A chatbot can drive your business forward in terms of revenue, efficiency, and customer engagement. However, considering which chatbot works best for your business takes a sizeable amount of research. You must investigate the specific features each chatbot offers and determine what makes the most sense for your company and your customers. That’s not all, when committing to new technology or any form of digital transformation, the Law Society suggest you also consider the following:
- That cyber security and GDPR provisions are in place.
- How does the solution and its support process survive testing in your organisation?
- The extent of support from the vendor for your user environment.
- What will happen to your data at the end of the contract?
- The training that your staff will require
- How to measure the Rate of Return (ROI) on your investment
At Wyser we have decades of experience helping organisations with digital transformation, particularly in customer intake and triage. Whilst we agree that the number of things you need to consider can be overwhelming, with any big task it is important to at least start somewhere. So here are five foundational questions to ask before you begin implementing a chatbot of your own.
- Do you need a chatbot? – If you are a low-case volume business you probably do not need a chatbot but if you get lots of enquiries or you are a firm with a lean cost base, you will need a chatbot to manage inbound questions and free up more of your time.
- Who is the Audience? – Determining who will use your chatbot will help guide the structure of the dialogue, how you intend to achieve your objectives, the persona of the chatbot and the underlying capabilities the solution will need.
- What are the objectives? – Having a clear understanding of your business objectives from the beginning of the project can aid in maintaining alignment and focus to ensure the chatbot is successful.
- What persona will you adopt? – There is no right or wrong when it comes to the personality your bot will adopt. Determine whether you will give the chatbot a personality (perhaps a name), speak as if the business has a voice of its own or be completely neutral. The personality of the bot will guide the tone, voice, language, and cadence. This is more an art than a science, but you should always be looking to test, learn and iterate. The personality can continue to evolve over time.
- What are the key capabilities? – Once you have defined the audience, objectives and personality, the technical capabilities you need to deliver on them come into play. Generally, we keep it simple at first and, if necessary, roll out more progressive versions in later phases.
- How do I measure, test and learn? – While objectives are the things you want to achieve, goals for the chatbot should be measurable and timely e.g., I would like to see ‘X’ number of people use it over ‘Y’ period of time, with ‘Z’ number of people making it all the way through the experience. Plan to review these goals regularly when you launch, slowly scaling back these checks once you have been live for a while. You cannot simply set up and forget your chatbot, you must be constantly assessing its performance, evolving it where necessary and thereby continually improving the experience for customers.
If you would like to know more about AI and automation and how we can solve these challenges for you please get in touch.