One of the great things, amongst many, about chatbots is that they are never distracted. You have their full, and undivided attention. Another is that they have exceptional, forget-proof memories, and thirdly they can move at the speed of light. With a chatbot you are always the number one on their mind. And no matter the length of time between interactions with a chatbot … they will remember you personally. With these abilities, it is no wonder that today’s customer service chatbots can exceed customer experience expectations.
In life there are times when we manage to start and finish something in ‘one sitting’. At other times, we start something, life gets in the way, and we come back to it hours, or maybe even days or weeks later to complete.
A vast majority of our life is lived online – we go there to buy, search, learn, play and work. And throughout any given day we carry out tasks on various platforms and/or through apps. If we can grab a moment to complete an outstanding action that has already been started, or gather more information to help us, we want to be able to do so, on the platform or in the app that we are already using. We don’t want to have to use a medium that is dictated and more convenient for a brand – we want the choice and convenience to be ours.
Most of us will be familiar with device ‘handoff’; where you ‘start something on one device and then pick it up on another device right where you left off’. We will also, most likely, have experienced or know about ‘handover’, a common term in customer service. This is where a chatbot hands a conversation over to a live agent when asked to do so, or if they have automatically registered their own inability to resolve the customer’s query.
Chatbots have more advanced, digitally appropriate handoff/handover capabilities. Now it is all about the chatbot always being present, ready with all its knowledge about you and what has gone before. It is about a personal interaction – wherever you are and whatever platform or app you are using the chatbot knows you and every conversation you have had previously. Even if you have asked to engage with a human agent, the chatbot is still present – ensuring the agent has all the information they need to continue the conversation seamlessly, and so you don’t have to repeat anything.
In the case that you must run to a meeting, or do something else, you can be confident that when you come back, no matter how long you’ve been away, the chatbot is there ready to pick up exactly where you left off. If it is the case that you ended a conversation after speaking with a human agent – the conversation is picked up from that point – all information follows you where you are.
With chatbots now all about serving the customer they must be where the customer is – present on every app and platform. They must be multilingual and fluently move from one language to another if the customer does. And they must be able to be culturally sensitive in whichever market they are operating, aligned to the personal sensitivities of the customer.
Multichannel, multilingual, multimarket, and multicultural chatbots are now standard features of a modern, customer-centric chatbot to ensure great customer and brand experiences. This is only possible with a conversational AI platform that provides a single interface for all customer interactions, can seamlessly transition between multiple channels simultaneously, can connect automatically with customers on their preferred channel, following them wherever they go, and manage all interactions and knowledge creation in one place to enable personalised, relevant conversations.
Exceeding customer expectations and ensuring great customer experiences is possible when your chatbot is designed, built and managed to meet the needs of the modern, digital customer: convenience, speed and personalisation.
