Customer Support Excellence: Leveraging Chatbots for Better Service

Chatbots for customer support have quickly gone from clumsy, incoherent hindrances to an essential tool for any customer-facing business. The benefits are obvious:

• Improved response times

• Personalized support automation

• Streamlined customer service workflows

• Quicker resolution of queries

• 24/7 helpdesk chatbots for constant attention

In this article, we’re going to look at the practical applications of customer service chatbots, revealing all the ways these now-common tools can boost loyalty and lower expenses for companies of all sizes.

1. Handle more interactions at once while reducing the workload on your human team

Unlike human agents, chatbots for customer support can manage multiple conversations simultaneously, providing instant responses to a vast number of inquiries. You can program virtual assistants to deal with simple repetitive tasks, such as answering FAQs and checking the status of orders. This saves your human team resources for interactions that require a more delicate touch.

Chatbots can be programmed to escalate issues up the chain if queries get more complex. Performance data can give you a good idea of which topics should be left for humans. If you find that users regularly abandon the conversation when hit with a specific roadblock, or if they leave negative feedback, you can tweak which problems to go to the chatbots.

For more real-time intervention, a customer service manager can monitor a whole host of chatbot conversations at once. If they feel like someone is getting frustrated, or if the algorithm isn’t quite picking up the context of the request, they can jump in to avoid a bad customer experience.

Regularly gather common problems with your customer service automation and update the instructions you give it. Making a habit of these positive iterations will gradually improve your user experience and help you adapt more quickly to changes in customer preferences.

2. Incorporate automated customer support processes

Automated customer support goes beyond mere conversations. Requests sent to your chatbots can spark rapid chain reactions that play out automatically, with very little human intervention.

Chatbots have the power to trigger actions elsewhere in your business without you lifting a finger. For example, changing a password isn’t a simple process. It requires input from your customer relationship management database (CRM) to update a profile and verify that the request is genuine, all while relying on security systems to keep data safe.

Of course, humans will have to intervene sometimes, and they’ll be at their best if you remove as many blockers as possible. On a task management platform, you can create workflow templates to take care of common requests. When chatbots detect a certain user request, it can automatically assign a workflow to an agent who can start resolving the issue immediately.

3. Personalize support with AI-powered customer service

The surge in personalized customer service, driven by sleek integrations between CRMs and communication tools, has now become so ubiquitous that it is almost essential. The simple use of a name, or more complex offers based on previous purchases, has a dramatic effect on sales, resolved issues, and overall customer loyalty.

So how can chatbots for customer support jump on the personalization bandwagon?

Intelligent chatbots can work out who they’re speaking to in two main ways: Returning users will be signed into their account, alerting the algorithm of who it’s talking to, while new customers may volunteer their name upon a simple request by the chatbot itself. The natural language processing (NLP) that drives virtual assistants will then add the name to the wider context of its knowledge and use it just like a human agent would.

As chatbots for customer support gather more and more information, they provide an increasingly refined service. For example, they can provide follow-ups through scheduled reminders, feedback requests, and personalized promotions based on previous interactions.

The result is that people feel valued and understood, and you can count on loyal, repeat customers.

4. Deploy self-service support bots to empower your users

Modern customer service is seeing a trend away from phone calls and sitting on hold for 30 minutes. Self-service support bots are a great way of empowering customers to resolve their own issues quickly and efficiently.

Younger generations are fully embracing the option to avoid talking to humans, and it’s obvious why. Instead of traditional time-consuming processes, they can get a quick response on the platforms they’re used to, and feel a hit of fulfillment in fixing their own problem. Messaging bots for customer service will guide users through common troubleshooting tips and frequently asked questions, or provide the exact answer to an issue in a clear and concise way.

While searchable knowledge bases have their place, users often find them overwhelming or don’t know exactly what they’re searching for in the first place. Against a backdrop of busy lives and an expectation of instant results, many users faced with difficulty abandon the pursuit for help altogether. Dedicated self-service bots immediately solve this problem and keep another demographic loyal to your brand.

5. Integrate chatbots for customer support with traditional service features

Support tools often need to go beyond a simple conversation. Full integration with your entire database is a key part of successful customer service chatbots and adds a big chunk of context to every conversation including:

• Personal contact details

• Previous purchase history

• Past customer service interactions

• Availability of stock

An integrated chatbot can quickly pull up order details and provide relevant information without the need for the customer to repeat themselves. This is a great way to resolve queries faster and more accurately. Similarly, they can pull information from knowledge bases to provide quick, reliable answers to ad-hoc questions.

As part of an enterprise resource planning system, chatbots can talk to your inventory behind the scenes and schedule deliveries for purchases or replacements. The double-edged advantage is clear: Far less manual work for your team and much quicker response times. Both of these translate into a happier workforce and more satisfied customers.

6. Put chatbot widgets at the center of your customer service

One of the key benefits of chatbots for customer support is that you can place them at almost every touch point. Integrate them as widgets into websites, mobile apps, and social media so users have access to support whenever and wherever they need it.

Program your widgets to open the interaction with a friendly “How can I help you?” to give your customers a first point of contact. Of course, they may not have the time or will to continue the conversation. Therefore, your chatbot can refer the ticket to other support tools such as emails, phone calls, or even a link to your FAQs.

The advantage that intelligent chatbots give you is immediacy. No waiting for a return email and no sitting on hold ensures that customers get instant responses and feel like their case is progressing.

7. Stay available 24/7 and offer an uninterrupted service

We’ve all been in athe frustrating position as a customer, finding ourselves in desperate need of service outside of office hours. At worst, it could be a security issue with your bank, so the 24-hour capabilities for chatbots for customer support is a real game-changer.

It’s not just the out-of-hours service that boosts your reputation. Intelligent chatbots allow you to serve international clients without hiring an overnight team. The best products on the market operate in different languages, translating responses in real time to accommodate customers from all over the world.

NLP technology can also adopt your brand’s voice too. This helps you keep that personal connection with your users, rather than switching to robotic responses once you lock up the office for the day. Uninterrupted, on-brand support is essential to meet the needs of a customer base that fully expects it, and you can’t achieve it without AI-powered customer service.

8. Leverage conversational AI for complex query resolution

Previous chatbot iterations had clumsy, inaccurate responses that confused users more than it helped them. However, advances in NLP have now made conversational AI often indistinguishable from actual humans. Now, they can understand context, recognize user intent, and provide accurate, useful responses.

The more information these algorithms gather, the more accurate and detailed their responses. Therefore, if a user comes with a unique request, messaging bots for customer service can gather relevant information from a range of sources and put forward a coherent, original strategy to solve the issue.

Of course, there are times when your team will need to intervene, but with AI taking care of most queries, your humans have more time for the truly necessary cases. Implemented alongside well-trained human agents, these chatbots for customer support can improve loyalty. People who know they can get quick, easy solutions to issuesare more likely to put their trust in your company.

9. Use helpdesk chatbots to categorize and prioritize tickets

In a stark difference from the conversational intricacies that chatbots for customer support can offer, you can also use them to speed up your relatively simple processes. Helpdesk chatbots use the same complex technology to scan text for keywords and context. This initial information provides the nature of the issue, the level of urgency, and any relevant details needed to resolve the case.

With this context, the ticket can be directed to the right department with no time lost transferring phone calls from one side of the office to another. Notifications alert the department if an issue is a high priority so they can react quickly and effectively. For example, if complaints of a service outage come in, IT support can fix it promptly and get your systems up and running again.

This use of customer service automation takes care of a huge amount of time-consuming admin, vastly increasing the productivity of your teams. At the same time, it allows people to focus on what they’re good at, which is great for the motivation and cohesion of your technical teams.

10. Gradually reduce steps from your workflows for maximum efficiency

Chatbots for customer support aren’t just a gimmick, they have a tangible impact on your efficiency as a company. With all the admin they take care of, they streamline your workflows by removing the amount of touchpoints you need before resolving a case.

Support automation does a lot of the hard work, learning from past interactions to improve its service. Whether it’s categorization and prioritization, personalized responses, or step-by-step guides, this self-learning ability makes chatbots more efficient over time.

Don’t just abandon all quality control immediately, however. Workflow analytics measure the efficiency of every step in your customer service processes to identify and fix weak points. If your chatbots have a negative effect, you can intervene and reprogram them. On the flip side, capitalize on areas where they excel and record tangible cost and time savings as you gradually improve your processes.

Bitrix24: Boosting bottom lines with chatbots for customer support

As you can see, chatbots are a fantastic way to relieve pressure on customer service teams, without reducing the quality of your interactions.

At Bitrix24, we’ve been aware of their potential for a while now, and have incorporated them into an all-in-one business ecosystem that allows you to:

• Create navigable knowledge bases to inform your chatbot responses

• Build websites with in-built chatbot widgets

• Provide immediate chatbot answers to common customer service questions

• Autofill deal and lead information in your CRM through AI-powered CoPilot

Try out Bitrix24 for free and see how customer service automation benefits your teams, customers, and bottom line.

FAQs

How do chatbots improve customer support efficiency?

Chatbots improve customer support efficiency by:

• Handling multiple repetitive inquiries and tasks at once

• Sorting tickets by category and priority

• Freeing up human agents to focus on more complex issues

• Providing 24/7 support so customers can receive assistance whenever they need it

• Accessing vast amounts of informationfor quick and reliable responses

How can businesses ensure their chatbots provide a seamless customer experience?

Businesses can ensure their chatbots provide a seamless customer experience by:

• Designing intuitive user interfaces and conversation flows

• Regularly updating and maintaining chatbot content and functionality

• Implementing seamless handoffs between chatbots and human agents

How can chatbots be integrated with other support tools?

Chatbots can be integrated with support tools like helpdesk software, CRMs, and other communication channels as:

• A first, instant point of contact

• A chat widget on a website

• A helpdesk ticket manager

• An upselling agent for repeat customers

• A tool for gathering information from knowledge bases