Improve your reachability with a chatbot!
Alexander Wijninga
| 3 min
You know the feeling… you log on first thing on Monday morning, open up your email and find a pile of unanswered customer questions. Suddenly you feel like you’re already behind for the week, and throughout the day have the sense that you’ll never catch up. All the while, customers are waiting and want to be helped as quickly as possible. We’re here to tell you that a chatbot can help. Want to improve the reachability of your service team and improve customer satisfaction at the same time? Read on!
Be available nights and weekends
Most customer service employees work between the hours of 9 and 6, often Monday through Friday. It’s more difficult than before to find employees who want to work nights. If you need to provide service after typical business hours, you’re often outsourcing to a team in another time zone, or paying your own team overtime. Both options can be costly in terms of both money and time.
A chatbot is able to work 24/7. This digital colleague takes no breaks, is never tired and never goes on vacation! The chatbot is trained to answer frequently asked questions with ease, which takes care of a massive amount of incoming inquiries. If the customer has a more complex question, the chatbot can transfer the conversation to a human agent to be picked up during business hours. This allows customer service teams to spend more time during the day on complex questions, as opposed to also spending time answering routine FAQ.
💡 Take a look: The Best AI Chatbots For Lead Generation
No hold times, no waiting
Reachability is one factor influencing customer satisfaction, but availability is another important factor. By being available on multiple channels 24/7, it’s easier for customers to connect with you. Is your team not available via phone after business hours? Customers can chat online with your chatbot on your website or on your social media channels. By making it easy for customers to get the answers they need, there’ll be fewer phone calls and happy customers who got the answers they needed quickly.
Manage expectations
It’s a real thing, instant gratification. In 2022 customers want to be helped as quickly as possible. If you can’t help a customer right away, it’s important to manage expectations accordingly. When the out-of-office reply states that the question will be answered within 24 hours, the customer may wonder if this means at the same time the following day or sometime earlier. A chatbot can help you manage expectations and communicate clearly. When the chatbot picks up the conversation, it can answer right away. If it can’t answer the question being asked, it can share “Tomorrow around 9:00 A.M. one of our team will be online to respond to your question.”
💡 Capture Sales from Facebook with these chatbots: The Best Messenger Chatbots
Reduce response time
Response time is measured from the first moment that a customer initiates contact, up until the point where the question is resolved. Using a chatbot means there’s always someone there to be the first point of contact at the front line. If the chatbot isn’t able to answer the question, it will transfer the conversation, including all details already shared, directly to an employee. The agent will have all the details on hand, meaning the question can be answered more quickly. Improving your reachability also improves response time, and thus also how satisfied customers are with your service!
Want to see how companies are using chatbots to improve reachability? Curious how this might work for your business? Plan a one-on-one demo with a colleague from the Watermelon team!
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