How to Use Chatbots to Improve Customer Service

Customer service continues to be one of the top pain points that brands face in their digital transformation. As technology advances, customer service expectations continue to skyrocket. The days of “I’m sorry, this is a problem we’ve never encountered before. I’ll pick up the phone and call our engineer; let me get back to you” are certainly not over, but what’s different now is that customers expect instant responses and solutions without having to fill out any lengthy forms or talking to a live agent. Most importantly though, they want their issues resolved in a way that provides value even if it’s just teaching them something new or making their lives easier with an automated bot response.

As a result, customers are becoming more impatient and less forgiving when things go wrong. Even the slightest delay in response or mishandled conversation can have a lasting effect on customer loyalty.

To understand how to build better bots for customer service, it’s important to take a step back and look at where this all started.

How did customer service find its way into conversational forms?

Here are five things to keep in mind when designing your chatbot for business:

1) Keep it simple (for both you AND the end user)

2) Don’t take yourself too seriously; users don’t either

3) Get creative with integrations, like Autodesk

4) Empower your agents by letting them know who’s on the other side of the chat

5) Make your bot easy to interact with and understand.

This is where bots for customer service come in: they can help businesses better engage their customers and resolve problems quickly and efficiently — all without an engineer or a live agent.

Even though they are still new technology, bots have already found their way into many aspects of our daily lives. For instance, Messenger now has over 100,000 bots built for its platform alone. That may not seem like much compared to the 1.3 billion users Facebook boasts, but keep in mind that these are all user-built—meaning that there isn’t one corporation behind them curating what you see. The possibilities are only limited by your creativity.

Here are just a few great examples of brands making bots to help support their business through customer service:

Toyota’s ServiceBot

Toyota created its ServiceBot for Facebook Messenger. Its purpose is to answer any questions that drivers have about their vehicles themselves, in real time. It can tell users whether they need an oil change, provide the status of their vehicle repairs, and even send directions to the dealership. This is a brilliant example of transparency in action because it puts the power back in the hands of the user while simultaneously empowering staff on both sides of the spectrum. A truly win-win solution!

Virgin America

Back when Virgin America was still flying planes, one of its very first chatbots was built for Facebook Messenger. This bot would send users information about their upcoming flights, such as gate changes or delays. In fact, the company has been “beta testing” bots for customer service back in 2015 !

Autodesk

Last year, Autodesk announced a slew of chatbots designed to help with—you guessed it — design! Its first was a Facebook Messenger chatbot that helps users find new designs. It’s a simple bot that automatically sends its users images and videos of different building materials they might want to use when redesigning their homes. As someone who follows several professional designer accounts on Instagram, I can’t remember how many times this type of helpful piece of content has appeared in my feed. It is certainly an interesting way to connect with an audience that may not have otherwise found you.

Other examples of chatbots in action are out there, but these three really highlight the usefulness of building a bot for customer service by showing how they can be used to provide value on both sides of the spectrum.

What’s next?

As more businesses see the potential of bots, more will start to build them. The more people use Messenger or Slack or Facebook at work , the easier it is to send messages back and forth with customers. It’s all about getting people on board so that you can improve your business at large through better communication with your customers.

Bot builders like Gupshup help companies get their feet wet when developing new chatbots for different aspects of their business. In fact, your company can even use Gupshup’s platform to share its bot across social media channels—in essence, creating a “brand” bot that pulls from your company’s Facebook or Twitter page. The possibilities are endless!

In the words of William Gibson , “The future is here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.” Let the chatbot revolution begin!

What do you think of chatbots? Do you have a favorite bot in action? Let us know in the comments below.

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