Chatbots and Business Communication- How to be more Human?

Remember those times when for even a minor issue we had to wait on hold, listen carefully and then respond to various IVR questions and then finally get connected to a human representative and start the process again.

Far too lengthy and most of the time complicated process, all it would do is irritate the customer and leave a bad impression of your brand.

But these things are in the past now, thanks to automation technology.

Now when customers have a query they don’t go to websites or look for call centre numbers anymore. They connect with your brand through its social media handles.

Why?

Because they are looking for quick interactions through platforms they are familiar with.

Businesses understand that humans can’t scale their communication as it would be very difficult for human executives to know the entire history and maintain a constant connect with each and every customer. So, we as humans have our limitations, but, hey, AI-powered bots don’t.

Bots Make Communication More Efficient & Immediate

Unlike a human customer service agent, a bot can be available 24×7 allowing businesses to offer round-the-clock customer support. Also, a bot can retrieve past transactions, chat history, user behaviour and real-time support while engaging the customer at their preferred time of the day.

Bots Understand Customer Requirements

Thanks to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP), bots can now readily understand the context of a customer query. Instead of throwing back questions at the customers, bots within seconds, go through millions of bytes of stored data and come up with a solution. And, if it’s something that a bot is not trained for, they direct it to their human counterpart.

Bots Eliminate Repetition & Enhance Productivity

There are several parts of customer service communication that is repetitive. Service executives end up answering similar questions numerous times a day and with each passing question the level of our energy and enthusiasm dips (we’re humans; it is bound to happen with us).

These monotonous communications can be transformed into interesting interactions since chatbots can be programmed to answer common questions with ease. It would be the unfamiliar or uncommon questions that might throw them off guard. Also, assigning repetitive work to chatbots would free your human customer executive allowing them to indulge in a more engaging and productive work.

Bots Are Devoid Of Any Bias

Machines, unlike humans, do not have independent thinking or experiences that could limit or bias their answers. They are equally understanding and enthusiastic for one and all. Also, even if a customer is not cool towards them, bots do not lose their cool.

Bots Aren’t As Inhuman As We Think

Bot adoption has progressed at a massive speed but marketers are still sceptical as bots lack the human emotion touch. But it can be good most of the times as unlike humans’ bots do not get irritated or tired or lose their calm, no matter how tense the conversation becomes.

Also, since customers understand they are speaking to a non-judgmental machine they open up easily as a human-bot conversation offers privacy while still delivering information and solutions.

 

Let’s See If Chatbots Can Address Your Business Problems

An integrated chatbot can solve a lot of customer communication problems via the medium of a humble chat. Let us take a look at which business problems do chatbots address:

1. Customer Service

Chatbots can resolve your customer’s query within minutes. With more and more customer interactions, the machine learning-based bot can start addressing complex queries.

For example: With the advent of RCS (Rich communications services), it’s quite easy for customers to get a resolution to any of their problems over instant messaging and a combination of a bot’s intelligence.

2. Lead Generation & Conversions

Bots can help your team to personalize all three – marketing campaigns, lead generation and conversion. 

For example: Instead of working blindly on cold leads, adding text communication across the customer journey can allow you to target your audience offering them meaningful recommendations based on their personal choices.

3. Payment

Chat-based interfaces offered by payment services have proven to provide a smooth customer experience.

For example, Chatbots integrated into messengers are carrying targeted customer communication in the form of text messages. Customers can pay for select verified companies and restaurants from within the chat app itself.

4. Up-selling & Cross-selling

Up-selling and cross-selling can be automated via chatbots. They can suggest, recommend and predict.

For example: By offering an upsell and cross-sell can help solve your customer’s support issue through a simple SMS, helping them, and your business, win. When an order for a movie is placed at dinner time, the chatbot can recommend placing an order for food and beverages.

5. Marketing Automation

Marketing with interactive chatbots provides enormous power for marketers as they can set up automated promotions and drip campaigns.

For example: Allowing you to connect with customers on one of the most popular mobile chat application, Facebook Messenger, MobileMonkey makes marketing automation for the Facebook Messenger channel straightforward.

People need a friend who can guide them when stuck and with today’s intelligent software it is very much possible. As their artificial intelligence capabilities continue to improve, conversations with chatbots would eventually feel more natural.

The Bottom Line

Technology has been enhancing communication since decades; calls, SMS, email, messaging apps, chatbots, voice bots and now most businesses are ready to experiment with their business communication making high-quality customer service a norm.

Consumers today want to interact with brands as they do with their friends and bots have made that possible. Friendly conversations will help not only increase customer satisfaction but also reduce customer query calls.  

To offer a great customer experience brands needs to create a balance between technology and human experience.

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