Many companies use chatbots to communicate with their clients and answer their queries efficiently. These are a great way to improve your customer relations without having to hire resources to be present at all hours. Furthermore, they work particularly well if you have an international market and need to cater to different time zones. You cannot have the same resources stay on all day and night on their Spectrum internet to keep an eye on your customer’s messages. Therefore, setting up chatbots seems like the ideal solution.
However, there are a number of concerns you may face when using chatbots. While their functionality is pretty decent, there are some nuances you may miss out on. In addition, there may be some other issues with trackability and metrics. Here are a few common concerns related to chatbots and how you can viably address them.
There is No Uniformity
No chatbot is built the same. While this creates a diverse market with numerous options, it also results in a lack of uniformity. So, if you have one chatbot on one platform, but can’t replicate it on another, you’ll have to work with separate chatbots with completely different dynamics. This can create confusion and a lack of cohesion between your different platforms.
To solve this, you should make sure you choose a chatbot vendor who does cater to all your platforms and will provide a uniform product across the board. This will help the systems be more cohesive and easier to use.
They’re Not That Intuitive
Chatbots are quite smart and are a great way to answer basic customer queries. People usually have a few common problems or questions they’ll face and report to the chatbot. Then, the chatbot will give a few standardized answers as query resolutions. This whole process works quite well for common issues, but when things get more complex, they tend to fail. This is because they might not be programmed to deal with more nuanced questions.
In that case, you can program your chatbot to inform the customers about the relevant people’s contact information for more information. Alternatively, you can give them a time slot to contact real-life customer representatives.
Business Users Do Not Commit to Them
While chatbots are an excellent feature to incorporate into your systems, you need to commit to them. You cannot just set them up, and then just leave them as is. Every tool needs to be tweaked regularly. In many cases, companies eventually move back from chatbots to their usual email and phone queries.
Therefore, you need to make sure you and your team stick with your chatbot and carry out any maintenance or alterations, as needed. This will help the chatbot function as it should and make life easier for you as well.
They are Built for Single-Case Usage
Usually, there is no universal chatbot for all kinds of websites and purposes. Instead, vendors build customized chatbots for your needs, with tailored answers to some common queries and interactions. This means that they are built for single-case uses, so cannot be extended for other purposes automatically.
You may end up having to use multiple overlapping chatbots, and things may end up confused, with errors made. Therefore, you need to define a few use-cases from the very beginning and have your chatbots created accordingly. Keep track of all these chatbots accurately so that you know how things are going.
They Need to be Integrated with Other Systems
You cannot fully explore the potential of chatbots if you use them in a silo as a separate system from the rest of your work operations. If they work as a separate unit in your customer service functions, you cannot keep proper track of them, or gauge their metrics in a quantifiable method. This lack of integration can make you miss out on a lot of opportunities and concerns.
To deal with this issue, you should integrate your chatbots with the key systems in your business. Consider them as part of your operations rather than a separate tool. Once you integrate them into your workflows, you can also track how a concern has been addressed throughout the company.
Goals are Not Set Properly
When you’re setting up your chatbot, you need to make sure you have the right sort of goals and your audience in mind. Most companies just give vendors instructions based on what they think is better. For example, they’ll ask for something ‘smart’ without defining what smart is in their context.
So, when you’re setting up your chatbot, keep the end-users in mind. You need to consider what will work best for your usual audience, and what sort of tone would they respond to the best.
In conclusion, if you’re on the fence about the success rate of chatbots, there are a few things you need to tweak. Once you make these changes, you’ll see your chatbots perform much better.
