Strange, strange things… At ixdlab_ we aren’t convinced that Chatbots can fully replace a trained human employee entirely.  We do believe they offer business added value in supporting out of hours contact, or brilliant for handling regular simple tasks like applying a flag to customer bank accounts that the customer is using a card in another country. They can be useful for answering customer queries on delivery dates for ordered goods, or to help identify and apply voucher savings on a range of products for promotional reasons. 

Building a Chatbot to successfully respond to every customers query isn’t without its challenges. Researchers currently predict that within the next five years 70 – 90% of customer queries will be successfully dealt with by Chatbots, the resulting cost saving making Chatbots worth considering. 

So how do you work out how to construct a useful and successful chatbot?

1. Work out what questions your customers ask on a frequent basis.

This could range from simple queries:

• Delivery times
• Shipping addresses 
• Order status 
• Onboarding 
• Updates to pricing 
• Discount

and simple tasks

• Changing a PIN number 
• Applying a discount to the right product 
• Password resets 

2. Work out how many of the regular queries answered by your staff can be directed to the chatbot

Time savings for your staff answering customer contact queries and completing simple tasks can be measured over a typical day, week, or month. So if a member of staff regularly addresses the same queries in say the average industry time of 10 minutes for responding to a customer query with a specified time period then it is possible to benchmark the most common queries and work out an average cost of handling responses.

3.  Chatbots have problems recovering from incorrect input by customers or deviation off topic

Chatbots often work on linear scripts that have very specific steps. It’s better if the design of the Chatbot is far more flexible, and adaptive to identifying changes in request for what the Customer wants. This is not however without issue. Designing a Chatbot which can identify context of query is better than designing with a tightly scripted linear type script which is too inflexible to adapt to customer changes. Other ways to compensate for incorrect input is to show the Chatbots menu to the customer to help resolve a query.

Typos and indirect questions can also challenge the Chatbots responses. So make sure that a design compensates for these eventualities and has flexibility in the interpretation of contexts from the customers answers.

4. Sometimes understanding between customers and company Chatbot need a little help.

If all other routes to answer a customers query become too over complex. Provide alternative contact to the customer such as a phone number, access to a human being, or a reasonable alternative. 

5. Never hide the fact from the customer that they are conversing with a Chatbot 

Avoid the frustration of the customer by making it obvious that contact is with a Chatbot initially. If the customer of the chatbot cannot find the right answer put them in contact with an actual customer advisor, but advise the customer before you transfer the conversation. 

That by designing flexibility into a Chatbots scripts and into the design of its responses in context of a customers query can prove to be a valuable addition to your business strategy. Despite the problems with a Chatbots high interaction cost and the questions around spending more on a website or app to avoid the need for a Chatbot they still are useful for providing coverage 24/7 for simple queries and tasks. They can also lessen the distractions associated when a customer is making a purchase.
Chatbots have potential to improve on the return on investment for your company so that you and your staff can concentrate on the less mundane aspects of customer support. 

Improving User Experience with IXDLAB

At IXDLAB, we help the world’s top brands to create digital experiences that work for their users. From user research and design, to evaluation – our UX experts will ensure that your digital products are right for your audience.

For more about UX, or a no obligation consultation, please get in touch with us today on 07858110704, or email info@ixdlab.co.uk.

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Here are some of our top ten tips for working at home.

1. Meetings.

Stuck for a way to have a meeting with more than one person? Use Google Hangouts, or Zoom for meetings. For a more personal approach try Skype.
Always, always have a decent suit jacket to reach for if the occasion arises.

2. Its lunchtime. I do sport or go to the gym.

For those of us sporty types, an online class or two for yoga or pilates is enough to while away an hour. Check your gym for online classes. Use ‘Youtube’ to find a pre-recorded exercise class session. We recommend les mills online but don’t do bodypump in a confined space!

3. I’m Wanting to Network!

Try an online community boasting a pub, a beauty salon, a gym, the kids club, the travel clinic at the virtual village. Startup or Entrepreneur? try Startup nation , use twitter hours to network and advertise your business. Join your local chamber of commerce, or the yorkshiremafia but remember no hard sell!

4. Productivity apps

Worth checking out for writing documentation as an alternative word processor is Grammarly. Grammarly has the ability to store documents. It offer’s targeted content tonality checks. This means you can tell if your writing is ‘friendly’ to your audience. It is also lightweight for use in the browser.

5. Space

Find a decent sized workspace when you can sit unhindered by life’s distractions. Yes. Right! Okay, okay i hear you. If your fighting for workspace with your cat, your housemate, or your family try this approach. Create an uncluttered area in your home which is off-limits to them between normal working hours. Remember that the understairs cupboard won’t do if your in IT and don’t forget that you still need a source of light.

6. Lists

List everything you need to do at the start of the day, get a schedule, or get alexa to remind you. This helps you to focus on what needs to doing. As opposed to how many jobs in the house need doing.

7. Get a break…..

Normally we would suggest going for a long walk at lunch. Unusual but valid approaches to this include using a running machine for a ten-minute walk in the house. Getting up to have a cuppa and a few biscuits. Or doing something completely different.

8. Call people…

That’s right call them just to say hello if you are missing your office social life, or even skype them for a chat.

9. At some stage you will get distracted.

If you can stop distractions like tv, and neighbours calling round. Distractions like dog’s attacking next doors prize Persian cat, and foibles like inappropriate social media memes aren’t always solvable. If this happens don’t worry! Move on. Nothing to see here. But do block your work colleague responsible for memes from social media accounts, and put the dog on a leash eh.

10. Logging off

Don’t forget to keep to your normal working hours. So if the working day clock stops at 5pm you log off, if it starts at 9am you start or log in too. Try Clearing your desk afterward so your house gets back to a home!

Companies that allow remote work have 25% lower employee turnover than those that don’t. (Owl Labs)

We are verified content creators with Brave Rewards using the Brave Browser. Brave Rewards allows you to choose, browse and reward content creators like ixdlab using BAT or other Cryptocurrency’s. If you find our content useful and like what you read please donate via downloading the Brave browser. The Brave Browser allows you to earn free BAT. We are currently trialling this type of crowdfunding for our Cryptocurrency research projects.