It’s about utilizing the artificial intelligence to complete tasks more effectively, and generally to take advantage of their ‘knowledge’ and assistance to help improve business automation.

Assist human agents by suggesting responses

As previously mentioned, when your chatbot has learned enough through machine learning, it’ll start to suggest questions and responses to live agents who are chatting with customers. It will learn and store the different customer behaviors, and from that, have the ability to share that data with the agents themselves. This type of assistance and interaction will reduce the handover time and cut out any additional chat time on topics that have already been covered by the chatbot.

Scale and grow your business

Chatbots work quickly and efficiently. They have the knowledge and tools to grow your customer base, expand your geographic footprint, and introduce new products and services to your audiences from one unit. This is done without any additional human costs; therefore you won’t need to employ people (unless skilled in other areas) to help grow your business. Anything that they learn and whoever they interact with will be recorded and the information will be stored for future usage. Over time, they will also reduce call costs and improve self-service business opportunities for companies and their customers.

Start reaping the benefits, today!

Chatbots play a massive role in business automation. Not only do they tackle boring tasks, collect data and make life easier for your employees but the amount of extra work they can do will help employees improve their connection with their customers. Businesses which take advantage of chatbots for the right reasons will be able to reap the benefits in the long-run and save plenty of money. To read more about how chatbots can cut costs for contact centers and offer your business increased customer loyalty, read our recent article on the topic.