Humans vs. Chat Bots in Customer Success

While GovTribe uses the most cutting edge technology for our platform, we don’t use any Chat Bots for Customer Success.

First, what are Chat Bots? Chat Bots are those automated messages you have to click through before you can maybe get an answer to your question. Does your question pertain to A, B, C? How severe is the problem? etc. Then you are presented with potentially relevant results. If you still can’t find the answer you’re looking for, you’ll likely be presented with another set of questions and options, and eventually your question will be forwarded to a human to resolve at a later time.

So why don’t we use them?

Short answer: we don’t like dealing with them ourselves. There is nothing more frustrating when you have an issue or a question than having to jump through a bunch of hoops to maybe get the answer you’re looking for.

Long Answer: Our #1 goal is to help customers Know More so that they can Win More. Success requires humans to listen, think, and respond dynamically to inquiries which is not something Chat Bots can currently do well. What are they really trying to solve for? Is there something we should think about building in the system to help them? Whether we need to help create comprehensive searches with them, add a feature to the platform, brainstorm how to best get the data they are after, or just confirm that their eye twitch is from the frustrating Government Data (not something they are doing wrong), we thrive on helping solve their problems.

Chat Bots may help weed out people that have simple and common questions, but we don’t want to weed anyone out. Even common questions have nuances if you dig deeper that can affect the answer.

Potential Drawbacks and how we handle them

Workload: Not using chat bots mean that we have a human responding to every single customer inquiry which could overwhelm some organizations. By design, GovTribe is setup to focus on Users vs. Enterprise, meaning our system is easier to use so we have fewer “how do I” questions. We also have strong onboarding programs as well as a detailed User Guide that helps with these as well. Between the programs we have setup and the User Centric design focus of the platform, the support needs of our customers is rather low.

Repetitive Questions: We have saved answers for common questions that pop up which we can customize quickly prior to sending. This keeps response times low (typically under 5–10 minutes on average) while still delivering comprehensive and customizable responses.

Positives — some things we love!

Platform Features: Constant contact with our customers allows us to better understand their insight and needs which leads to better feature development. We know how they use the system, the questions/ problems they encounter, and actively work to ensure the platform focuses on providing the most positive user experience.

Customer Relationships: From Friends GIFs to random check ins, we get to know our users for more than just their day to day questions. As the world gets more remote, being able to chat and build relationships becomes more valuable with each passing day. Chat Bots aren’t going to help you build relationships or retain customers, they simply lessen your users desire to connect with your success and support teams.

Employee Retention & Fun Problems: When you build your relationships with your customers, the use cases brought to you are often challenging and have you thinking outside the box to solve. This is great to keep your CS team challenged and solution oriented. For me personally, I thrive on the weird and wonderful use cases that pop up. It makes logging in every morning fun!

Thoughts?

What do you think about ChatBots vs. Human support?

How does your team handle it?

What do you wish you could do differently?