May 20, 2020 By: Praveen Kumar
A version of this Blog was first published on the The Economic Times
Owing to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic when the world is opening up to trying new-age technology and make pace with the fast-moving world, AI-powered Chatbots have undeniably become one of the most trusted technology.
In a country like India where 66% of the GDP is constituted by the Service sector, Coronavirus has hugely impacted the economy. The most thriving industries in India are said to be IT/ITES, e-commerce, Healthcare, Travel, Insurance, Logistics, which all come under the service sector. Every industry in this sector is enormously reliant on customer service/support functions to continue their operations. Due to the imposed lockdown, most businesses are facing hardships and have adopted a work-from-home culture.
Now, with the enforced work-from-home, customer service operations are facing the biggest trouble in the form of adaptation to work remotely and with lesser resources at hand. Customers, on the other hand, are struggling to receive support in the form of required information in a timely manner, resulting in a huge backlog of support requests, delayed response to customer queries, stacks of unanswered calls and emails for the companies.
The Involvement of technology-backed solutions can certainly help in resolving these issues, which is where AI-Powered chatbots can come to your rescue. Chatbots are software applications aided by voice or messaging which can simplify communication between businesses and their customers. In the past, improved User Experience (UX) was principally considered as the only way to provide ease in overall customer experience, but now the self-service initiative is giving a whole new dimension to this task. Today, a major emphasis is laid on improving Customer Experience (CX) in order to reduce unwanted friction and provide a seamless experience through ease of navigation.
To keep up with the changing times, especially considering the current pandemic situation, it is of utmost importance to be abreast with technology in order to achieve ease of doing business. With the help of AI-enabled Chatbots, the businesses which are facing trouble in their customer support operation during COVID-19 will get the support. Chatbots by optimising the Customer Support Function to a great extent help in plummeting the impact of top customer queries.
Many a time, people often wonder that the process of transitioning to chatbots will be heavy on the pocket and will take ages to transcend, also that it will be difficult to adapt, thus doubling the overall expenses. Factually speaking, basic chatbots can be deployed in a matter of just 5 days to provide an outstanding way to upgrade and at the same time speed up customer resolution. This in turn can help organisations to get the resources they actually require in order to improve their standards of customer service. Deploying chatbots can not only be a cost-savvy experiment for companies but will help in engaging more customers due to its speed and right information dispersal, making it a win-win situation for both the participants along with a potent means to achieve Return on Investment (ROI).
The process of implementation of Chatbots has two aspects:
- Identifying the required channels of interaction between both the business and the customer (this includes both internal and external medium) and the processes which will be used for interaction in these channels.
- After finalizing the channels and the processes, depending on business priorities, the communication strategy will be formed. Based on this strategy, the technology team will formulate the correct chatbot platform that needs to put in place to ensure smooth adoption of technology.
Chatbots leveraged with AI capabilities can be used for multiple platforms and can be integrated with third-party, to refine the process of customer support and at the same time develop a supremely efficient system of building steady and conversational AI interface. Chatbots also ensures seamless customer engagement by reducing variable barriers like language, accent, availability, etc.
