TOPICS: Chatbot for Support   Chatbot for Service    Chatbot Optimization   

IT Support Chatbot – How chatbots help with implementing new IT products

If you’ve been following the chatbot development space of late, ‘IT support chatbot’ would be a term you’ve come across more than a few times. Businesses around the world are all praises for these efficient and user-friendly online chat bots, but did you know that solving technical snags isn’t their only use? In this article, we’ll introduce you to some less-than-obvious (but very important) benefits of building bots for IT support.

IT support chatbots make excellent salespersons.

You heard that right. We aren’t saying that you can send your IT support chatbots out to bring new customers, but they can actually do very well in one aspect of sales – educating customers about a product.

If you’re in the business of making IT products or systems, you’ll be familiar with the time it takes for your customers to understand and appreciate your new releases. IT support chatbots can help them look beyond their reluctance and confusion about a particular product or system, and understand how it works and why it’s better than the last version. For instance, let’s imagine that a customer has a problem with a new project management software they’ve purchased. They’ve used an older version before, and are finding the new interface confusing. They arrive at the support section on your site, and talk to your chatbot.

Chatbot: "Hello, and welcome to our tech support chatbot. What can I help you with today?"

Customer: "I’m having trouble using your project management software."

Chatbot: "I’ll be happy to help you with question about our project management software. Which version of the software are you using?"

Customer: "I'm using project management software 2.3"

Chatbot: "Notice that we have improved this version for easier access to most commonly used functions. Data backup is now part of the ‘settings’ tab on the upper right corner of your main screen. See below few tutorial images to help you understand how we have grouped our functions in version 2.3. Please click on any image for more details, and let me know if you have any questions."

The customer views the images, and finds the option they were looking for.

Customer: "OK I see the backup function now. Do I have to go to the setting tab every time I want to create a backup?"

Chatbot: "You can also set up regular backups to your Google Drive, hard drive, or Dropbox, by clicking the ‘more options’ button below the ‘back up’ tab."

Customer: "OK, thanks."

So essentially, the IT support chatbot can provide very specific and detailed information to educate your customers and help them adapt to your new products and systems.

Building chatbots for internal training purposes.

The best chatbots for IT support don’t cater to end users alone. Businesses also use them for internal training purposes. Just like your customers, your team needs some time to adapt to changes in your products and systems. Every time you bring in new technology, your team is pushed out of their comfort zone as they struggle to grasp the new concepts. If you’re lucky, some of them may embrace the changes, whereas others who find them more difficult will resist the changes. If you create a chatbot, though, you can get more of your team members on the same page.

Chatbots are easy to ‘teach’, because you just need to update their script with new changes or additions. Once you do that, they’ll be ready to forward the knowledge not just to your customers, but to your employees as well.

Chatbots help you understand your customers’ point of view.

We just discussed an example in which an IT support chatbot helped a customer find a setting on a new version of a software they’d purchased. The education actually works both ways. The customer’s comments and questions serve as clues for the software developers, to understand which parts of the new version are difficult to use, and also the functionalities that customers liked about the old version.

Without this kind of feedback from your customers, integrating any new system with them can be like stepping into a black hole – you just don’t know what’s on the other side. IT support chatbots can help with this issue in two ways. Firstly, as we just mentioned, they learn what your customers need, and give you clues as to what needs to improve in their chat script (and perhaps even in your product). Secondly, building chatbots for IT support helps you train your customers to use self-service to solve the common problems they face while integrating your new product into their systems.

IT support chatbots ensure a consistent customer support experience.

Sample these two customer comments:

"I spoke to a rep yesterday and they told me to do this. Are you saying I should have used the other option? What do I do now?"

"The customer support executive exceeded my expectations. I’ve contacted ABC software for help before, but I’ve never received assistance so quickly!"

The first seems to indicate a problem, while the second may be read as a positive comment. But in fact, they’re both an issue. Your customers no longer rate your service based off of individual interactions. They look at the service you deliver as a whole and rate you based on that experience. Which means that you can’t afford to have a whole range of user experiences on your IT support portal. You need to maintain the same level of service to all customers, all the time. The best chatbots for IT support do just that.

And ultimately, chatbots resonate with mobile-oriented customers.

Building chatbots lets you fulfil the foremost requirement of your millennial consumers – instant responses to questions, as and when they need them. This is particularly helpful in the IT support vertical, where customers have had a history of long waits and incomplete solutions. When online chatbots man your IT support desk 24/7, you’re seen as a modern, tech-savvy business that cares about its millennial customers. Get yourself that advantage over your competitors through IT support chatbot development.