1 minute read
Are bots improving life for customers and advisors?
from Odigo White Paper
by Entourage BD
Bots now play an integral role in high performing contact centres, but is their effect always beneficial? And if not, what is the answer?
Acknowledge that bots aren’t always the answer
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Like all new technology, opinions are mixed about bots. In some scenarios, they work amazingly well and offer a great level of support to advisors. In others, they barely work at all… meaning a human advisor may need to step in with little notice.
As a result, customer confidence in them isn’t always great: so it pays to carefully consider how well your bots are designed and whether they are being used in the right way, before they are put to work.
If you use them – should you admit it?
How do customers feel if they discover what they thought was a human helping them is, in fact, a bot? Is it wrong to allow bots to mimic humans – or doesn’t it matter how human an interaction feels, as long as the customer gets the resolution they need?
It requires careful thought. If the bot fails, perhaps you feel it would be better that the customer knows all along that they are dealing with one. And it’s always easier to blame technology than a colleague when something goes wrong!
Make the problem your focus, not the technology
Bots, AI, the upcoming metaverse… technology is developing far faster than the culture of contact centres it’s designed for. Companies are naturally slow to adopt the latest technologies, so how do you strike the balance between being cutting edge and retaining a human face for your business?
There are a number of technologies out there already to help and advise agents, from bots that reduce the number of boring and repetitive tasks to applications like Next Best Action that prompt advisors through a journey.
But you need to focus on the problems customers – and advisors – need solving, rather than the technology itself.
Technology needs to be an enabler: exactly the right application in exactly the right environments. That means frictionless experiences for both advisors and customers.
