How Chatbots Can Amplify Customer-Centric Practices & Improve Customer Experience?

A version of this Blog was first published on the CIO Insider India

The world is changing rapidly, and we are all a part of this change. There have been tremendous advancements in the field of technology which has brought about a revolution in the way we work. The advent of AI-powered chatbots is one such advancement that has completely transformed the way departments function in organizations.

An experience that we can all relate to, is the sense of uneasiness that comes while holding a conversation with customer service, whilst making a query. Most of the time our specific questions are left unanswered or not fully addressed, to put an end to this, an AI-powered chatbot is nowhere to perform all these tasks and is driven by the objective of Empowerment, Convenience and Engagement.

Chatbots can prove to be of great help in the amplification of customer-oriented practices and the improvement of customer services.

Here are a few applications where chatbots can take charge and enhance customer experience:

• Seamless Live Chat: Artificial intelligence has changed the world we live in, and chatbots have proved to be a great invention and a perfect tool to improve the customers’ experience. The bots are programmed in a way that the FAQs are generally made available to the customers in a cordial manner. AI enables the bots to analyze the questions of the customers and present them with a desirable answer that will satisfy them. Most of the chatbots are integrated with regular websites or applications so that the customers do not need to spend time searching for a desirable answer and they can chat at the ease with the bot and just as they would on popular social media apps like FB or Instagram.
 
• 24/7 Customer Service: Attentive customer service that is timely and appropriate is a priority for customers and businesses alike. Chatbots being machines do not demand any downtime; hence they are available for the customers 24X7, ensuring fast address of any issues. The chatbots attend to the customers’ queries and answer them at any hour and this service enables users to interact with the business quite well without any barriers. Customers are satisfied with the answers, and they can also give feedback that would further help in improving the ML algorithm for the business.
 
• Endless Queries: Do you remember the time when you were hardly allowed any follow-up questions? It will never happen with chatbots! As humans, we can struggle with grasping things at once, as a result of this, many of us need to repeat the query. A live chat associate generally ends up ignoring the query for the second time, however, chatbots can answer your query a hundred times over without making a fuss. While humans get tired of performing tasks like calculations and data entry repeatedly, chatbots can do it several times without fatigue, thus making them apt for business purposes.
 
• A Smooth Trail: We all love rewards! Particularly, those rewards which came in the form of surprises. Chatbots are programmed in such a way that they can provide the necessary information to the customers. This information can be in the form of an additional web page which the bot opens for you or in the form of video content or even discount codes. Apart from these, a chatbot can also help in purchasing a particular item. It suggests the price, method to purchase that item as well as the shipping methods which can help in converting leads into sales.
 
• Less Stress, More Work: Running a business can be an invitation for stress and anxiety to be clawing at you, especially when there are so many ways a deal can go wrong. Earlier there used to be call centers that used to provide services overseas, however, with the advent of new technology the method has become outdated. Now, the requisite information that has to be delivered can be carried explicitly to the authority concerned, and in moments the customers are placed in a situation, where they can speak to the desired customer representative or authority. When you look at call centers, this procedure takes considerable time of rerouting, whereas, chatbots can offer the service at a fraction of time with just a few clicks.
 
• Adieu, IVR: When you talk about earlier call centers, getting interactive voice responses was a novel way of dealing with customers. One would be directed to a pre-recorded message that would address some predetermined queries. Even though it might have been effective it was quite a lengthy procedure in order to get to talk to the customer representative which admittedly could be quite frustrating. With the chatbot, however, even though you are utilizing a similar method, however instead of listening to the voice on an IVR, they interact with the customers and start resolving the issue within the chat itself. With the chatbot, you can bid adieu to IVR.

• Always willing to help: Considering the ongoing pandemic and work from home scenario; it is clearly visible that AI-Powered chatbots will play a vital role in the nearer future. Instead of being invested in giving a human touch to customer relations, the function and focus need to be on getting the queries answered and issues resolved which adds a touch of efficiency to the entire protocol.

Playing a crucial role in shaping customer relationship management for businesses, intelligent AI chatbots bring with them transformative capabilities. Owing to the fact that customers now expect instantaneous feedback and want their queries to be resolved spontaneously, using chatbots the resolution of customer queries can be achieved in a matter of seconds effectively. Hence, chatbots today hold the keys to the future of customer relationship management.