How to introduce chatbots into your organisation?

Chatbots are a hot topic in artificial intelligence. However, don't just implement technology to chase trends. Continue reading for practical do's and don'ts.

Each month, we share insights in customer service and customer experience.

The start - which customer pains are you trying to solve?

When customers are browsing your website, these three pains are very common. Keep these in mind during the chatbot design process.

Answers to simple questions

Many customers have basic questions that should be easy to answer. Questions regarding your process, delivery times, return policies, ...

Cumbersome website navigation

When websites grow bigger, it can become increasingly hard for visitors to find their way. Keeping visitors from not leaving remains key.

Basic information about your company

Visitors looking for your opening hours, store locations and telephone numbers don't spend more than a minute searching for that info.

Our vision - introducing a chatbot

4 tips for chatbot introduction success!

Keep it simple

Don't start out overly ambitious. Get going with just 3 or 4 questions the chatbot will provide answers for. Pick the most common and easy to answer customer pains.

Don't mask your chatbot as a human

Don't try to trick your customers into believing they're interacting with a human agent. This is key to customer trust, and they'll be more forgiving in case of failure.

Easy transfer to a human agent

When a customer wishes to speak to an operator, the chatbot must immediately provide this option. Transfer the conversation to live chat during work hours or alternatively by email.

Be able to say "I don't know"

When the chatbot doesn't understand a question, you can ask only once to rephrase. Don't send your customers in loops if the chatbot still doesn't get it. Offer to transfer to a human agent .

We believe in specific and context-aware chatbots.

Three examples of different chatbots within the same organisation.

General website BOT

A chatbot optimised for helping customers navigate the website, provide opening hours and answer questions of a general nature.

Churn aka win-me-back BOT

Bot that tries to retain customers with questions and provides special offers, service downgrades or schedules technical interventions.

Selfservice portal BOT

Bot that operates exclusively in the context of a selfservice application. Provides assistance with common administrative flows and helps out with potential errors.

Don't forget about your other channels!

Orion is an omni-channel artificial intelligence technology that works on an understanding of your business independent of the channel.

What other channels?

Most organisations heavily rely on digital text channels such as email, contact forms and social media for customers to submit questions.

A single understanding

The engine powering an Orion solution is based on a single artificial intelligence model built specifically for your business.

E-mail
Contact form
CRM tickets / cases / incidents

Decrease churn with CS automation

Let's look at some real-life results achieved with Orion

Eneco + ORION: results

Electricity and gas supplier Eneco has 1.3 million customers. Roughly 4000 daily customer interactions take place.

All digital text channels

Orion is since 2019 active on Eneco contact form, email and chat channels.

Routing

Orion reviews 74% of customer questions and routes them internally to the correct teams.

Deflection

On a daily basis no less than 46% of customer questions are answered successfully and autonomously by Orion.

Decrease in churn

With automation in place, Eneco has gone all out to engage customers with questions. Resulting in a 4.7% churn decrease!

Are you aware of the silent majority?

In an average company 75% of customers with issues do not reach out to customer service. Some of them will silently grow unhappy and leave.

Engage the silent majority!

With Orion in the back, Eneco has opened all communication channels and succeeded in engaging the silent majority. Thanks to Orion they have discovered why some customers are unhappy and fixed those issues.

Great CSAT = churn decrease = increased revenue!

Customer satisfaction (CSAT) is where automation can positively affect the bottom line.

Decrease of employee turnover

Since Orion handles low complexity questions, human service agents can apply extra focus on difficult questions to the benefit of CSAT. Meanwhile, service agents are more engaged which has resulted in a decrease of agent turnover at Eneco.

Orion features

Functionality available in the chatbot, in live chat and after handover.

Routing

Customer questions are automatically routed to the correct department.

Auto answering

When very certain, Orion can answer customer questions on his own.

Deflection

When multiple answers are possible. Orion answers your customer with a top 3.

Template suggestion

Orion suggests the most appropriate answer templates to your agents.

Value extraction

ID's, order numbers, ... are extracted. ERP information is then included in the answer.

Want to see how this works in practice?

Check out our videos in the Orion Academy. Entirely free!