Abdul Rahim Ahmad
INCREASING efficiency and enhancing customer experience is one of the most important objectives of organizations globally. These targets can only be achieved through technology, innovation and embracing the rapid advancement in digital trends. Digital transformation and digital disruption are redefining way businesses are evolving. The communication channels have been revolutionized with Chabot and Conversational Applications. This is having a major impact on customer preferences for interaction.
A chatbot is a computer program that impersonates the way humans communicate. Chabot interface is like a webpage or can voice enabled. It uses artificial intelligence to understand the query and responds accordingly. Chabot is similar to how humans converse with each other; they don’t mention the topic of the conversations repeatedly. They understand the topic and the context of their conversation. The interaction with a bot always seems natural and amicable, making it highly successful for customer support and query handling.
Language barriers are often a pain point for users in communications. Apparently, a Chabot is better than humans in picking up a new language. It can easily recognize language so the users can converse with it using the language they are comfortable with. Due to its memory and learning capabilities, a Chabot can become conversant very quickly. Public sector has great potential for implementation and integration with modern communication channels like a Chabot. Smooth and hassle free communication between citizens and government has always been a challenge in our societies. Digital solutions can play an effective role in addressing the issue.
Improving service delivery, delegating routine tasks and disseminating important information are some of the core areas in public sector that can be focused through digital platforms such a Chabot. By serving on multiple channels e.g. websites, Facebook and Twitter, a Chabot can seamlessly provide a refreshing customer experience and help in building public sector image which is otherwise characterized by bureaucratic hurdles and slow service delivery. Chabots can understand personality and sentiment to deliver a personalized experience and escalate to a call centre agent when required. They are trained to understand business specific knowledge and expressions and can use the “FAQs model” or reroute the user through “Intelligent IVR”.
Chatbots can broadly impact business costs and improve customer experience. According to Gartner, an estimated 25% of customer service operations will be using virtual customer assistants by 2020. Chatbots are reducing the overheads on call centres by providing 24/7 customer support. Thousands of companies starting with banks, large retailers, and SMBs, engage with call centres services; by using chatbots they can serve their customers by efforts of just 2 or 3 support managers.
—The writer is Chief Technology Officer at Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP).
