How chatbot platforms promise to reduce Customer Service costs

Incorporating a Chatbot reduces costs and the need for large teams in the areas of business relationships. It also enhances the user experience, increasingly accustomed to digital transformation.

But what’s a Chatbot? How can this digital solution be implemented in customer service? What benefits will your company get when adopting it?

This article will give you the answer to all these questions and more.

Why are chatbots becoming such popular tools?

On the surface, a Chatbot is an application that mimics human conversations in order to solve several tasks more quickly. Technically speaking, it is a computer program designed to simulate conversations with human users, especially over the Internet — as defined by the Oxford Dictionary.

In practice, a Chatbot is an assistant that communicates with users through text messages, a virtual companion that integrates with websites, applications, or instant messaging.  In this way, it helps entrepreneurs get closer to their customers. In other words, an automated system of communication between man and machine.

Although chatbots are still relatively new, they are becoming extremely popular among companies seeking to automate services, marketing or sales.

What can be said with certainty is that people are increasingly able to interact with chatbots. And some really prefer this kind of communication to human representatives. According to a study by the University of Oslo, this preference is shown by the following factors:

• Productivity: Chatbots provide assistance or access to information quickly and efficiently.
• Entertainment: robots amuse people by giving cool tips, can be a fun pastime and even a source of relevant information.
• Social and relational factors: bots feed conversions and improve social experiences. Talking to them also helps prevent loneliness, gives the chance to speak without being judged and improves conversation skills.
• Curiosity: the novelty of chatbots arouses curiosity. People want to exploit their skills, try something new and figure out what it’s capable of doing. 

What are the benefits of a chatbot in the area of customer relations?

Reduced operating costs, according to a study published in Chatbots Magazine, bots help reduce customer service expenses in companies by up to 30%. 

It reduces operating expenses related not only to the volume of phone calls, but also to the duration of those calls. For example, bots are able to perform an initial screening, which decreases the average service time (TMA).

Another benefit is the reduction of the need to hire labor. Chatbots are able to replace human professionals in sales, scheduling, support, etc. And this allows you to work with leaner service teams, which directly reduces operating costs.

Ensuring scalable services, one of the biggest challenges of organizations is to provide real-time support to as many people as possible without increasing operating costs. That’s what we call scalable care.

This challenge also has an efficient response to the adoption of chatbots.

Recently, MJV led a project for a major Brazilian insurer. Through the  inclusion of a chatbot, the company was successful in responding to more than 22,000 user-interactions. Most of these contacts served to trigger certain company services.

A chatbot enables the massification of services and improvements in service delivery. It can be implemented on different channels and solve different demands.

Increased generation of leads for business, it is not only in the customer service area that chatbots are impactful. They are also very useful for sales.

Many companies use them to generate leads, bringing inputs to sales and marketing teams.

For example, value offers, such as content and services, can be transacted in exchange for customer data, which is later used to improve marketing and sales strategies. With this, it is possible to encourage prospects to go through the sales funnel, with a more interactive and innovative format.

Improved user experience

A chatbot can also be a powerful tool to ensure excellence in service. And this meets the current needs to improve the customer experience: fast solutions, more interactive experiences and instant responses.

How do Chatbots work for Customer Service?

Depending on how they are scheduled, they fall into two groups: those who work according to pre-prepared commands (simple) and “trained” commands (intelligent or advanced).

Simple chatbots

They work based on pre-written keywords. Each of these commands must be written by the developer separately, using regular expressions or other forms of string analysis.

If the user asked a question without using a keyword, the robot cannot understand it and, as a general rule, responds with standard messages apologizing for not understanding the user’s command.

Smart chatbots

Smart chatbots are the ones that use Artificial Intelligence to communicate – and learn – with users.

Instead of pre-prepared responses, they respond with appropriate suggestions on the subject. In addition, all words spoken by customers are recorded for further processing and learning.

The 4 stages of developing a Chatbot

If we can inspire you to create your own chatbot in Customer Service, here are some tips to start developing it.

Basically, there are 4 main steps:

1. Definition of objectives

What will your chatbot do?

Make a list of functions that your chatbot needs to perform to resolve customer challenges. This varies according to the company’s objectives and it is very important that it is very clear to all employees involved in the project.

2.  Choice of channel to interact with your customers

Where will your chatbot be?

Choose the channel according to your customers’ profile. For this, the first question that must be answered is: where do they prefer to communicate? It can be on your website, mobile app, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp or other messaging platform.

3. Choose the creation path

There are two of them:

• using a specialized platform (open source);
• building a custom bot from scratch —with its own resources or through a vendor.

4. Creation and launch

Describe the algorithm of your actions, develop a response database, and test your chatbot’s work.

Chatbots and Customer Service

It is important to remember that all choices regarding chatbots should be thought out according to the needs of the company. Generally speaking, this smart solution is widely employed in Customer Service and brings expressive returns.

More than preventing customers from waiting in line to chat with a human attendant, a chatbot itself can often solve the problem, complete a sale and ask important questions. This elevates the user experience to another level and ensures customer satisfaction.

Are you prepared to insert a chatbot into your customer service and raise the level of satisfaction of your customers? To further deepen your knowledge in this theme, please contact us and find out what solutions we’ve already brought to our customers. Ask about our cases here!