Sometimes it's easy to think that once you have a chatbot, you don't need to worry about talking to your customers over Messenger or other chat solutions. After all, they answer your customers' questions, book appointments, take online orders, and take over other important tasks from you.
But we believe a combination of a great chatbot and great customer service staff is the best way to keep your customers happy. Chatbots are great additions to your customer service team, but for more complicated tasks, a human being can provide that extra care that customers will love.
To do this, chatbots like Chatbuddy have what's called a chatbot to human handoff. It's when your staff takes over a conversation that your chatbot is having with your customer.
There are many situations where a handoff from your chatbot to a human customer service representative is needed. None of them are cause for you to worry, especially if you're prepared to handle the handoff.
Here are three of the common scenarios that may come up. Get ready!
Situation #1 - Time-sensitive and Urgent Queries
We think chatbots are great for answering your customers' questions quickly 24/7. They're always on and won't tire of answering the same question over and over.
But if you're dealing with urgent issues that cannot be answered by routine questions, human staff handling the conversation will be able to get your customers the answers they need.
These situations can include insurance policy questions and claims, health hotlines, and the like.
For these cases, make sure there is an easy way for your customers to quickly get to a human agent, and that your on-call agents are able to take over the conversation immediately. Alerts either on company dashboards, emails, or even SMS can help your agents get to these cases immediately. (Talk to our agents if you need your chatbot set up with an email or SMS notification to make sure you don't miss the critical cases.)
Situation #2 - Complex Issues
Chatbots are only as smart as we program them to be. For routine calls and queries, they can accomplish their tasks without issue.
But when it comes to complex issues, a human agent can get to the solution faster and be better equipped to understand the user's frustrations.
Make sure that when your chatbot recognizes that the user is getting frustrated, they can suggest that the customer get transferred to a human staff that can resolve their issues. This can be done by recognizing repetitive patterns when your customer interacts with the chatbot, or even preparing possible keyword triggers that will signal the chatbot to hand off the conversation to a human agent.
Situation #3 - Customer Preferences
Sometimes, people just don't want to talk to chatbots.
Chatbots are on the rise now, but many could have been frustrated with other chatbots in the past that they prefer talking to human agents. Maybe they quickly know that their issue is more complicated than what a chatbot can help them with.
Whatever the reason, make sure that the option to talk to a human being is presented to your customer early on when the conversation starts. This helps keep the momentum in the conversation going and makes sure you are providing the right kind of service to your customers, according to their preferences.
Chatbots Enhance, Not Replace
Remember that chatbots enhance your customer service team. They make great additions to your team but you always need a human touch in cases where it matters.
Sometimes a case is too urgent that a chatbot conversation will waste precious time. Sometimes an issue is too complex for a chatbot to handle. And sometimes customers just really prefer talking directly to a human being.
You don't need to worry if the above comes up -- these don't mean that your chatbot isn't working. Great customer experience depends on providing the kind of response customers expect -- whether it's quick and no-fuss answers to routine questions they have, or a more human approach to a complex issue.
Being able to provide both is a great asset. Hand off wisely!