5 Ways To Build A Chatbot To Improve Customer Service

Chatbots, or bots, are at the top of countless Google search results these days. Why so much research and chatter about bots? Faster customer service and a better customer experience are just a couple of the ways companies believe bots can drive results throughout the organization and it’s making a stir.

A lot of people have gone past the point of wondering how to employ chatbots within their organization to actually building them. While there are plenty of tools out there to help you drag and drop your way to an AI-infused representative, you’d be ill-advised to jump right into it. Before you build a bot, there are some important things you need to consider.

In this article, we’ll explore 5 key considerations to get you started on a better chatbot path. Incorporating these concepts into your strategy will ensure you build a bot that improves your customer engagement and their experience.

When To Use A Bot

Sometimes having too many options can lead to confusion and indecisiveness. That’s not the case when it comes to bots. The meteoric rise of the digital channels used throughout companies to drive better customer experience has resulted in exponential demand for chatbots. Chatbots are being deployed from customer service to sales and marketing across channels such as web chat, SMS/text messaging, and social media.

The opportunity to use bots within single or multiple points in the customer’s journey seems crystal clear to many. The question isn’t whether you should use a bot within a conversation. The pressing question seems to be when is the appropriate time within a conversation for a bot to engage with a customer.

Before you answer that, consider these bot must-haves. In our experience, working with clients from a variety of industries, these 5 bot approaches ensure companies deliver better bot experiences.

1.Build A Bot To Offload Repetitive Or Mundane Tasks

What’s your order number? Can I verify your email? What model is it? Can you verify your address? How many times have your human agents had to ask these questions? Short answer, too many. With chatbots, the better question is how many times does a human agent have to ask these kinds of questions? Short answer, zero. Zilch.

These questions, and many more, are super simple and repetitive. The answers are fairly straightforward and necessary to help a customer and move them closer to resolution. One of the first things to do prior to building a bot is to define the parts of the typical customer interaction that could be handled by a bot, where that is prior to, during, or after an interaction with a human/agent.

Quiq clients have realized success by building bots to handle some of these simple questions, with the intent of providing human agents with more information faster to ensure they understand who the customer is and the issue at hand.

2. Build A Bot That Works With Your Current Processes

You shouldn’t have to revamp your entire workflow in order to implement a bot. Make sure your bot or bots work within your current process to improve it.

Consider using bots throughout the customer’s interaction to expedite established processes. For example:

2. 2. • Deploy bots at the beginning of customer conversations to collect information, gather relevant details about the nature of their inquiry, and to even route the customer to a specific person, department, or queue.

2. 2. • Allow your human agents to transfer to a bot during their conversation. Bots are able to collect information during a conversation to free up human agents for more complex tasks or to help other customers.

2. 2. • Let your chatbot close out the conversation with a simple thank you, or even better, a quick survey to gather feedback.

3. Build A Bot That Works Well With Humans

Our messaging clients frequently look to chatbots as a way to help the human interaction, not replace it entirely. Quiq clients have realized a lot of success from using bots to work in conjunction with humans.

As mentioned above, bots can be used in any one or multiple parts of customer interactions. Before you build your bot, make sure you’re creating a seamless experience for your customer as well as your agents.

Quiq’s messaging platform enables agents to transfer conversations to a bot, just like they would another human agent. Once the bot completes gathering whatever information they need, the conversation is transferred back to the human agent.

4. Build A Bot That Plays Well With Other Bots

Just as a conversation can be volleyed between human and chatbot, make sure that your conversations can be transferred to other bots.

Take, for example, a bot that greets your customer, asks how they can help, and presents suggested solutions. Your customer can choose the appropriate topic with a single tap. Based on their response, another bot can pick up the conversation and bring the customer through the selected process.

Quiq is unique in that you can deploy any combination of 3rd-party bots and/or Quiq bots in our system and they are treated the same. The focus is on helping the customer, not on technology.

5. Monitor Bot Performance

Improving customer engagement and experience doesn’t stop when a bot or multiple bots go live. Once you’ve implemented your bot(s), monitor performance the same way you’d monitor a human agent’s performance.

Quiq’s messaging platform reports on bots and human agents the same way. Our platform monitors the customer’s experience and provides actionable feedback, such as the customer’s sentiment during the conversation, regardless of who is helping them. Simple icons alert managers if a customer is using negative words or phrases that signals intervention is needed.

Receive the same types of stats for bots that you have come to expect and demand for agents.

Messaging Conversations Are Ripe For Bots

These critical must-haves for building a better bot should help you answer our question above: “When is the appropriate time within a digital conversation for a bot to engage with a customer?” The answer depends, of course, on the unique needs of your customers and the reasons they reach out to you.

Quiq can help you deploy bots throughout your organization that work seamlessly across chat and messaging channels. If you’re ready to take the next step to building a better bot experience, request a demo.