Why Human Customer Service Is Still Essential In A World Of Automation and Chatbots?
Futuristic technology, which past generations imagined in science fiction novels and films, is now a reality.
We have approached a major milestone in customer service, with more businesses flocking to AI in the forms of robotic process automation, chatbots, and other technological innovations to scale efficiently and give amazing quality customer service. Incorporating additional automation into a company’s customer support activities, on the other hand, must be done with caution. More isn’t always better, especially when it comes at the expense of the overall consumer support experience.
Every busy business owner’s fantasy is to wave a magic wand and have all administrative responsibilities done for them. Irrefutably with automation and innovations you’ll be able to devote most of your time to the purpose you began your business for– your writing, music, sales, and DIY projects – and you’ll have enough time left over to not only sleep and wash your dishes but also to have a personal life and spend time with your friends, parents, or children.
Every tech behemoth — Facebook, IBM, Oracle, to name a few – provides them.
It feels even more plausible as technology catches up with science fiction, particularly now that chatbots appear to be a real part of the corporate calculus.
Isn’t it?
But, wait there’s more to reality!
As more businesses began to integrate chatbots into their customer service operations, something unexpected happened: “Live chat, the primary channel for chatbots and one of the most popular, has started to decline in popularity.”
Moreover, as per the statistics, consumer satisfaction from live chat has fallen from 85.39 in 2017 to 80.96 per cent in 2019 — all modest drops that firms can’t afford to overlook.
Read on to know why this is occurring especially when chatbots have become the new business jargon. And why businesses shouldn’t give up on human-to-human customer support anytime shortly.
But before we dive into the realities, let us understand a little about chatbots and automation.
What exactly are customer service chatbots?
Customer support chatbots are conversational software solutions that are designed to assist customers with frequently asked questions (FAQs) and customer concerns in place of, or in addition to, human employees.
They normally appear to the customer as a bot that answers a few basic, popular queries and doubts. These simple chatbots are created with precise messaging flows under the hood. These flows frequently transfer the user to an online knowledge base for self-service or to a live representative.
Advanced chatbots use some amount of natural language processing (NLP) to pick up phrases in conversational context and choose relevant responses rather than depending on pre-programmed message sequences.
This means you may reduce your human customer support workers while still maintaining high client satisfaction, a win-win situation, right? Unfortunately, it isn’t always that easy. Customer service chatbots do not fix all the problems.
Why Human Customer Service Is Still Essential In An Era Of Automation And Chatbots?
Chatbots aren’t ideal, despite all the good they offer for organizations searching for solutions. At worst, they can disrupt the client journey and result in a poor customer service experience. Moreover, there are numerous challenges and issues that customer support chatbots do not address.
Let us look into this in detail;
Automation and chatbots don't perform actions
Remember how we stated chatbots could help with popular and basic queries? One of the limitations of basic chatbot technology is the inability to finish backend procedures. Rather, they depend on the end-user to do additional activities.
Probably one of the reasons for this is that customer care agents frequently employ between 5 and 8 distinct systems to address queries. As a result, consumers are frustrated because they are compelled to either directly request a human representative for resolution or simply give up.
Chatbots lack a personal connection
While chatbots are typically built to have an on-brand persona, having them does not imply a more personalized service.
Pre-programmed workflows with predetermined replies can have the opposite impact. According to studies, 75% of clients believe these interactions are cold and impersonal.
The essential point here is that personality does not always imply a personalized connection. Clients may believe they are not receiving efficient customer service without customer relationship management (CRM) data and process integrations.
Chatbots are limited to certain keywords, phrases, or predefined answers
This problem is related to the preceding one. The fixed responses impede the customer’s capacity to express their concern or have a natural conversation. In customer service communication, they lack human empathy and human-like dialogue.
Thereby the customers may become frustrated as a result, and they may feel the need to speak with a human being. For complex requests, having a chatbot adds friction to the procedure. Customers are frequently in a poor mood since they have squandered time before the human connection.
Chatbots are incapable of providing genuine solutions
The difficulty with chatbots is that they fall short of giving genuine solutions to customer complaints, even with the most basic requests.
The chatbots are unable to finish the interaction by themselves. All they can do is recognize the situation and escalate the issue to a human representative
In other words, while chatbots can reduce personnel expenses and boost productivity, they cannot yet replace human customer service teams, especially in intricate or specialized circumstances.
Human Customer Service provides an emotionally rewarding experience
Fast service, which has become one of the most prominent customers’ demands in recent years, is not everything.
Chatbots’ benefits for organizations grow as they advance, but unless your consumers are bots themselves, there’s something they require from you that only human customer support teams can offer “A satisfying emotional experience.”, at least in the foreseeable future.
As per studies, customers who have an impoverished emotional experience, to those who have an optimistic emotional experience, are more than six times as inclined to buy again and over 12 times more likely to suggest the company.
Indeed, chatbots are becoming smarter with time, and there’s a strong chance they could assist you.
We are not saying you should lose sight of what this technology is, but it is certainly important that you don’t believe this technology can address every challenging demand your customers have. The true magic happens when you strike the right balance between things that help you flourish your business and individuals who can create stronger, emotional connections with your customers that eventually transform into loyal fans.
While considering the future of customer service, we at Bolsterbiz consider how technology can enhance rather than replace humans in the workplace. Our efficient customer support team works with a combination of AI and humans, thereby reshaping the consumer experience for our clients. If you are looking for an adept team that is efficient in speed, reach, and efficiency to perform even more productively, then you are at the right place. For any inquiries or assistance contact us today!
Table of Content
- What exactly are customer service chatbots?
- Why Human Customer Service Is Still Essential ?
- Automation and chatbots don't perform actions
- Chatbots lack a personal connection
- Chatbots are limited to certain keywords, phrases
- Chatbots are incapable of providing genuine solutions
- Customer Service provides an emotionally rewarding experience
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5.Create a community forum: Create a space where customers can come to ask questions, share knowledge, and discuss topics of common interest. Community forums help take the weight off your customer service team as users can provide their expertise and learn information from one another. This means fewer tickets coming in the queue for you guys! Consumers seem to like community forums as well. 88% of respondents said that these spaces had improved their experience with the company.