How AI-Powered Chatbots Can Improve Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

Featured article by Arindam Ray Chaudhuri, COO and global head of technology practices at AgreeYa Solutions

When we hear the term AI chatbot, a picture of a cool humanoid-looking bot might come to mind. While AI chatbots don’t look like humanoids, they work like a smarter version of a human. This allows them to make meaningful interactions with real people and improve service for various businesses.

AI-powered chatbots vs. manual workforce for improving SLAs

Effective customer communication is the key to boosting sales, having a strong marketing impact or even a great support function. However, when businesses are short-staffed, many employees are working remotely or the business is disrupted for other reasons, communication issues are amplified.

Therefore, many businesses are starting to leverage a chatbot that uses artificial intelligence (AI) for its communication and ticketing process to deliver a more seamless engagement and faster resolutions. This solution can augment your customer support to optimize manpower and offer continuous coverage in the best possible way. Take for example Hindustan Unilever: It implemented an AI-powered chatbot to handle sales issues surrounding its Lipton Tea product. It observed a 35% increase in productivity along with a 28% increase in digital engagement.

AI chatbots can automate customer communication from top to bottom and thus eliminate all repetitive tasks. Below is an example of the flow that an AI chatbot follows which is very unique and advanced when compared to the steps that would be needed for a human equivalent.

As you can see in this workflow, queries are received and accessed in a seamless manner. AI-powered chatbots enabled with NLP understand the queries in a near human manner. They make use of automation capabilities and predictive analytics and come with a solution that is appropriate for the specific situation and business.

In addition, AI chatbots are available for 24/7 support and can instantly start working on queries in real-time—eliminating the lags that would exist if a human agent was handling the same. By implementing NLP and eliminating the lags, chatbots make the Service Level Agreement highly optimized.

AI-enabled chatbots for effective customer interaction

With the constant advancement in machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP), chatbots have become more efficient at imitating human-like actions and communications.

Leveraging NLP, AI-powered chatbots have revolutionized the user experience completely. Thus, new age AI-powered chatbots have become more trainable, scalable, dependable and realistic in their performance.

Chatbots can do everything from analyzing user requests to identifying intent and then finally composing a coherent and absolute response, making them invaluable in current times. This establishes the fact that AI-powered chatbots are ideal for improving SLAs; but let’s dive in further to how an AI-powered chatbot can enhance SLAs.

AI-powered chatbot for personalized and context-sensitive conversation

During the global pandemic, smart businesses turned towards optimizing their customer support systems by setting up AI-powered chatbots. These new age chatbots make use of the most advanced technologies like ML and NLP. In addition to performing basic transactions and interactions, they also collect a significant amount of customer data that organizations can use to support their overall business strategy as well as specific functions including customer service, sales, marketing and more.

They work very similarly to human support with the added advantage of improved efficiency and an accelerated rate of solving queries. They easily solve even the most complex queries through simple steps. In addition, they enhance the customer experience by continuously learning from their past interactions, augmenting their knowledge, improving their conversational skills and ultimately, reducing support costs.

Apart from resolving complex queries, AI-powered chatbots are integrated with databases of answers to commonly asked questions and steps. Further, an AI-enabled chatbot understands the importance and value of human touch, so that the queries can be resolved not just following the process but also empathetically with a factor of personalization.

To achieve this, an AI-enabled chatbot collects all the information from the user who has generated the query. Then, if the user is not satisfied with the resolution, the chatbot will connect them with live agent support. This further improves SLA as only the queries that cannot be resolved at the chatbot level are transferred to a human agent.

Chatbots for process automation and improving SLA via efficient ticket management

Ticket management is the most crucial component in the course of improving SLA. The intelligence of AI makes chatbots smarter at creating tickets across all domains. Hence, tickets for support, complaints, services and more are handled with undistinguished care, sincerity and efficiency.

Manual ticket creation is subject to human errors that pose challenges to timely ticket resolution. Employees wait around for extended periods of time and sometimes their issues are never heard. This happens because organizations are still wasting time creating and handling tickets manually.

According to research from the Human Development Index, 30% of tickets submitted are as simple as a “password reset.” Such monotonous requests can be easily handled through AI chatbots eliminating the need for human intervention. With the help of an AI chatbot, these can be resolved in a few minutes. Tickets that are resolved on the same day of their creation further increase the bandwidth of your human staff so they have time to handle more complex tickets.

AI chatbots also keep the user updated in real-time and throughout the entire process, from the time of its initiation until it is resolved. By keeping users updated, it can reduce uncertainty and anxiety.

What to look for in your chatbot for improving SLA

– Implement an AI-based chatbot as they work like a driving force for the IT helpdesk and resolve customer and/or employee queries in no time.

– Look for AI-based intelligent self-service chatbot for your tech-support/helpdesk for providing 24/7 support across multiple platforms.

– Additionally, chatbots built on the MS bot framework bring some unique features with the added reliability of Microsoft.

– Adopt omnichannel chatbots powered by technologies like AI, ML and NLP that keep a record of customer interactions. This enables it to comprehend future customer queries with more ease.

– AI-ML powered chatbots are ideal, as they continuously learn from past interactions and maintain a central record of issues that have been resolved in order to provide even more efficient handling of future issues.

– Multi-lingual chatbots enable businesses to manage global operations catering to customers from different geographies, speaking different languages.

– AI-chatbot implementation comes with a unique and customized service; such as embedded FAQs, RPAs and APIs with the help of which organizations can handle their back-office requests with improved efficiency and lesser time.

If your business is looking for quick and hassle-free assistance, then the AI-powered chatbot could be the appropriate solution. Implement an AI-powered chatbot to automate your IT help desk, improve service level agreements and speed up your processes like never before.

About the author

Arindam Ray Chaudhuri has over 25 years of rich industry experience in the technology domain. He has greatly contributed to AgreeYa’s software, solutions, and services portfolio, by integrating a global team, defining the technology and business vision of products and services, establishing large-scale client engagement, and leading time, cost, and quality-driven value via project governance and solution engineering.