Have you ever wondered about the actual cost of customer support centers? Knowing how much it costs for eCommerce companies, we challenged ourselves to reduce costs and improve service with modern technology. That’s how we came up with the idea of ONEBOT.
How much does every minute of handling customer service calls cost? Every hour? Every day? We looked at the final cost and it can be overwhelming for many companies, not only those in the eCommerce sector.
An average call center can spend $1 for every minute of customer support. If you serve around 1,000 customers every day, the number can rise up to $5,000 every day.
Most customer support centers, aka call centers, are struggling to increase performance levels. Our in-depth research highlighted the key problem of consultants getting stuck in routines. They are wasting their time on simple actions that can be easily automated instead of taking only the tasks where their intervention is necessary.
If we take into consideration the fact that users get frustrated while waiting in the queue that is created while operatives deal with all these small issues, it becomes even harder to justify the expense. What’s more, the negative user experience will lower customer satisfaction, loyalty, and business results.
The problem really got us thinking and we decided to search for a solution using the nascent, trending technologies that are tested out in our DVNT Innovation Lab.
On the edge of the customer support revolution
Looking at the trends in eCommerce, as highlighted in our eCommerce Trends 2020 Report, we observe that mobile-first solutions are ubiquitous. Users engage with their smartphones nearly all the time and they expect the same convenience and seamlessness with other technologies. They have also gotten used to automated solutions and there is less expectation of a human-to-human relationship when dealing with an enterprise.
“According to estimates, 85% of customers now manage their relationship with an enterprise without interacting with a human.”
Gartner Predicts
It is clear that artificial intelligence (AI) and voice solutions are the direction in which the industry is moving, so we decided to investigate them more closely.
We based the whole process on the SNAP methodology. Its name comes from the four main stages of the process: See, Navigate, Approve, and Present. After weeks of discovery and design processes, we spotted multiple ways in which AI can significantly improve customer support, especially in solving repetitive questions. Along with voice recognition and well-designed algorithms, this became the foundation for our ONEBOT idea.
What is ONEBOT and for what can it be used?
In short, ONEBOT is an AI-powered call center assistant. It leverages Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to filter the incoming calls that need human intervention and those that can be handled by a chatbot.
“Natural Language Processing is a branch of artificial intelligence that helps computers to understand, interpret, and manipulate human language so the consultant receives the context of the issue before the conversion begins.”
Artur Wala, Digital Transformation Consultant at Divante
Natural Language Processing allowed us to gather and catalog various ways in which users ask about the same things. ONEBOT then reads each user’s intentions and analyzes if the call can be handled by a chatbot or is it more complexed and should be answered by the consultant. The chatbot, designed in a way that can handle both written and spoken communication, picks keywords used by the user and guides him or her through the available services and records. The user can, for example, ask about a delivery time, change his order or even schedule an appointment in a painless and fast way, as these are relatively simple actions that don’t need a human service agent to get involved.
One huge advantage of NLP and AI is that both systems are continuously improving; they learn over time and build up databases of possible questions and interactions with a customer, which makes future interactions even more successful.
I’m a consultant. Is a robot going to take my job?
No, of course not!
The goal of ONEBOT is to increase the efficiency of customer support, not to replace consultants. Combining the user experience of a well-trained consultant with the speed and efficiency of a machine is a perfect solution for companies needing well-optimized customer support. ONEBOT filters out the less complex calls and gives consultants more time to focus on those that really need their expertise. It also helps improve job satisfaction as the consultant doesn’t deal with boring, repetitive calls all day.
By adding chatbots to your user relationship strategy, you can be certain that customers are assisted efficiently and competently.
What are the top benefits of ONEBOT in customer service?
- Reducing the load on consultants by serving users with bots
- Improving customer support by shortening queuing times and continuous analysis of requests
- Scaling up customer service – ONEBOT answers the most common requests and consultants can specialize in complex cases
- Integration with multiple tools – ONEBOT connects with the most popular tools for customer support like phone or chatbots (Messenger, LiveChat, Slack, etc.)
It also translates to much faster problem resolution, better quality information, and reduced budgets.
See the full concept of ONEBOT at Behance.
If you want to know more about ONEBOT or Divante Innovation Lab, contact us.
Published March 5, 2020
