Chatbots are at the forefront of the inevitable digital transformation of business across industries. Many companies are rapidly incorporating chatbots into their customer service policies as artificial intelligence powered automation becomes common place. Chatbots are being actively employed across industries of varying sizes, intent, capability, and physical reach. Their core implementation have been to simplify business processes and reduce the cost of customer service by providing seamless self-service options to the customers. Having said that, chatbots are fairly new and yet to be fail-safe. While chatbots are worth the buzz they have generated, it is essential that organisations invest in researching chatbots that they are planning to incorporate into their customer service policies to ensure that they meet customer expectations.
Security and Privacy
It is important for organisations to emphasise on the factor of security and privacy when developing or choosing a chatbot. It is essential that all chatbots are compliant with the industry standards and all privacy-related cyber laws, legislations, and regulations. Chatbots are directly interacting with customers and are privy to customer information and their issues with the company and their services, therefore it is supremely essential that all cyber security measures are diligently followed. Thus, when choosing a chatbot system the organisation will have to take into account features such as user identity authentication, channel authorisation, end to end encryption, and intent level privacy.
Defining Expectations
The around artificial intelligence has led many companies to believe that incorporating digital transformations in their organisation is a sure-shot of ensuring a streamlined set of business processes. A similar expectation also runs deep among the consumers. It is essential to know the limitations of the chatbots employed and what can be rightfully expected of them. Initially, the company has to set clear goals that they wish to achieve through the employment of chatbots and ensure that a suitable version is developed or chosen. The internal teams that would test the chatbot should be completely aware of these expectations and test the functioning of the chatbot according to these parameters alone. Further, customers should be duly informed about how the chatbots function and in the ways in which it can be helpful to them. Keeping the customers informed would ensure that the number of cases regarding improper customer service is reduced to the minimum. Chatbots are often designed specifically to meet the requirements of an organisation, and identifying the expectations is crucial in ensuring the development of chatbots that fit like a glove.
Personalised Experiences
Customer experiences are monumentally important for the organisation — positive experiences of customers can directly have a proportionate impact on the company’s market image and subsequent bottom line. Additionally, a proven method of improving customer service experiences is to offer a curated service to each customer specifically designed to meet their unique needs. Thus, personalised customer service is a major talking point in organisations across industries. This is where chatbots become a perfect fit since one of the core attractions of chatbots is the promise of a personalised experience for all customers. It, therefore, will be advisable for most organisations to choose a chatbot that is conversational in nature. Conversational chatbots are designed to interact with customers privately and conduct a conversation that mimics human dialogue on a platform resembling messaging platforms. This allows the organisations to offer a customer service with a higher degree of personalisation, leading to happier customers and subsequently to success for the business. Therefore, a chatbot requires to be adept that identifying and understanding the context of the issue the customer wishes to address, recognise the customer and address them by their names, and engaging the customers by offering them tailored solutions to their individuals demands and needs.
Future Proofing
Like all forms of technology, chatbots are also improving and advancing at break-neck speed. It is essential for an organisation to choose a chatbot that does not age with the passing days. An ideal chatbot would be able to employ the information and data analytics generated by artificial intelligence to improve upon itself. This means that organisations will have to choose chatbot platforms that have layers of cognitive abstraction. The cognitive abstraction layer would ensure that the organisation could change their chatbot functions according to the changing needs of the customer base. The data collected and collated by the chatbot itself can provide user insights allowing the system to improve itself and enhance customer service capabilities.
Expecting the Fallacies
Companies will have to realise that chatbots are machines and they are bound to make mistakes. At some point in time, the chatbot would misunderstand a customer’s inquiry. The organisation will have to be prepared for this eventuality and find ways to mitigate the issues to ensure that customer does not leave the business unsatisfied and disgruntled. Another issue with chatbots is the possibility that they would enter a loop and become unable to meet customer expectations.
Companies will have to understand that chatbots will have problems and there will have to design their chatbots in a manner that they can learn from these fallacies and improve upon itself over time.
Conclusion:
Chatbots powered by artificial intelligence is here to stay and will become a powerful tool in customer service in the near future. It is essential that companies understand the viability of chatbots, but also ensure that they are able to develop technology that are fail-safe in the longer run. An expected way of ensuring this is to hire experts. While home-built systems also do the work, it is essential for companies to understand that this technology is complicated and requires multiple layers of programming. It will also be helpful for the company and improve their customer service immensely if they program their chatbots to interact with customers in multiple languages. This would also require the company to hire experts to ensure minimum bugs across the entire system. Chatbots are among the fastest growing digital tools across the world for any organization and choosing systems that fulfil all requirements is beyond important.
About Fusion Informatics
We understand the importance of chatbots and the dynamic factor that it lends to an organisation’s customer service. Fusion Informatics holds a team of experts that are also extremely adept that helping our clients walk through the entire process and comprehend the contribution that chatbots can make. Our experts specialise in developing chatbots that are dynamic and vibrant, besides being highly curated to the specific needs of the company. We are leading destination for varied industries in their quest of developing chatbots that will serve the company in the long run. We are dedicated to providing customised innovative solutions and nothing less.
