Today’s consumers are incredibly savvy, thanks to technology. Many people turn to a search engine to fix issues they may be having with a product or service. And companies have jumped on the consumer can-do attitude – while simultaneously providing instant, 24/7 customer support – by adding live chat to their websites. While the chatbot is touted as the future of customer experience, it has many shortcomings.
Artificial intelligence can’t customize
Artificial intelligence is mind blowing and the future of chatbots lies in the continued development of AI. Chatbots can learn and become more intelligent within their framework, but for now, that’s all. Chatbots can’t uniquely be trained or train themselves in the host of issues that crop up with products and services, for which customers are requesting service. A language gap crops up in even text-to-text communication between humans, so it’s even more likely that a request or question can be misinterpreted completely by a chatbot. In which case, the consumer is fed the same line of “I didn’t understand, can you try rephrasing your question” until the user gives up.
What happens when the chatbot fails
First of all, the customer will already be frustrated by not having their issues resolved by the chatbot. Depending on how much time the user has spent engaging the chatbot, they may become irate. At this point, the customer will call the business requesting help. This is a pivotal moment in the customer experience. If the frustrated and/or angry customer is directed swiftly to a knowledgeable customer support specialist and treated with empathy and provided with immediate solutions, the issue can most likely be diffused. If not, then this business may have just lost a valued customer.
Consumers prefer a human touch
While a chatbot does have artificial intelligence, consider the artificial part. Chatbots can mimic a realistic human communication. Any programmed empathy comes across as flat and in the heat of the moment with an angry customer, can be read negatively. And just imagine if a customer can’t even properly explain the issue to the chatbot. There are no context clues to be crawled, just an endless response of prompts or error messages. Artificial intelligence simply can’t mimic the nuances of a voice-to-voice conversation.
Cut out the middleman
We’ve established that if a customer can’t get the necessary assistance from a chatbot, one thing will definitely happen – the customer will call the business, at which point, one of two things can happen. A great customer experience can take place, or the customer will not feel satisfied with the interaction and may cut ties with the business. Here, the chatbot really just serves as a middleman before the customer calls the business. And when the customer calls, it could be a pivotal point for the relationship between the customer and the business – to stay or go?
Live answering can effectively replace the chatbot
Live answering provides a business with a team of live operators to handle customer calls. This way, all incoming calls to a business are handled by a human being. This provides a great customer experience and is becoming a key differentiator in that a business can provide human interaction whereas its competitors may still be relying too heavily on automation.
VoiceNation understands the power of voice
VoiceNation has highly skilled operators are professional, friendly and trained in all industries. The proprietary technology at VoiceNation allows for detailed customization and operators are provided with logic-based scripts so each call can be tweaked to that specific customer’s needs. With VoiceNation, your calls are in the best hands and your customers are receiving the great customer service they demand.