FIVE TIPS TO SUCCESSFULLY INTEGRATE CHATBOTS IN CUSTOMER SERVICE

I think the first time I spoke about the future of AI and chatbots was the ICMI conference in 2015. The slide read, “The future as we see it: Chat, social media, texting, and in-app service will become the channels of choice.”

Since then, I have had conversations over the past five years with contact center leaders who said they didn’t think their customers would ever accept talking to a robot; they also weren’t sure the technology would allow them to provide an effective customer experience.
Many of those doubts evaporated with COVID-19. Choosing to engage their customers with chatbots and digital assistants was no longer a choice but a requirement. And the reason they took the leap to fully implement AI and chatbots was that the technology was ready – so, the success of pushing tactical calls to a bot – just made sense.
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If, like me, you have been online in the last several months seeking to chat with a live person about an invoice or problem, you have probably experienced both good bots and bad bots. That is because, while the technology is ready for primetime, it isn’t being implemented in the best way possible. Companies are sometimes expecting the technology to do the work – and that is just not how AI and chatbots can best be used to deliver a smooth customer experience.
If you plan on implementing AI or a chatbot, here are five things to consider for building a good chatbot experience:

Read the rest on the ICMI blog....