Pandemic Causes Surge in Support Calls, Can Chatbots Help?

Shopping from home during the coronavirus has necessarily caused a surge in online retail transactions. That, in turn, has pushed a big fasten in back up calls, which has posed some problems, specially for larger e-tailers. Fortunately, chatbot technology has been there to take on the brunt of this burden. Recent research by Digital360Commerce quantifies the spike at a whopping 426 per centum increment in chatbot-driven customer service sessions in April, 2022 as compared to the preceding February.

The challenge for homo service agents is that despite the ease with which most voice over IP (VoIP) call centers claim they can handle agents that work in distributed environments (at dwelling, for example), nearly back up services aren't prepare that way with merely their primal phone call centers having the network infrastructure to handle the new volume of back up calls. Chatbots can triage help desk queries earlier handing them off to a man agent, even going so far equally to handle ordinarily-asked questions by themselves without any human intervention at all. And since this technology has helped and then noticeably with the fasten, some assistance desk managers are wondering if chatbots might exist proficient enough to play a wider support office long term.

Pandemic Pushes Real World AI

(Paradigm courtesy of Statista)

While they're not a cutting-edge example of artificial intelligence (AI), chatbots are nevertheless based on this technology. Indeed, i of the nigh common initial, real-globe AI implementations was to improve customer interactions and related business concern analytics. This applied science has matured quite a bit since its inception, giving ascension to chatbots and besides helping to plant better client experiences and even approximate user sentiment and brand perception. Almost 67 percent of respondents in a recent Statista survey apropos existent-world AI implementation (encounter above) used AI for call center and chatbot assist.

"COVID has accelerated the need for digital transformation," said Will Hays, CEO for Lucidworks, a provider of search and information applications for client support. "In customer support, the two main drivers are efficiency and customer experience. It'southward a large mistake to conflate those two. Just considering you create a great self-service experience does not hateful you don't need to have an effective help desk." He added that businesses need to look at both of these strategies independently to class an constructive unified solution.

"The challenge that call centers are having today is the migration to remote work," Hays said. "If you lot think nigh the propensity of hiring within a telephone call center, these are low-skilled jobs where you're hiring people in off the street with high turnover rates. Setting that upwardly from dwelling house is actually difficult, and in some cases, information technology's incommunicable."

Hays adds that what is being perceived past companies as an increase in support call volume might very well be just a lack of resources where they are unable to expand at home.

"Efficiency becomes not merely a matter of trying to save money, simply whether or not you can retain a customer.  We utilise our recommendation AI technology to exercise what we call 'next best activeness'." Hays said this includes helping agents brand better decisions based on client needs by giving them a total customer 360' vision, with a access to relevant content. "The AI evaluates customer needs to form a improve support flick earlier handing it off to a human agent," he adds.

Can Chatbots Assist?

"There's definitely been an uptick in chatbot use besides equally automation and support during the pandemic because companies are trying to go their information in a channel that's more accessible," said Lauren Golembiewski, CEO of Voxable, an agency that designs vox interfaces and chatbots assisting businesses with conversational strategy and implementation.

The current technologies certainly add value to the back up equation by employing AI and conversational design to aid customers and agents solve problems. Chatbots are definitely a part of that solution, but experts like Golembiewski feel they demand to be improve designed in society to remain constructive.

"You can now telephone call your cable visitor and exercise a router reset directly from the telephone chatbot," Golembiewski said. "It's what was previously called an Interactive Phonation Response (IVR), but at present falls within this conversational technology umbrella. Nosotros tin can do more with chatbots because they are underpinned by this software design approach that'due south solutions-based."

"Nosotros're bringing more than into the realm of what the customers can do to solve their own bug, and then we can free upwards support representatives to handle the more complex issues," said Matt Buck, Voxable's CTO. "If you think about the traditional back up structure, level nix would be the self-serve support where users have to search for their own solutions. Level one is your customer support representative or agent, and somewhere in between these 2 are chatbots,"

Golembiewski said that it is important for chatbot designers and programmers to create flows that have an understanding of conversational interaction. "Sympathise the unique needs of the users when they're sitting in front of a chat screen, trying to become a problem solved, and actually understand all the individual steps that that chatbot needs to carry out to solve that person's problem."

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Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/help-desk/39195/pandemic-causes-surge-in-support-calls-can-chatbots-help

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