Four self-serve chatbots to supercharge your support

Part two of the support leader’s guide to scaling smarter with self-serve support

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Zara Burke
Zara Burke
05/04/2021

chatbots

Customer service chatbots

One of the most powerful ways to provide fast, personal help exactly when customers need it is through well-crafted bots. Here are four powerful bots we recommend setting up:

  1. FAQ bot

    When a customer writes in with a simple question, like “How do I change my credit card details?” they expect a close-to-instant response. You can set up a chatbot to automatically resolve simple, frequent questions – our data shows that chatbots speed up response times by an average of 3 times, which significantly boosts customer satisfaction.

    “Resolution Bot speeds up self-service by surfacing relevant answers based on what customers are typing”

    With Intercom, you can use Resolution Bot to speed up self-service even further by surfacing relevant answers based on what customers are typing – before they even hit the enter key. You can even have your bot predict answers as soon as customers open the Messenger based on what page they’re on or other contextual cues. It is our version of the FAQ bot – just supercharged!

    Pro tip: The secret to ensuring your FAQ bot delivers razor-accurate answers lies in its training. First, identify the common topics your customers ask about, then create an effective answer for each common question.

    intercom chatbot triage

    Image source: Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support

  1. Triage bot

    Modern customers are busy with a capital B. They do not have time to type out every detail about an issue in a lengthy email or form. Bots make it easy for customers to input important information in a way that feels lightweight, faster, and more conversational.

    “When customers write in with priority queries, they will get the right person the first time around, rather than being passed from rep to rep”

    For example, you can set up a triage bot to prompt customers to select key details about the type of issue they have – like if it is a technical issue or feature request. Then, you can automatically route their issue to the right support team based on what they need and even flag critical issues as priority.

    So when customers write in with priority queries, like those related to their billing, they will get the right person the first time around, rather than being put on hold or passed from rep to rep.

    Intercom chatbot example

    Image source: Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support

  1. Out of Office bot

    Long-lasting, quality relationships are built on trust. To lay the foundations of trust with your customers, there are three golden rules to abide by:

    1. Do what you say you are going to do.
    2. Be there when you say you are going to be there.
    3. Set expectations when you are not available.

    Whether your team is fast asleep or snorkeling in Aruba (team offsite, anyone?), you can set up an Out of Office bot to set customer expectations 24/7 and let them know when you will reply. Your bot can even follow up with helpful next steps, like encouraging customers to check out your FAQs in the meantime.

    “Your bot will be there to answer questions when it can and set customer expectations when it cannot”

    This also gives your support reps peace of mind – there is no need to work overtime as your bot will be there to hold the fort, answer questions when it can, and set customer expectations when it can’t.

    Pro tip: With Intercom’s Custom Bots, you can offer different follow-up options to customers based on who they are and what they need. For example, you can invite customers on your premium plan to leave a message and prompt your freemium customers to visit your help center.

    intercom chatbot best practice

    Image source: Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support

  1. VIP Customer bot

    Oftentimes, high-value customers, like those on your premium plan, will expect VIP support. Maybe it is even part of the package they signed up for. Either way, these customers are often larger businesses who have more complex needs and their specific issues may require a deeper investigation with your team. You can set up a VIP bot to quickly identify messages from your highest-spending customers, then escalate their messages to your VIP team, so the right support specialist can step in to reply ASAP.

    Pro tip: With Intercom, you can automatically mark VIP messages as Priority ⭐ as well as routing them to your VIP inbox.

    intercom chatbot VIP

    Image source: Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support

Proper botiquette: six principles to staying personal

There is a misconception among support leaders that bots cannot be personal. The truth is that bots can (and should) be deeply personal. That said, there are a few rules that will help you get more bang from your bots and deliver better experiences for your customers. Below, we share our six rules for chatbot etiquette (or “botiquette” for short 😉):

  1. Don’t pretend the bot is a human

    When designing a chatbot, there is often a strong temptation to give it a name, a face, even a little personality of its own. But if your customer thinks your bot is a person, they will expect it to respond like one. That does not mean you cannot give your bot a personality or customize it to match your brand, but “Jenny from Examply” should not be ExamplyBot in disguise.

  1. Personalize the experience

    Not everyone who asks for help will need that help in the same way. Your chatbot should send customers down different paths based on who they are and what they need. For example, if a customer wants to reset their password your bot can help resolve the issue with a quick answer. If they have a bug to report, on the other hand, your bot can route the issue to the tech arm of your support team to investigate further.

    Intercom chat bot customer service image

    Image source: Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support

  1. Keep it short and simple

    Today, in this modern era of automation, the most personal thing you can do is resolve your customer’s question as fast as possible. Chatbot interactions should be short, precise, and to the point. So collect any information you need to make your response personal, but then give customers the help they need and get out of their way.

  1. Set clear expectations

    No matter what your business looks like, unmet and unclear expectations are the source of all heartache. A good customer experience is rooted in setting crystal clear customer expectations. When a customer writes in, set up your bot to let them know how long they are going to wait. In addition, if the wait is on the longer side, then make sure to meet that expectation.

  1. Empathy is about anticipating needs, not saying nice things

    We strongly believe automated interactions can still be empathetic interactions – but empathy is not necessarily what you think. Designing an empathetic chatbot has nothing to do with making the bot say nice things. It has everything to do with understanding your customers’ context and creating bots that accurately anticipate and address their needs.

  1. Provide an escape hatch

    The last thing you want is for your customers to feel like they are trapped in the chatbot equivalent of a phone tree. “Press 9 to hear these options again” is a far worse experience than letting them disengage from your bot entirely and providing clear next steps for how to find help. If your customer has engaged with a bot, and it’s not going well for them, there should be an easy way out – whether that is:

    • Letting them chat directly with your team.
    • Giving them clear next steps, like encouraging them to check out a list of your most popular FAQs.

Metrics for championing and optimizing self-serve support

Peter Drucker said it best: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” The same goes for your self-serve support strategy. While there are infinite metrics you could track and tweaks you can make, it is important to identify what business outcomes you are trying to solve, up front, with your self-serve support. That will help you ensure you are making and measuring the most impactful wins for your team. Here are our tips:

Track efficiency metrics

Once you have implemented the funnel, you will want to measure and monitor any major efficiency gains your self-serve support influences over time. We recommend setting a benchmark you can track progress towards for key self-serve support metrics like:

  • Rate of Automated Resolution (ROAR). By adopting a strategic self-serve support approach at Intercom we are currently hovering at around a 4.5 percent Rate of Automated Resolution (ROAR), which means 4.5 percent of all customer issues are resolved without a human being involved. This translates to about $400,000 saved per year.
  • Conversations closed by articles. At Intercom, if someone reads one of our help center articles they will be prompted to let us know whether it answered their question. If they indicate the question is resolved by giving it a thumbs up we will track that as part of our “conversations closed by articles” rate.

Set bottom-line metrics that move the needle

Self-serve support helps you elevate the support function within your company, so your team can go from drowning in reactive conversations (the old way) to carving out more time to become strategic, revenue-generating business partners (the new conversational way).

“To position support as a value driver, get buy-in from key teams, like marketing and sales”

One of the best ways to position support as a value driver is to get buy-in from key teams, like marketing and sales, and to co-own bottom-line metrics together such as:

  • Customer loyalty
  • Customer retention
  • Customer renewals

Optimize your bots and help content to work harder

Once your help content and bots are live, do not let them go stale or become irrelevant. You will want each message and piece of content to work as hard as it can for your customers and your business.

Success starts with asking meaningful, pointed questions. For example:

  • What questions are customers most often searching for or frequently writing in with, but can’t find? Go ahead and create relevant help content using the exact words your customers typed.
  • How are your bots performing? Are they engaging customers and resolving issues effectively? If there’s an answer or message that’s underperforming, try tweaking the copy or filters to improve performance.
  • How is your help content performing? Which articles are closing the most conversations? High-performing articles are worth investing more in, while you should consider gutting or reworking low traffic articles.

Get the full strategy for delivering fast, personal support at scale

Self-serve support empowers you to scale your support and provide customers with the answers they need, when they need them. But it is only one piece of the puzzle for delivering fast, personal support to your customers at the scale your business needs.

Get The Ultimate Guide to Conversational Support to learn how to combine proactive, self-serve and human support to achieve world-class support – without burning out your team or budget.