Customer Support Chatbots Can Boost Service & Enhance UX – Here’s How

As a CX leader, boosting customer service and optimising user journeys are likely among your top priorities. One game-changing solution that achieves both goals is the implementation of customer support chatbots. 

These AI-powered tools are revolutionising the way companies handle customer interactions, leveraging some of-the-moment tech tools such as natural language processing (NLP) and AI.

The advent of customer support chatbots is one of the most powerful rising tides of the CX industry. Just consider the following stats:

• Well over one-third - 40% - of millennials claim to engage with bots on a daily basis. (Marketing Dive.)
• Chatbots can help businesses reduce customer support costs by 30% or more. (IBM.)
• 64% of businesses state that chatbots allow them to deliver a more customised support experience. (Statista.)

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

What Are Customer Support Chatbots?

In short, a customer support chatbot is an AI-powered solution designed to streamline customer service interactions. 

Think of them like automated, virtual assistants. Using the powers of natural language processing and artificial intelligence, they handle customer queries independently and can provide instant responses.

Driven by machine learning algorithms, customer support chatbots continuously learn from each interaction, enabling them to offer accurate and personalised responses. They can address a wide range of customer inquiries: from classic FAQs, to more complex issues, providing real-time assistance at every turn.

They improve response times, enhance user experiences, drive higher levels of customer satisfaction, and can free up your support team to focus on more complex tasks.

OK… But How Do They Work?

Despite conjuring mistrust among the most tech-skeptical, the way chatbots work is relatively simple. Or, at least, the theory is. 

When a customer or user interacts with a chatbot, the bot analyses their input, identifies the intent behind the message, and generates an appropriate response. As it ‘learns’, the chatbot can continually hone and improve its own performance. 

From there, by integrating with a knowledge base and via clever programming, these AI-powered virtual assistants quickly provide relevant information and assist with common inquiries.

Basically, it’s all about using machine learning algorithms to understand and respond to customer queries. 

9 Business Benefits of Customer Support Chatbots

Customer support chatbots offer you a range of business benefits, helping to streamline operations, enhance CX, and drive overall efficiency. 

Here are some of the key advantages:

1. Improved response times: Chatbots can instantly respond to your customer queries, providing timely assistance, 24/7. This reduces waiting times and enhances your CSAT levels. Customers no longer have to wait for a live agent; they can access immediate support.
2. Cost savings: By automating customer support, you reduce the need for a massive agent support team – resulting in significant cost savings. This means you can funnel resources into other, higher-priority areas, and have your human support team handling only the most-complex issues.
3. Increased scalability: In theory, chatbots are able to deal with an unlimited volume of customer interactions. This allows you to scale your support capabilities without adding additional headcount; particularly valuable during peak periods or when expanding into new markets. 
4. Consistent customer service: Chatbots provide consistent responses, based on their programming, and information stored in the knowledge base. This ensures that your customers receive a reliable, uniform experience.
5. Enhanced customer experiences: Effective personalisation is like CX gold dust. By analysing customer data, your chatbots can tailor responses and recommend relevant products or solutions. 
6. 24/7 availability: Customer support chatbots are available round the clock, catering to customers in different time zones and providing support outside of regular business hours. 
7. Data-driven insights: Chatbots also capture valuable customer data, providing insights into behaviour, preferences, and pain points. You can use this data to improve products and services.
8. Human agent collaboration: When needed, chatbots can hand over conversations to your human agents. This ensures a smooth transition from automated assistance to personalised support, improving customer satisfaction. 
9. Reduced errors: Chatbots minimize the risk of human errors in support interactions. They provide accurate and consistent information, reducing misunderstandings and improving the quality of service. 

Key Features of the Most Effective Chatbots

To ensure your chatbot gets to work effectively, keep in mind the following key features:

• Natural Language Processing (NLP): NLP underpins a chatbot’s capabilities, allowing it to understand and interpret queries accurately. This allows for more meaningful and contextually relevant interactions.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI means chatbots can learn from interactions, improving their responses and understanding over time. 
• Seamless Escalation: Chatbots should seamlessly escalate conversations to your human agents when necessary, in a smooth transition.
• Knowledge Base Integration: Integration with a solid knowledge base allows chatbots to access and provide accurate information to your customers. 
• Multilingual Support: Chatbots with multilingual capabilities can engage with customers in their preferred language, breaking down language barriers.
• Contextual Understanding: Chatbots that can maintain context throughout a conversation offer more personalised and relevant responses. They can remember previous interactions and understand the customer's intent, for instance.
• Analytics and Reporting: Built-in analytics pave the way for improved learnings around customer interactions and chatbot performance.

Implementation Best Practices

When implementing customer support chatbots, it's important to follow these best practices for the best results:

• Define clear objectives: Determine the specific outcomes you want to achieve.
• Thoroughly train the chatbot: Invest time in ‘training’ the chatbot with accurate and relevant data, to ensure accurate responses.
• Regularly update the knowledge base: Keep your knowledge base up-to-date with the latest information and frequently asked questions.
• Test and iterate: Conduct thorough testing to identify and resolve any issues or gaps in performance.
• Provide clear escalation paths: Define clear escalation or handover paths to your human agents.
• Monitor performance: Continuously analyse the chatbot's performance to identify areas for improvement.
• Seek customer feedback: Encourage customers to provide feedback on their experience.
• Integrate with existing systems: Integrate the chatbot with other systems such as a CRM or helpdesk software to enhance efficiency.

Overcoming Chatbot Challenges

While customer support chatbots do offer a serious streamlining opportunity, some companies encounter challenges during implementation. It’s worth touching on these, so you’re aware of some of the most common pitfalls and take steps to avoid them.

• Natural language understanding is crucial to ensure accurate responses – emphasis on ‘natural.’ Of course, it’s likely that many of the systems you currently used weren’t built to mimic ‘human-ness’ in the same way chatbots are. As a result, aligning chatbots with existing systems can sometimes create integration issues. 
• Personalisation is key to meeting customer expectations. Regardless of a chatbot’s sophistication, handling complex queries may still require human agent involvement. To some business leaders, this undermines the chatbot’s entire value proposition. 
• Moreover, ensuring data security and privacy is essential for customer trust. There’s nothing a customer hates more than feeling that their data is at-risk from ‘a robot attack’ – even if this isn’t the case, it can be a painstaking task to rebuild belief in your data security protocols.

Your best bet to overcoming these challenges is to partner with a tech provider that is tried, tested and trusted in the delivery of CX-boosting customer engagement tools. 

Ask to see case studies and/or examples of previous implementations, and be sure you’re dealing with an organisation that has tangible experience in the field.

Streamline & Enhance With Vizolution

Ultimately, chatbots excel at improving response times for customer queries, helping to deliver seamless customer experiences, and driving higher levels of satisfaction. Powered by advanced machine learning, they continually learn from customer interactions to provide accurate and personalised responses.

Though there are some challenges to overcome, the bottom-line seems clear: a large piece of the future of customer experience belongs to AI technology.

By integrating customer support chatbots, along with other CX-enhancers like agent-assisted journeys and self-service tools, you not only optimise response times. You also digitise the human agent (or take them out of the equation completely, depending on the specific tool). This allows them to focus on more complex tasks, resulting in increased productivity and cost savings.

At Vizolution, we provide a range of solutions that can enhance or streamline the journey of a customer interaction; helping your organisation reach peak efficiency, without sacrificing that all-important aspect of a rewarding experience.

Whether through document exchange, esignatures, ID verification or secure case management portals: we can help streamline your support processes and ultimately improve your business performance. Contact us to learn more.