The idea of adding BOTs in a customer care context is ever more tempting and the door to futuristic scenarios.

According to the most important voices in the tech landscape (one above all: techcrunch), BOTs give the impression to be the cure for all diseases, the solution for all problems.

The virtual assistant topic is no news; but now the tech landscape has completely changed, shifted by Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence affordable for any company.

The raise of a new disruption is always connected to its ability to develop new behaviours: BOTs are not just about the creation of a virtual assistant, but about the possibility of real time interaction. Not another app to install, no new account to create, no new interface to deal with: just a chat – probably the next big OS.

Thus, let’s see BOTs’ potentiality and limits:

Is adding BOTs a good choice, or the first step towards a scenario which, in pessimist managers’ minds, is not far from the Rise of the Machines movie..?

The Chorally solution: a hybrid BOTs + humans Customer Care

What is the added value of the Chorally hybrid Customer Care solution? With Chorally the integration of messaging, ML, CRM with third party or even “home made” BOTs is seamless and – even most important – without bottleneck or smears on the customer’s side. A smooth flux applied to each and all of the involved platforms!

We don’t just build up some BOTs: there is already plenty of platforms doing that. What we do is creating an ecosystem in which BOTs and humans can work together.

A data – driven platform such as Chorally understands when it is better to involve a BOT in a task, and when it is better to have a human being in control – because of the specific topic, or the need of a more developed interaction, the nurturing of a relationship which is the core of the customer experience.

The winning “recipe” starts with the analysis of the company’s workflow and process, to identify what to manage with BOTs and what needs to be absolutely off – limits for BOTs, identifying repetitive – and then automatable – tasks, and the recognizable via Machine Learning ones.

When the tasks are identified and the system trained, the BOTs will be able to support the “human” customer care agents leaving to them only the high added value relationships with the customers, and refer to them only when it is needed.

BOTs interaction in a hybrid Customer Care

First things first: a BOT management platform is a mandatory prerequisite.

Our choice to make Chorally BOT compliant is Meya.ai. Via Meya we get the bot flow and the API we need to interact with the clients (Messenger, Slack, GitHub, Twitter…).

According to many case history (as How to build a Human/Bot hybrid customer service) Meya is just a starting point, as many tools have to be connected, integrated, managed: a lot of work, and a lot of potential failure points…

With Chorally Meya is just the last piece of the jigsaw to turn on the whole automation of the Customer Care. Meya, of course, can be replaced by another host chosen by the customer: even a tailored or “home made” one.

Does the adoption of Chorally hybrid customer care solution mean that since then you just have to enjoy a cocktail under a palm tree?

It’s a little bit more complicated than this…

BOTs are not the cure for all diseases but – with no doubts – is a great tool to help human customer care agents, so to let them give an even better experience to the customers. Not to mention the amazing incidence on management costs.

According to a Business Insider survey in 2016 the Customer Care management involves social media channels more and more. Chatbots are the tool to interact with a customer with no need of downloading an app, learning how to use another interface, asking for a device update.

Everything is smoother, more data can be stored and managed in an easier and more fruitful way.

A chatBOT – the first line of interaction in eCommerce, Retail Fashion, or Banking can:

Improve the customer service;

Simplify and expand sales opportunities;

Nurture personal engagement;

Amplify the Customer Experience;

React to customer needs in real time;

Integrate seamlessly within the Brand Experience;

Facilitate the sharing of sensitive data (such as in Banking);

Improve Loyalty Programs.

Conversation and relationship with the customers, management and optimization of the process get a brand new perspective.

BOTs allow the customer to interact with the brand while the customer even doesn’t know if his counterpart is human or not. They aggregate and manage data in a cross – platform way, amplifying the potentialities of the omni – channel approach.