Everything you need to know about customer service chatbots

September 27, 2022 Anthony Ramirez

In recent years, chatbots have become increasingly popular as a way to offer quick, efficient, and effective customer service. A chatbot is a computer program, typically a web page pop-up, that simulates human conversation using pre-templated text and a degree of artificial intelligence (AI). When used in customer service, chatbots can theoretically help resolve issues quickly and efficiently.

In this post, we'll discuss the benefits of using chatbots in customer service, specifically diving in to the following topics:

What is a chatbot?
How do chatbots work?
Are chatbots worth the time and investment to setup and run?
Do chatbots improve customer satisfaction?

Let's take a closer look.

What is a chatbot?

First and foremost, a chatbot is simply a means to an end in which your customers receive the information and answers needed for their most pressing questions and concerns.

A chatbot is often visible to a user as a small window, widget, or pop-up on a web page that looks just like a live agent chat pop-up. Chatbots often appear within mobile applications as well. Instead of a live agent responding to the user, the chatbot uses its own intelligence to parse and understand the user's question... and hopefully answer it.

How do chatbots work?

A chatbot works by extracting small bits of information from a user through natural language processing (NLP). NLP is a branch of artificial intelligence that deals with understanding human language and responding in a way that is natural for humans to understand.

Once the chatbot has gathered enough information from the user, it will generate a response. The response can be in the form of text, images, or even video. In some cases, the chatbot will hand off the conversation to a human agent if it is unable to handle the inquiry itself. More on this in a moment.

The process of setting up a chatbot depends on the software platform you are using. As an example, Rush Order uses Zendesk as our default help desk system. We use Zendesk's chatbot and live agent chat functionality to help our clients directly, and to support our clients' end users. The Rush Order team is knowledgeable in setting up chat functionality on other help desk systems as well and each system works in similar ways. There are likely standalone chat tools you can leverage as well, without having to invest in an entire help desk system. However, we strongly recommend the use of help desk systems at nearly any level of daily customer communication greater than zero.

As an example, see the chat button in the bottom left of Rush Order's home page.

Clicking on the chat button opens the dialogue box and our chatbot or live agent, depending on our staffing at the time, is instantly there to greet you.

Behind the scenes, setting up chat logic is relatively straightforward, but it requires a lot of time and some thought to configure correctly. To help take this burden off of our clients, this is partly why Rush Order offers chatbot configuration as part of our account setup process.

Below is a partial example of an anonymized chatbot configuration. As you can, setting up a chatbot in Zendesk is as simple as dragging and dropping chatbot answers as part of a decision tree. The more thoroughly and comprehensively you build your chatbot responses, the more likely you are to avoid needing a live agent to intervene.

Is setting up a chatbot worth your time and money?

Probably, yes. Despite the effort and some expense to setup, chatbots bring a lot of benefits, including:

Speed. Using chatbots as part of your customer service strategy can help resolve inquiries quickly. Chatbots are available 24/7 and can often provide an immediate response to customer questions. Chatbots never need to take a break and can work around the clock to resolve customer issues. This is beneficial for both the customer and the company, as it can help increase customer satisfaction, prevent frustration on the part of the customer, and eliminate some additional inquiries in the future.
Efficiency. Another benefit of using chatbots in customer service is that they can help to increase efficiency. Chatbots can handle multiple conversations simultaneously, which frees up customer service representatives to handle other tasks, including providing fast and thorough support to other customers.
Reduced costs. Chatbots can be used to handle a high volume of inquiries at a fraction of the cost of hiring additional customer service representatives. Additionally, chatbots never require HR benefits, paid vacation days, office space, IT support, and many other expensive perks.

Do chatbots really improve customer satisfaction?

Yes, but only when implemented thoroughly and correctly. When used correctly, chatbots can improve customer satisfaction by providing faster and more accurate responses to customer inquiries.

As we mentioned earlier, chatbots are powered by AI and NLP. This means they're getting better at simulation human conversation every day. As a result, they're becoming increasingly capable of delivering the high-quality customer service experiences today's consumers demand—which leads to improved satisfaction levels.

There are many interesting studies published over the last few years that highlight the pros and cons of chatbots. Most brands are seeing a benefit, but not quite all. At Rush Order, we believe chatbots can consistently increase customer satisfaction when the following four criteria are met:

The bot goes wide & deep: The chatbot can cover a wide range of topics for customers, because you have set it up with a lot of thorough and diverse information.
It functions correctly: The chat functions correctly on your site (i.e. it's not "buggy" and does not crash).
It’s succinct and to the point: The chatbot doesn't waste the user's time with lots of useless answers before finally giving up.
It fails elegantly: If the chatbot does give up, it should do so relatively quickly and also be able to flag a live agent to intervene quickly. There would be nothing more frustrating for a customer than spending 10+ minutes feeding it information, only to be told "Sorry, I can't help you today".

So, as is true in any customer support channel, chatbots can be incredibly effective at increasing customer satisfaction if they are fast and effective in resolving customers' issues. This is common sense and the exact same logic exists in other support channels like email, phone, and on social platforms.

In short, setting up the chatbot with high quality content that flows logically and is quickly backed up by a competent live agent will increase customer satisfaction and reduce your overall costs.

Parting thoughts

As you can see, chatbots can yield many benefits in customer service. If your company is not currently using chatbots, now may be the time to start! If you decide some assistance may be in order, contact Rush Order to learn more about our turnkey customer experience solutions.