3 ways chatbots can assist agents boost their productivity

Last Updated: April 6, 2021

Chatbots are a great addition to the customer support self-serve channels.  While chatbots are primarily designed for end-users to deflect support issues, they can also be considered as a valuable addition to supporting agents’ workload. A chatbot can assist agents and speed up customer service and enhance capacity.

At HappyFox, our chatbot solution can be embedded in any help desk agent interface to assist agents.  HappyFox Chatbot is agnostic of the ticketing system, can transform agent productivity. Whether you are using Zendesk,  HappyFox Helpdesk, or any other helpdesk system, HappyFox chatbot can assist agents with their daily activities. It can also interact with external systems, handle unique business rules that lead to time-saving by reducing agents’ effort in completing a step. So, do you really need an agent assist bot? Let’s dive in.

Chatbots assisting agents with Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

3 reasons why support agents should leverage chatbots

Support agents need help in resolving complex customer queries, they seek answers either by interacting with their supervisors or by referring to internal documentation. Training helps them to an extent. However, chatbots are better positioned to advance agent productivity due to the following reasons.

  1. Repetitive activities: Every day, support agents repeat a set of activities.. These steps when done manually can cumulatively consume a lot of time and effort. 
  2. Unique business rules: With complex business processes becoming prevalent in today’s organizations, following the standard operating procedures every single time is challenging. As the volume of tickets increases, agent error can proportionally increase. 
  3. Multiple systems: In an integrated ecosystem, today’s customer support platform interacts with apps across multiple domains like CRM, e-Commerce, Project Management, Identity Management, and more. Agents are forced to manually perform actions in other systems.

3 ways bots can assist agents

Chatbots can be leveraged by customer support and call center agents. Here are the three ways you can leverage agent assist bots.

  1. Increase compliance to Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs): Agents can now rely on chatbots to guide them through the sequence of activities that need to be performed. As tickets flow into your omnichannel system, from service requests to the approval process, chatbots can interact with the agent, detect the type of ticket and automate all the required actions for subsequent resolution. It can also interact with your knowledge base and suggest articles. 
  2. Trigger actions in any helpdesk: Chatbots can help you automate activities that are manually performed by agents. All activities related to data entry, customer interactions, and follow-ups can now be performed by just using the chatbot. They act as virtual agents and hence reduce agent effort. You can ensure bots help agents handle every type of customer query. 
  3. Bring third party workflows through chatbot commands: Chatbots have the unique capability to interact with multiple systems. For example, an agent who is involved in a return merchandise authorization process is likely required to navigate to an external system to confirm the order and product details. Chatbots can help you perform all these background tasks by sending and receiving information with external systems.

Key benefits for a customer support team

By becoming a trusted virtual assistant for agents, chatbots elevate agent productivity and promote efficiency. Here are the key benefits that you can expect.

  1. Increased Agent Productivity: As chatbots streamline activities, both existing and new agents, perform their actions faster. This reduces the average resolution time and average handling time.
  2. Reduced Cost: Chatbots can save up to 30% in customer support costs. The number of agent licenses that are required for working on external systems also reduces. 
  3. Higher customer satisfaction: As chatbots increase agent effectiveness, it results in faster resolutions and increased customer experience. 

Conclusion

Chatbots have begun to take up an increasing proportion of human agent effort by embracing artificial intelligence, automation, and integration. Armed with conversational AI, machine learning, robust automation, HappyFox Chatbot ensures higher business value. It can work with any help desk/ticketing system and delivers value for your organization.

Get a demo of HappyFox Chatbot and elevate the performance of your support teams.