The Six Biggest Advantages of Chatbots

Linsey Jepma of OBI4wan identifies six big bonuses of implementing chatbots within your organization.

Many organizations would like to incorporate chatbots into their organization, and it is only logical to want to know more about what this virtual colleague can do for your company. For many organizations the pilot phase is now over and the results are clear.

Based on the experiences of, amongst others, HEMA, DHL, RTL/Videoland and the Erasmus University, we will take you through the six biggest advantages of chatbots for your organization.

1. Using Chatbots for Increasing Volumes – Enhance Your Efficiency!

In recent years, organizations have been struggling with the increasing volumes in webcare, because more and more customers know how to find companies on social media and messaging channels. Chatbots prove to be an excellent solution to tackle these increasing volumes.

As an organization, you want to provide a fast service, but you also have enough time for your customers. Dutch company HEMA saw a volume increase of 60% in the last couple of years, and they knew they needed a solution to be able to continue to offer their customers a good service.

Right now their chatbot is used for most questions about orders and ‘more HEMA’ to request additional information from the customer, so the employee can use this information.

RTL also realized that chatbots could be of assistance to them. This company uses a chatbot for 25% of all messages concerning webcare, to assist customers of Videoland. In the different industries, we see that a chatbot can completely or partially answer 20% to 40% of the volume.

2. Save Money With Chatbots

Getting started with chatbots is an investment that will pay off in the long term. For example, HEMA saw a cost reduction of 17%. Within the e-commerce branch, we have even seen a cost reduction of 36% and a rise of 20% in the amount of customer interactions the employees have per hour.

The secret? Using personnel for complex questions from customers and chatbots for simple questions and routine work. The proper use of chatbots moreover immediately leads to this next advantage.

3. Chatbots Increase Customer and Employee Satisfaction

After the launch of a chatbot for service, customer satisfaction is of course one of the things you want to measure. Experience shows that chatbots ensure a 10% higher NPS score. The Erasmus University in Rotterdam made its own KPI for this.

Christa van der Kruk of the University explains: “About 10% of the page visitors use the bot and around 80% of the customers who use the bot also fully finish the conversation.”

“The bot is fairly complicated, as there are a lot of questions in it and some questions are pretty difficult. 90% of the people who use the bot are satisfied with it, which means we are well above our KPI!”

Yet with the right application, chatbots do not only contribute to increased customer satisfaction but also to employee satisfaction. After all, chatbots ensure that routine work is taken out of their hands.

This way there is more time to answer complex customer questions and employees can go the extra mile to address any issues customers may have. Chatbots are therefore not a substitute for employees in the customer service department, they supplement them.

You achieve the best results with a good balance between people and technology!

Bas Vogels, supervisor and trainer of the DHL Customer Service team, says: “The webcare team thinks the bots are fantastic. Employees have much more time to sort out complex customer questions and prevent escalations. The employee satisfaction rate has also increased enormously.”

4. Increase Your Reachability

In a digitizing world with increasing expectations of service, chatbots ensure an extension of your accessibility. RTL/Videoland saw the advantage of chatbots outside of opening hours.

Whereas service agents are available to customers daily from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., many questions that do not require an employee can also be answered outside of these opening hours, thanks to chatbots.

5. A Large Range of Possibilities, Suited to Your Organization

Chatbots are available in all shapes and sizes. We distinguish between three types of chatbots:

a. Chatbots That Support the Service Agent

Chatbots can take work off your hands both in front and behind the scenes. For example, think about a bot that automatically answers questions and that does not require any action from an employee, or that automatically tags messages based on smart technology.

A chatbot can also route specific questions to the right employee, so that the question immediately goes to the right department or employee. These bots can operate in the background, do not have conversations with the customer, but are a valuable addition to the service department when it comes to efficiency.

b. Chatbots as Work Planner

A chatbot as work planner has more contact with the customer. It recognizes the question the customer is asking, looks if all necessary information (such as an order number or email address) is present in the message and asks the customer for missing information, if necessary.

The chatbot lays out this information for the employee, who can then answer the question.

c. A Chatbot That Answers Specific Questions Independently

Finally, a chatbot can also be used to conduct complete conversations with the customer. For example, think about frequently asked questions, such as questions about opening hours or delivery times.

For each of the three applications, we see that the level of efficiency has increased. The proper use of chatbots saves employees precious time, and that time they can spend helping customers.

6. You Are in Control of Technology

The development of chatbots is increasingly shifting to the organizations themselves. You control the extent to which you outsource the development of chatbots or whether you do it yourself. The development of chatbot platforms is growing, and a good chatbot platform allows you to create a chatbot yourself.

Do not settle for a simple chatbot that can only provide standard answers to questions, but invest in a chatbot platform that ensures that your chatbot will still be able to do its work in the future and that it can grow with your organization. Also consider the skills your chatbot team needs.

As you have read, chatbots have plenty of benefits. Do you want to get started yourself? Start small, but think big.

Author: Robyn Coppell