Messaging and chatbots impact on customer service have become the super hero combo where it’s sometimes hard to tell which one is the sidekick because they are both so powerful. Messaging provides the channels that make it possible for you to have more efficient engagement with customers over SMS/Text, web chat, and social, while chatbots help you to automate those conversations.
Chatbots should be easy to build, behave in a way that is natural for customers, and should go across your digital channels. Or at least, that’s the way we think they should be. That’s why Quiq made it easy to build and deploy bots that can be tied to one or multiple messaging channels. We want bots to blend seamlessly in with agents, third-party bots, and other systems within your organization. But we’ll get to that later.
In this post, we’ll take you through some real-world examples from companies who have easily taken their customer engagement to a whole new level with a surprisingly fast implementation of messaging and bots
Messaging + Bots – Team Work Makes the Dream Work
Implementing chatbots with messaging has become the defacto strategy for leaders who seek the holy grail of more efficiency and reduced costs, along with a higher level of service to their customers. Without a doubt, it’s paying dividends. From sales to service and all points in between, companies like Stio, Brinks Security, Club Med, and Office Depot are discovering new use cases to streamline their workflow and save “hu”man hours.
Let’s take a look at the outdoor apparel company, Stio. Like most retailers, this direct-to-consumer company counts on 4th quarter holiday revenue to take the year into the black. Hence the importance and origin story for Black Friday.
With the holidays on the horizon, Stio’s Customer Service Manager, Kim Essensa, turned on web chat and felt an immediate relief from the decrease in calls to their contact center. Past experience had taught Kim that text messaging with Quiq was the next logical step.
Stio implemented web chat with Quiq in October of 2018 and turned on text messaging after the holidays. They immediately realized a 9% decrease in calls. Now, agents handle inbound messages from SMS, web chat, and Facebook ,all within Quiq’s unified workspace. Questions, which are usually about their catalogs or orders, such as shipping status or price adjustments, are handled faster with asynchronous messaging.
In 2019, Stio took another step toward more efficient operations by combining messaging and chatbots in their business. The company, which drops over 1 million catalogs a year, receives calls into their contact center from customers asking to be removed from the physical mailer because they’d rather shop online. Prior to implementing a bot, agents would take those calls one-by-one or the customer would have to leave a voicemail for the agent to handle during work hours . Now, Stio’s bot handles the entire catalog cancellation interaction, saving over 80 agent hours in the first two weeks of implementing bots – that is one full headcount!
Improved conversation quality and scalability?
Synergy – remember that word. If there was ever a time to use it to describe two things working together to achieve an outcome greater than the individual efforts, it would be that time. Brinks Home Security saw the advantages of chatbots with messaging to streamline their busy contact center and to grow their business.
Brinks turned on Quiq Messaging in January of 2018. Brinks’ customers readily embraced the new channel for everything troubleshooting a major issue with their security system, to billing, or to just replacing batteries in their hardware. By adding the messaging channel, Brinks has seen a 14 percentage point improvement in customer satisfaction, increased agent effectiveness, improvements to the bottom line, and a more engaged customer experience.
With nearly 20% of calls moving from the phone to the messaging channel, Brinks has realized significant cost savings. With messaging, agents handle anywhere from 4-6 conversations at a time, as opposed to a 1-to-1 phone conversation.
Now, Brinks is using both messaging and bots to grow their customer base. When a customer returns a satisfaction survey that is positive, they receive a text message inviting them to Brinks’ exclusive referral program where they can earn exclusive hardware for themselves and anyone they refer to Brinks when they sign on. Once referred prospects go live, the Brinks referral bot reaches out to congratulate and thank the referrer and referred parties and ship their new equipment. The program is expected to significantly reduce the customer acquisition costs, while not requiring additional agents to manage.
Integrating With Other Systems
Several Quiq clients have strategically followed a crawl-walk-run strategy when implementing messaging and bots. Stio has been a prime example of a company that started with a basic feature, like web chat, as a foundation for text messaging and bots.
Stio recently integrated Quiq Messaging with their Shopify account. The integration provides agents more insight into which web page the customer is looking at and what’s in their cart, which reduces inquiry time.
Stio continues to push the limits of efficiency and automation because they are focused on keeping their agents available for customers who need human attention. When a customer uses messaging, a bot can collect information and take action on that information. As the screenshot illustrates, the Stio bot captures what the customer’s intent is for the conversation. Once the conversation reaches a point more suited for an agent’s attention, the bot transfers the conversation to an agent.
Stio is optimistic about the integration and believes they’ll see an increase in cart value and conversions because agents will be better equipped with the information they need to close the transaction with their customers.
Industries that benefit from having Chatbots
- E-commerce Industry
- Medicine Industry
- Human Resource Industry
- Travel Industry
- Real Estate Industry
- Banking Industry
- Hospitality Industry
- . . . & many more!
Getting started with Chatbots and Messaging
As you can tell from the examples above, there are plenty of ways to deploy bots with messaging to gain efficiency and productivity. From the beginning, Quiq Messaging has provided a way for customers to message companies like they do with family and friends.
With Quiq, companies can use new or existing landlines to send and receive text messages over SMS/Text, Apple Business Chat, Google Rich Business Messaging, web chat and social channels. With Quiq’s newest product offering, Quiq IQ, we’ve brought all of the features you need to easily orchestrate automated conversations involving bots and humans across every channel.
Schedule some time today to talk through messaging and the areas of your business it can make the most impact. We’re happy to help.
