Chatbots are becoming increasingly popular as a ‘contact us’ option for organisations. They offer customers a quick response to queries and can solve issues they may have without a timely phone call to a customer service team.
Why use a chatbot?
Many organisations utilize chatbots due to their ability to automate common queries, which not only saves time, but also saves money. Chatbots can also increase customer satisfaction by resolving queries quickly, through personalised chatbot conversations, all the while offering a 24/7 customer service desk for organisations.
Microsoft Power Virtual Agents
Microsoft Power Virtual Agents (PVA) part of the Power Platform offers a no-code approach to creating chatbots, empowering teams to build robust chatbots in just a few simple steps, without the input of an experienced developer. However, those with stronger coding skills can extend capabilities of the PVA chatbot by using Azure Functions or custom connectors, to create the perfect chatbot suited to each individuals’ needs.
PVA’s ability to easily integrate with platforms such as Dynamics 365 Customer Service enables the chatbot to draw from an abundance of information, including data on customers and employees. By using this information, Power Virtual Agents are then able to offer responses and recommendations tailored to their queries. In cases where the query needs additional guidance, with Dynamics 365 omni-channel the PVA can hand the query over to a live agent with context of the customer’s request.
While it’s ability to answer queries is a benefit to organisations, PVA can also execute actions, such as downstream processing, which also benefits organisations due to process efficiency and automation.
Internal chatbots
While chatbots are of huge benefit to the customer experience, there is another use case for them which can sometimes be overlooked. The pandemic brought in the normalisation of hybrid and remote working, which put a greater reliance on internal service desks to assist with employee queries, reducing the time they could spend on more complex tasks.
So, what may an internal chatbot look like?
By utilizing PVA’s easy to build function, it is straightforward enough to tune your chatbot in to answering the recurring questions from your workforce. Drawing on the wealth of data within your organisation, the chatbot will be able to answer questions with a concise answer.
A chatbot is a quick touchpoint for employees, allowing them to gain an answer instantaneously to a query without having to wait for an email response from support teams, saving both employees time in their working day.
For example, an employee can be directed to knowledge-based articles if they are looking for specific pieces of information. The chatbot can also be programmed to help with common requests such as a password reset, which can be resolved without the need of interaction from a service desk agent.
Further benefits
Chatbots are also a huge benefit to new employees. A chatbot can answer a new member of your team’s simple queries and can point the employee to relevant resources without having to wait for assistance/other team members to get involved.
Power Virtual Agents is not only a perfect chatbot solution due to the time it saves your employees – it can also accelerate ROI, reduces operational costs and increase customer satisfaction. Azure machine learning pushes Power Virtual Agents to the next level, by learning and adapting to various situations in real time, to generate more effective answers to queries.