TOPICS: Chatbot for Support   Chatbot for Service    Building a chatbot   

Technical Support Chatbot – How Chat bots Are Revolutionizing Customer Support for IT Companies

Technical support has the reputation of being one of the most cumbersome online tasks that businesses must attend to. At the same time, it isn’t something that businesses can avoid. With so many processes taking the digital route, users of any service are bound to encounter technical snags at some point. From losing their passwords to being unable to start their computers, these issues can take many shapes. And for IT companies and other businesses who deal with hardware and software, customer support is almost entirely about addressing these issues. Luckily, the emergence of technical support chatbots has simplified the process in several ways.

Bots are saving customers’ time:

Nobody likes waiting in line, especially for issues that keep cropping up after every few days. Because we use computers and mobile devices through so many of our waking hours, there’s always a good chance of encountering a glitch or problem every now and again. If we had to make a call and wait for a tech support rep to address every one of those issues, waiting is pretty much all that we’d do. Thanks to online chatbots, though, tech support has become a lot faster and simpler.

Building tech support chatbots allows IT companies to respond to huge numbers of customer requests at once. Besides, the bulk of these requests tend to be repetitive for a particular product or service, which is why it makes all the more sense to program the answers into a chatbot’s script. The best technical support chatbots can provide instant answers to hundreds of IT support questions. And a customer can switch from one question to the next in no time. Case in point, this sample interaction:

Chatbot: “Hello, and welcome to ABC tech support. What can I help you with today?”

Customer: “Printer issue.”

Chatbot: “Sure thing. Please select the printer model from the list below.”

Customer does that.

Chatbot: “Thanks. What seems to be the problem? (Type below or select an option.)”

Customer: “My computer doesn’t recognize the printer.”

Chatbot: “I see. Please select the operating system on your computer.”

Customer does that.

Chatbot: “Thanks. Here is a detailed step-by-step guide on configuring your printer. Please follow all the steps and let me know if you have any issues.”

The customer follows the guide and learns that their printer’s driver needs updating. The chatbot guides them to the latest driver download link, and soon enough, the problem is solved. The customer also gets the chatbot’s help with an older issue.

Customer: “I also need to check on the status of another support ticket.”

Chatbot: “I can help with that. Please type the ticket ID below.”

Customer does that.

Chatbot: “Per my records, the replacement parts have been shipped on [Date]. You should receive them within 5 working days, and someone from our support team will contact you soon.”

Chatbots help understand customer requirements:

In the process of helping customers with their technical issues, tech support chatbots gather lots of information on commonly faced issues, along with products and software that run up the maximum number of snags, and areas where customers find the support currently offered to be lacking. This information then helps the IT Company reassess and improve its customer support. This is one of the primary advantages of building chatbots for technical support. The bots learn more about customers and their complaints as they interact with them, and get smarter as more detailed and tailored information gets added to their chat script.

In our example above, the chatbot isn’t just helping the customer solve their printer issue. It’s also adding to its records the fact that there was yet another instance where a user had this specific issue with the printer model in question. The IT Company can later use these pointers to upgrade its printers, or make troubleshooting more user-friendly.

Predicting customer queries:

Laypersons can often find the world of technical support to be an alien place. It’s often difficult to accurately describe a technical issue, especially one that they haven’t encountered before. Similarly, buying a new product or software often brings up multiple questions about specific features and functionalities. When IT companies create a chatbot for their website’s technical support section, they simplify the process of finding answers for their customers.

A technical support chatbot can help customers find all the information they need about a specific product or software. Customers can see all these questions in one place, as options on a simple menu. What’s more, because the chatbot also interacts with other customers who use the same product or software, it can actually suggest relevant queries to the average customer who seems to have a related problem. In our previous example, the customer’s computer wouldn’t recognize their printer. If the customer is unsure about how to word this issue correctly, a list of questions and complaints like the following can make their task simpler:

“Why is my printer not printing?”

“I can’t see my printer in my devices section.”

“How to install/uninstall the printer.”

“Why is my printer’s light blinking?”

And so on.

Chat bots help reducing customer service costs:

There’s no denying that when it comes to addressing simple, repetitive issues, online chatbots are much more efficient than human support staff. IT companies that create a chatbot for technical support ensure that their customer service cell is active round the clock, through public holidays, and irrespective of ups and downs in visitor traffic. In addition to this, building chatbots essentially equates to hiring virtual support staff that can handle thousands of requests, without getting tired or making ‘human’ mistakes.

Together, these advantages allow the IT Company to operate at considerably lower costs. Essentially, technical support chatbot development allows for customer service automation, which is an effective money-saving tool for IT companies.

Discover all about chatbot development and its benefits in our blog posts, or get in touch with us with your questions.