The role of Chatbots and Virtual assistants in Customer service

In recent years, we have experienced a drastic evolution in the customer service industry with the innovations and utilization of Chatbots & virtual Assistants. From small to large-scale businesses, the usage of these applications and software is propelling day to day. Now, Do you know what makes this automated software popular? It’s because this software is capable of boosting the customer experience by streamlining their interactions.

Want to know more about the role of chatbots and virtual assistants in customer services? Read this blog to acquire an overview of chatbots, artificial intelligence, and virtual assistants and their role in customer services.

Chatbot Vs Virtual Assistant: Which is better?

Chatbots- Known for Performing Routine Tasks

Chatbots are software implementations that are used by businesses or organizations to communicate with humans through natural language processing and machine learning. These chatbots interact with the users by mimicking humans by understanding and responding to user queries. Along with working on routine tasks, chatbots respond to the users with pre-written answers or machine learning algorithms using NLP. Even though chatbots are efficient for answering the simple or predictable queries of users, they are limited to customized answering some complicated questions like human assistants.

Some common features of Chatbots are:

• Predefined chat flows
• Efficient FAQ automation
• Capability to solve basic questions

AI Virtual Assistants- Embrace Personalized Experience for Users

However, due to advanced features, AI virtual assistants are capable of handling complex queries and actions. With the help of machine learning algorithms, it understands user intent and their needs to provide personalized recommendations based on the user’s data and their preferences. You might be aware of Siri and Alexa which are the best examples of AI virtual assistants. ChatGPT which is considered an alternative to Googe is also a prime example of virtual assistants.

What makes virtual assistants more engaging and impressive is their corresponding capacity for text and speech recognition. Due to these features, virtual assistants are an open way to enhance the personalized and engaging customer experience. It also can answer and give responses to complex phrasings.

Here are some features of AI virtual assistants:

• Multi-lingual characteristics
• Customer-oriented results
• In-depth knowledge of the specific domain
• Processed by strong NLU

Role of Chatbots and AI Virtual Assistants in Customer Services

As mentioned above, both chatbots and AI virtual assistants play a crucial role in customer services with automated support to customers. The major objective of using these tools is to save time and embrace productivity and business engagements in various service levels.

Significance of Customer Service in Business

Yes, customer service has become a prime element in a business to improve engagement and make the customer’s happy. Efficient customer service has the potential to increase the upsells and cross-sells for the company. Being less expensive to keep a customer than to gain a new one, retaining the customers are very important. Providing good customer service encourages the customers to visit again and convert them to become lifetime customers.

Chatbots in Customer Services

Chatbots are capable of managing and responding to simple customer queries, and frequently asked questions to provide the needful product information and aid them to carry out some tasks like account login and password resets.

It acts as a helping hand to the customer service teams and enhances the response time by customers by managing routine inquiries and tasks. Due to its power to solve customer queries in no time, chatbots have become popular in today’s era.

Chatbots with AI

Using a combination of rule-based and learning based AI-techniques, chatbots focus on programming a set of rules in order to handle customer service inquiries and improve performance with the help of machine learning.

You can expect increased productivity and optimal solutions for combining both AI chatbots and virtual assistants. For example, Kotak Keya’s virtual assistant and Bank of America’s Erica are chatbots that possess the features of an intelligent virtual assistant.

You might have also noticed the chatbot on the Facebook platform- the Facebook messenger platform allows businesses to develop and deploy chatbots to carry out various tasks.

Advantages of Chatbots and Virtual Assistants

Time-saving Features: Understand and resolves customer queries with less wait time

Budget-friendly Solution: Within a fraction of the cost, chatbots are capable of suggesting effective solutions for your queries.

Enormous Inquiries at the Same Time: Chatbots increase efficiency and improve productivity by handling large numbers of inquiries with low costs.

Simplifies and Automate the Routine Tasks: Since it simplifies routine tasks, customer service representatives or employees are free to work on complex tasks.

Easy to Analyze the Customer Data: Help you in providing necessary and valuable insights about customer behavior and their preferences.

Drawbacks of Chatbots & virtual Assistants

Hassles of Technical Errors: Similar to other technologies, chatbots, and virtual assistants are also prone to technical malfunctions, server issues, etc., that might affect customer interaction and engagement.

Responding to Complex Inquiries: Sometimes chatbots struggle to respond to complex queries from customers.

Need for Initial Investments: You require upfront to set up the technology.

Utilize Chatbots and AI Virtual Assistants to Embrace your Brand Identity

As discussed above, chatbots and AI virtual assistants have become an integral part of modern business to win the competition through cost-effective and impressive customer services. Being capable of producing results on time, chatbots and AI virtual assistants suggest personalized solutions to queries and embrace customer satisfaction.