Bots for Business
How to Improve Your Chatbot Customer Experience
Of all the benefits chatbots can provide, customer service is a sector with a prime opportunity for gains. Here are some ways to help ensure that your audience has the best possible chatbot customer experience.
By Mariana Ranzahuer
June 23, 2020
In an always-changing environment, every aspect of online business has seen the role that technology plays in shaping customer experience. In the past, customers would look for help by asking in-person questions at physical locations or over the phone—but this is no longer the case. The options for contacting companies and businesses have expanded past social media channels, email, and even live chat tools—which are constantly growing and improving simple and automated interactions. Certainly, chatbots are not the exception. In fact, bots have become a staple customer service channel for many businesses, making a pleasant chatbot customer experience essential.
Let’s explore three benefits of using chatbots in customer service to demonstrate how this technique can positively impact a customer’s journey.
1. Become the first point of contact to support agents
Chatbots are great customer support assistants because they’re capable of answering simple questions in a quick and concise manner. Bots make it easier for customers to get real-time answers, without the back-and-forth conversations often required with human agents.
Customer service bots totally disrupt the typical customer experience of automated phone systems or multiple rounds of emails. Chatbots can instantly provide assistance, improving one of the most important metrics in customer support: case resolution time rates.
According to Freshdesk, additional benefits of chatbots in customer service include:
2. Monitor social media around the clock
An impressive and up-to-date website is no longer enough to satisfy consumers. A prominent and positive social media presence is imperative to all brands nowadays, and chatbots are a great integration to help achieve your customer satisfaction goals.
Most consumers now navigate to, and interact with, social platforms when searching for answers to their questions. Social chatbots can automatically generate messages and respond to inquiries, making these bots perfect for online customer service. Some of the most innovative bots include Facebook Messenger Bots and Twitter chatbots. Their locations make them easy to find and use for the majority of consumers who are already on these social applications.
These chatbots include quick reply tools that offer customers easy options to choose from and operate on a 24/7 basis. This kind of simple, immediate access to information demonstrates to a consumer how much a business cares about creating a positive customer experience.
3. Show a consistent voice and brand
Chatbots have become so customizable that they can adapt to individual customer tones while maintaining an on-brand voice. This allows a bot to be fun and exciting when a user wants to play with it, serious and focused when a user has a problem, and to express a variety of other situational personalities—all while representing a brand in a positive way. Together, the adaptability and consistency of a chatbot is what keeps customers feeling like their thoughts and needs are important. This helps produce satisfied customers and encourages brand reengagement.
An on-brand voice and fun personality are just some of the preliminary benefits of a chatbot customer experience. Bots also help to lessen the friction and frustration that arise in typical human-to-human customer service interactions, drastically reducing the amount of stress and time spent on resolving an issue.
And there you have it! Chatbots can benefit your customer service experience by providing infinite solutions to tedious tasks. Speed, efficiency, accessibility, and a branded personality are just some of the contributions a bot can make to improve customer service. Ultimately, incorporating chatbots in your business’s customer service strategy can help produce limitless gains in customer satisfaction.
