Customer Center Week (CCW), the world’s largest customer contact event series, recently launched a whitepaper, “Chatbots, Everything You Need To Know.” This is a great resource for those exploring how the use of chatbots can enhance their customer support. Here is a recap of our key takeaways.
A recent CCW survey of customer support leaders highlighted artificial intelligence/chatbots as a hot topic in their future support roadmaps
To learn more around how other companies in your industry are using chatbots, check out Chatbot Guide, a resource we created that shares over 100 bot case studies from leading brands across several industries (e.g, Retail / Fashion, Travel, Banking, etc) and different platforms (e.g., Twitter, FB Messenger, Alexa, etc.).
Before integrating chatbots into your customer contact strategy, take an inside-out approach of understanding key data gaps of your support team.
For example, if customers already have issues finding answers to their questions within your FAQ’s and other support content, launching a chatbot will not solve this.
Proper planning around the types of support questions you’re receiving across messaging channels and related answers will allow you to hit the ground running with your chatbot launch.
“A Chatbot without proper connections to your customer data and preference management systems is like a car without an engine — it looks nice, but it’s not going to get you anywhere.”
Some chatbot uses cases have worked well for directly assisting clients, especially in the travel industry where a lot of customer questions can be transactional (e.g., flight status, change flight, etc.).
However, most companies have moved away from primarily using chatbots to automate customer conversations, due to its poor results. Companies have seen AI work best when integrating with their customer support team. Some effective chatbot use cases mentioned in the whitepaper include the following:
“The real opportunity with AI technology is not in deflecting conversations away from agents but rather improving their performance”
For those interested, CCW is having their next event in New Orleans, January 22–25 2018. Key topics will focus on how Bots and Robotics, IoT, Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence will shape the future of customer service.
Featured speakers include Shark Tank’s Robert Herjavec and CX leaders from Blue Apron, Comcast, Walgreens and more. Click the following link to view the agenda and learn more. Get a 20% discount off current price on registration with the code: 2018CCWW_CHATDESK?
