We are currently in the midst of a hugely expensive problem with traditional customer services; recent market research reported that every year, 270 billion customer service calls take place, with 85% put on hold and 48% feeling unhelped at the end of the call. It’s easy to see that for almost half of callers to feel unhelped and for 85% of callers to have to wait is a big problem, both for businesses and their customers. It highlights a potentially fatal pain point — waiting times. Nobody likes waiting for things, and that resentment is accentuated when having to wait at a time when somebody needs help or has a time-sensitive issue they cannot solve themselves. Customers can be patient and accepting to a point, they understand customer support staff can only work so quickly, but it’s far from unreasonable to expect better. It’s up to businesses, then, to step up their game and improve, and it’s in their best interests to do so; unhappy customers are far more likely to consider taking their business elsewhere. The notion that ‘time is money’ could not be more relevant or applicable here — faster resolution of customer issues will ensure that customers are satisfied, have faith in the business, and are happy to use your services in the future.
Customer services are the front line of any business, representing the pinnacle of interactions between a business and their customers. From good customer services stems higher customer satisfaction, an increase in repeat business, a better reputation and a greater intake of new business, which ultimately all leads to more revenue. Therefore, customer services should be treated as being crucially important, valuable, and arguably the key to any significant long-lasting success. Making customer services as optimal as possible is a no-brainer when the time and money saving benefits are considered. So, the problem’s been established, but what’s the solution?
Optimising Customer Services
Instant messaging, online text-based communication, is fast becoming the new norm for conversing, both personally and commercially. Offering simple, streamlined interfaces that are optimised for mobile usage, instant messaging is preferable for its ease-of-use, convenience and flexibility. The rise of instant messaging usage is a convention that all businesses need to pay attention to and take advantage of. It’s been estimated that people now spend around 5 times longer in messaging apps each day than on voice calls, and messaging is proven to be up to 4 times more efficient than voice communication channels. Moving conversations off of the phone and onto instant messaging platforms also paves the way for automation, the newest weapon in the customer services arsenal, and the secret to boosting customer satisfaction and spending. Automation here comes in the form of chatbots, AI-powered computer programs that simulate natural conversation.
Why chatbots? Thanks to the machine learning that lies at their core, chatbots are intelligent; they can read and understand messages, identifying key points of information to decide on the most appropriate responses. Chatbots can operate independently 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They’ve been proven to be able to solve 80% of customer queries without any human supervision, and they can deal with an infinite number of simultaneous conversations, which makes them a great option for large and expanding companies with high traffic volume. If that wasn’t enough of a reason to consider AI customer support, a chatbot is also significantly cheaper than operating a live chat service. One chatbot can take on the workload of several humans with the advantage of instant responses, meaning no more waiting or queues. According to statistics from the financial industry, where chatbots are already being put to good use, an average of 4 minutes is saved for every enquiry handled by a bot instead of a traditional call centre. That’s time that can then be spent improving services, and ensuring customers with more complex problems receive all the help they need without an added wait.
Chatbots, then, are an ideal way to quickly build upon existing customer services. Creation and deployment times for bots vary, but will undoubtedly be faster and cheaper than expanding human support teams with additional staff and training. The flexibility of chatbots to operate concurrently on multiple platforms and implementations also makes businesses better connected with their customers, and more easily accessible on platforms previously closed off to them. It’s clear that the benefits of utilising chatbots are vast, both for a business and its customers. There is no better way to shorten customer service resolution times, increase customer retention and satisfaction, and save money. So, the only question left to ask is what are you waiting for?
Originally published at Natter.ai.
