Some companies, attentive to changes in consumer behavior, are moving away from the traditional customer service model.

Accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which promoted remote work, the rigid model (and outdated) with large rooms, desks, chairs, phones, and endless attendants, is no longer the only option.

Companies have seen in customer service bots an economical alternative to reduce costs and also improve the customer experience, while always collaborating with human agents.

What are customer service bots?

Customer service bots are conversational robots capable of interacting and conversing with customers through text messages (chatbots) or voice (voicebots) in an automated way, and can be integrated into websites, apps, CRMs, IVRs, ERPs, etc.

These service bots, equipped with Artificial Intelligence and Computational Linguistics, are dominating platforms like WhatsApp, Messenger, and Telegram.

Bots usually handle the first customer service interaction and, when necessary, transfer the contact to human agents, i.e., when the conversation requires decision-making or judgment, which are uniquely human skills.

This practice, which has become common among companies, is known as hybrid service. Below, you’ll understand its concept and how to offer this service in your business.

What is hybrid service?

Hybrid service combines the work of human agents with customer service bots. In this model, customer service bots are on the front lines, responsible for resolving simple issues that do not require human intervention.

How does hybrid service work?

Just as self-service kiosks in physical stores came to ease the workload of “in-person” attendants, bots have emerged to free up time for “remote” agents (call center agents).

When a customer contacts the company, through the website, social media, or mobile app, the bot is the first to be activated to respond to the customer’s inquiries.

The bots handle the most frequent demands, functioning like an FAQ, which is ideal for companies with a high volume of service requests.

At this point, the bot uses its knowledge base with vocabulary, persona, and responses, all pre-programmed by a multidisciplinary team with extensive and deep knowledge of the business.

If it’s a common question, the bot can continue its conversation flow without major issues. However, when it comes to a more complex topic, the service is transferred to a human agent.

What are the best practices?

First of all, your bot should always offer the customer the option to speak with a human agent. This option makes sense because we know that some people simply prefer to talk only to human agents.

Additionally, it’s the bot’s responsibility to make the first contact and “convince” the customer to accept automatic service. Failing at this initial point can mean losing 30% to 50% of retention without giving the bot a chance to answer the first question.

All of this should happen within seconds to prevent the customer from feeling frustrated and abandoning the channel. Moreover, this transition should be smooth, and it should happen on the same platform used by the customer.

If the customer started their service with the bot on WhatsApp, the contact with the human agent should continue on WhatsApp. This way, the customer avoids wasting time switching channels, even if the conversation history is available for the human agent to continue the service, whether or not the customer switches channels.

How to offer this service?

Here are some tips to put hybrid service into practice in your business.

Conduct a financial analysis

It’s essential to know how many services your team handles per month on average, as well as the time and money that will be invested in the bot compared to a human agent. In addition to measuring the financial return, this analysis can encourage other areas of the company to invest in the solution.

Understand your customers

After the financial feasibility analysis, it’s essential to understand your customers, especially regarding their needs and preferred channels.

Define your purpose

Your bot should have a very well-defined purpose to operate only within its scope. Even when the scope is broad, it’s always possible to define priorities and start with the top 3.

Organize your systems

An informational bot (which only responds with static or generic text, such as accepted payment cards) usually achieves retention between 20% to 50%. To reach 90% retention, a transactional bot (which queries a system and responds with dynamic or specific text, such as the customer’s balance or account status) is generally required. Therefore, the existing systems must provide documented interfaces (APIs) for the bots to perform secure queries and/or transactions (complying with LGPD).

Count on a specialized partner

Choose a provider with success stories, particularly in the same sector as your business. If necessary, run a small 30-day pilot to learn from the suppliers.

Thank you for reading. See you next time!

Also read: How chatbots increase your customer retention