Maybe!
Maybe not!
The jury is still out on the same.
However, my family is already sold over the bot idea(as if their stand matters). If bots are meant to take over the customer services’ landscape…so be it, they say. Their opinion stems from a recent online incident, wherein the order delivery was delayed by a good number of days.
This is what happened…
The other day my hubby dear was wondering why an online order delivery was taking so much time. He had ordered briefs, yes *briefs* for our 11-year-old son online and was pretty glad about it. The vendor guaranteed cheap and prompt delivery.
But then, Murphy’s Law came sneaking around. The order got delayed. Hubby and son grew restless. Being empathetic, I simply suggested them to go ahead and call the customer care department of this prominent online store and inquire about the delay?
“Nope. I won’t,” was hubby’s stern reply.
With a female customer representative answering all his previous calls, hubby dear had developed cold feet this time.
“Holding any kind of *brief(s)* discussion with a lady representative? Nope, I am not up for it,” he concluded with raised hands.
And, so they waited and waited and finally the briefs arrived. Nope, hubby didn’t heave a sigh of relief or anything. He just felt that a bot could have saved him from all these mindless concerns, however, minuscule they appear to be.
Okay, all this nonsensical rambling about briefs is to drive home the point that bots could be the future of customer services.
As mechanical and inhuman as they might appear, bots are significant scientific invention that might alter the scope of customer service landscape, forever.
Here are some of the biggest advantages of having a bot on your customer service board.
Unlike humans, bots are available 24/7 to answer customer queries
Unlike humans who love to stick with their standard 8-hour job, bots are available 24X7, which is being recognized as one of its biggest plus points. Unlike humans, they don’t require constant breaks. And, most importantly, they can handle two or more customer complaints simultaneously. This automatically makes the lives of customer service people easier. For instance, customer Service king Zendesk launched ‘Automatic Answers.’ It’s an email service that answers customer queries 24/7.
Based on machine learning and artificial intelligence, Automatic responds to email questions instantly. However, the best part being that every interaction makes it a little smarter. The software works only on emails right now. Going forward, it might as well be available on multiple communication channels, thereby helping businesses take over the human aspect of customer service to a greater degree.
Unlike humans, bots boast better memory power
When it comes to memory power, it stands to reason that bots enjoy one-upmanship over humans. They know the complete history of each and every customer, whether they are in 100s or 1000s, and could go back and forth on their data a thousand times if need be. This makes it really easy for them to access customer history and other personal details, leading to more personalized interactions and valuable customer experience.
The basic premise of customer service is to please the customers – and customers are highly pleased when they know they don’t have to repeat their concerns, over and over again.
Unlike humans, bots remain calm even in pressure situations
It goes without saying that bots could handle pressure well, opposed to humans. Immune to emotions, they could keep their calm, even if the customer goes paranoid at the other end. This ensures that situation is handled well and makes sure the customer doesn’t take to Twitter or other social media accounts to vent his anger, as is often the case these days.
The rise of Bionic Customer Service or BCS
That’s a technology that believes in not replacing but complementing customer services with bots. For instance, companies like X.ai uses the technology to makes things easier at the in-house level. For instance, X.ai uses a personal assistant called Amy to schedule meetings so that you could free up your time for other crucial activities. Though Amy schedules the meeting and all, it does not attend the meetings. Being a support system, she isn’t designed to replace humans in the first place.
Bots could also act as sidekicks, leaving the main job for humans
Bots could even support customer service by gathering data, which humans could further use for their eventual interaction with the customers. The information gathered could help humans comprehend customer problems better and even empower them to solve basic issues, automatically.
Definitely, bots would alter the customer service industry of the future. But then, to what degree? Only time will tell. As of now, Application Intelligence, the technology that power bots is still at its mice-testing phase. So, the argument, that bots are incapable of emotions, and are engineered to achieve only so much and might commit errors, indeed holds water. For instance, AI-powered Microsoft’s chat bot Tay went off the rails, all of a sudden, and started making racist remarks, and also tweeted her support for Adolf Hitler, before Microsoft pulled the plug.
All said and done, only a right balance of bots and humans is the best way forward for businesses. However, the quality of customer service would mostly depend on the quality of bots and quality of humans.
