What can I expect from a bot?

(1) FAQs: Chatbots can handle questions like ‘What are your store hours?’, ‘Which location is closest to me?’, and more, freeing up your agents to handle the more complex queries.

(2) Gathering customer information: Bots can pass off the who, what, where, when, and why to an agent, helping them contextualize queries and reducing time spent on each chat.

(3) Triage queries: Thanks to bot’s smart routing capabilities, customer queries can be routed to the appropriate department or agent.

(4) Shorter queues, faster responses: Chatbots can handle a virtually unlimited amount of chats simultaneously, cutting down on response time for customers. They can also deliver responses more quickly than human agents.

(5) 24/7 service: Bots provide an additional channel for customers to still get answers during off hours when a human agent is not available.

How do I know if bots are right for me?

If you have customers, bots are right for you. A common misconception is that bots are only useful if you meet certain criteria or have certain scenarios. In reality, all businesses can benefit from bots, no matter the size.

The better question is: Which type of bot is best for you? Chatbots come in many sizes and shapes. Even if you don’t have a particularly high chat volume, your agents can still benefit from an agent-facing bot. Another example is even if you don’t have live chat, your customers can benefit from social media bots.

What can my agents do with bots?

Bots aren’t just customer-facing – they can also help your agents be more efficient and productive. Agent-facing bots live directly in the agent console and analyze previous and current chat interactions to suggest responses, links, videos, and other resources that may be suitable. We call this Agent Assist. These functionalities mean that your agents can use bots to deliver accurate responses to customer queries more quickly, without having to hunt for the information or answer.

How do bots improve the customer experience?

Bots improve the customer experience by giving your customers the quick answers they demand, on their terms, anytime and anywhere they want. With the ability to provide 24/7 customer service and take on a virtually unlimited amount of customer queries simultaneously, bots are your queue busters and central automated hubs of information.

Taking it a step further, if your bot can’t answer a query, it’ll automatically route the customer to an agent who can – while also handing off the transcript to help the agent contextualize the interaction. No channel pivoting means no customers falling through the cracks. That’s a customer experience win.

What are some key bot features?

As mentioned previously, different types of bots will have varying features. That said, there are some key features that are non-negotiable:

Handing conversations off to an agent: Eighty-six percent of consumers believe they should always have the option to transfer to a live agent when dealing with a chatbot. When looking for features, this one is your first priority.

Smart routing: This feature ties into the one above. Not only should the bot be able to hand off conversations, but they should also be able to route the customer to the right person in the right department.

Integrations: Whether it’s a webhook to grab location information, or a CRM integration to access a customer profile, a chatbot is only useful when it’s integrated into your current technology stack.

Small talk: Just because it’s a ‘bot’ doesn’t mean it has to be robotic. Customers enjoy having a little fun with a chatbot and your bot should be able to play ball.