Robots solving problems? How chatbots help call center workers

Marketing industry analysts say chatbots are the new apps, and this year the talkative online tools are slated to make big inroads into increasing efficiency within customer service functions.

More than 30,000 branded chatbots hit the market last year, reports industry news site Venture Beat, and this year the tools are expected to become far more mainstream. In fact, Gartner predicts automated software tools like chatbots will dominate two-thirds of customer service interactions in 2017, with only a third to still require some form of human interaction. That shift could pay off in efficiency for call centers and customer service departments, part of the reason tech companies predict chatbots will soon become a multibillion-dollar industry.

Neither is the growth of chatbots slated to cause massive layoffs among the 2.2 million or so workers employed at call centers; in fact, a Forrester survey showed 64 percent of U.S. companies planned to expand their calling center workforces last year, while only 6 percent planned reductions. The goal of such systems is not to replace humans, but to enhance interactions by having chatbots perform mundane tasks so agents can target their skills toward more complex services or sales. The result should be faster issue resolutions, reduced hold times and better customer and agent satisfaction.

The average consumer might best be familiar with chatbots by the automatic screens that pop up when you’re browsing a website, asking how they can help, then attempting to address your directions via a human-sounding text conversation (though they’re essentially robots). Chatbots can live within any major chat vehicle and can perform a variety of data-gathering functions being used across industries. Some are programmed only to follow specific sets of rules and are thus limited in “understanding”; others respond to actual language and continually “learn” from their interactions through artificial intelligence.

What implications does all that have for calling centers? Chatbots built directly into the central hub of such centers can continually access customer files, past interactions, product knowledge and other data to better inform agents on incoming inquiries. For example, when a customer calls in with a relatively obscure question about a product, the conversation is logged into the center’s platform. The chatbot can then learn from it and automatically handle the next such inquiry by text, without need for human intervention.

“Unleashing chatbots into the contact center world is a surefire way to make chatbots the customer service rock stars we all dream they will be,” writes Cameron Weeks in Venture Beat. “With massive numbers of customer files, product information, and actual human interaction at their fingertips, chatbots will become independent learners. At that point, the focus shifts to simply refining the working relationship between chatbots and humans, bringing us one step closer to a perfect solution.”

Talk to Custom Toll Free about integrating chatbot technology into your call center solutions.