Due to the dramatic rise of chatbots and heightened demands of today’s consumers, the dislike for digital assistants is not surprising. But as chatbots continue to serve as frontline customer service experts and are poorly integrated into existing contact center systems, many brands may see lower levels of loyalty among customers. And loyalty can be fleeting: even when customers show devotion to a brand, 60 percent say they will switch brands after a bad experience.

Chatbots are not bad; they are just being used incorrectly in many instances. Instead, they must be treated as a tool for customer service agents rather than a replacement. Human agents must still be the heart of the contact center process, with chatbots serving as a bridge to customers rather than a deflection mechanism.

The Perfect Combination

In the same PwC study, 90 percent of companies reported that creating better experiences for customers is not a priority for them on the digital front. This may be because nearly half of U.S. consumers believe “welcoming” and “friendly” customer service is a brand’s defining characteristic versus 32 percent who believe its their “technology.”

As a result, brands believe investing in the digital front is a waste. However, when technology fails, is slow or disrupts the customer service journey, there’s risk of losing customers after just one bad experience. In fact, even if customers love your brand, according to the report “59 percent will walk away after several bad experiences and 17 percent after just one bad experience.” And they will not return.

This leaves a massive opening across industries for savvy companies to differentiate themselves by delivering the right mix of AI and human customer service immediately. This customer service scenario is the Holy Grail and creates a coherent bond between a human agent and a chatbot.

Although chabots continue to lack many necessary skills to handle all customer service inquiries autonomously, there are still many ways contact centers can use them to improve the customer experience. The most important aspect is including chatbots within an omni-channel environment.

Omni-channel platforms allow agents to interact with customers across any channel, including SMS, social, IoT, web-chat, email and phone, all within one interaction. Once this true omni-channel process is in place, chatbots can be integrated to discern the intention of the customer, and route queries through the platform more accurately. The bot can also ensure the agent sees any previous conversations with the customer to help the agent pick up where it left off, which is a smoother experience for both the agent and the customer.

Companies that deliver this type of seamless experience all within one interaction will see a higher rate of issue resolution upon first contact. In addition, from these changes alone, contact centers have been shown to improve inquiry handling time by 60 percent and resolve 30 percent more calls with the same number of staff members.

Using the Right Technology for Chatbots

There are many factors that should be considered when choosing the right technology for chatbot integration. One thing to keep in mind is that forcing chatbot integration into legacy systems can cause more problems than it solves. That’s because as the underlying technology ages, it won’t be able to keep up with customers’ evolving demands.

Instead, implement a system that incorporates chatbots as an element of the greater customer experience. This will allow chatbots to function more as powerful sidekicks that handle mundane tasks while freeing up time for their human partners to give more attention to complex tasks. Additionally, companies who are willing to graduate from legacy systems to more nimble, integrated options will have the opportunity to outshine competitors.

Moving Forward

Chatbots are not going to replace human agents in the next five to seven years. In fact, they never should. Instead, these tools need to work simultaneously alongside agents to help them create better agent and customer experiences. Together, chatbots and humans can help bring everyone one step closer to a perfect solution that breaks customer service barriers and fosters the long-term loyalty that fuels success.