On the second floor of a
high-rise office building in Richmond, Va., six bots are quietly delivering
better customer service. Article by Christopher Elliott
Ada handles claims.
Walter III specializes in documentation requests. Hedy, DaVinci, Marconi and
Jude perform support functions. Together, they complete a total of 26 tasks and
thousands of transactions a month at Allianz Travel Insurance.
 |
| Bots of Allianz Insurance: from right to left-- Maconi, Jude, Hedi, Walter III, and Ada Photo courtesy of Christopher Elliott |
"They're helping us
get more done," says Brian McCray, whose official title is RPA developer.
But you can call him the Robot Overlord. He doesn't seem to mind.
McCray and his team of
bots are at the vanguard of a customer service revolution. Chatbots, the
applications that talk to customers, are the flashy face of the movement. But
behind the scenes, there's a growing army of bots hidden from sight and
silently working to deliver better customer service.
Yes, artificial bots are controversial (even the good ones) when it comes to customer service.
·
Only 15% of consumers
have used bots to communicate with businesses in the past 12 months, according
to Drift's latest State of Chatbots report.
·
A survey by CGS found many consumers still prefer human agents to chatbots.
Nearly 50 percent of U.K. respondents and around 40 percent of U.S. respondents
said they'd rather deal with a person.
 |
| If you've participated in a chat with a customer service representative, you might have dealt with a bot. |
What are customer service bots?
The Allianz customer
service bots probably aren't what you would expect. They're a row of simple
computer terminals, each with its name scribbled on a green sticky note. The
screens display an electronic travel insurance form, and the bots automatically
fill out the forms. They also create automated emails that request everything
from medical documentation to meal receipts.
McCray says these
applications can handle the same tasks it once took dozens of humans to do.
Bots do it faster and usually error-free.
"That's the benefit
of automation," he says. "It frees us up to handle the customer
service interactions that a bot can't do. And it allows us to spend more time
with our customers."
You've probably already
received better customer service from a bot.
If you've ever had to fill in a travel insurance form, you've probably seen Ada's work. She handles a lot of the repetitive tasks, such as asking for receipts, hospital bills and expenses. You probably didn't suspect there was a bot behind the request.
If you've ever had to fill in a travel insurance form, you've probably seen Ada's work. She handles a lot of the repetitive tasks, such as asking for receipts, hospital bills and expenses. You probably didn't suspect there was a bot behind the request.
The company's first bot
came online in late 2017. Since then, McCray and his team added another five,
and they have plans to add more. Bots have become central part of the company's
customer support functions. They've helped cut in half the time it takes
Allianz to process a claim. Bots don’t go on vacation and they don’t take
coffee breaks.
"Bots ensure that
every user gets the very best experience," says Bret Greenstein, vice president
and global head of artificial intelligence at Cognizant Digital Business. "This kind of interaction allows a company
to digitize the complete user experience, providing tremendous data and
insights about what customers want, how they ask for help, and how they
feel."
Some bots don't deliver
better service
"Consumers can get
caught in frustration loops," says Tracy Sherman, a senior marketing
manager at Helpshift, a company that develops A.I. customer service applications.
"This can have a significant negative impact on customer satisfaction and
even affect retention and acquisition numbers."
Muddu Sudhakar, CEO of Aisera, which develops A.I. applications, says there
are other potential customer service bot downsides. "The technology
adoption curve includes the possibility of false positives and incorrect
results," he says. "All of these, however, improve over time with
self-learning capabilities and training."
Bots work better when
they're part of a team
If you're facing the row
of bots at the Allianz headquarters, turn around. That's where you'll find
Doug, the bot handler. He spends his entire working day with Ada, Walter III,
Hedy, and the others, ensuring they are not trying to overthrow the
universe. McCray says bots can't do everything. At some point, there has
to be a hand-off to a human agent.
"Bots can't stand
on their own," says Priya Iyer, CEO of Vee24, a company that provides live customer
engagement solutions. "They need to be integrated with every aspect of a company's
systems, from CRM to online banking or order tracking to be effective. And,
more importantly, they need to be able to escalate to a human agent when they
are unable to respond.
What's the future of
bots in customer service?
More bots will start to
come online, ushering in a new era of more automated customer service.
"Bots will only
continue to improve the customer experience," predicts Ido
Bornstein-HaCohen, CEO of Conversocial, a social media customer service firm. “We're talking more than
90 percent automation, and it's not that far away." |
| Cute, wheeled bots like this may find a place in customer service, too. |
Of course, the
technology will get better. "As the A.I. improves, customer service bots will be
able to learn on the fly by analyzing the inputs entered by real customer
service agents in response to requests it couldn't handle," says Ray
Walsh, a digital privacy expert at ProPrivacy.com. For now, Allianz’s bots are just doing
the mundane, repetitive tasks that entry-level employees used to have to
do.
Christopher Elliott's
latest book is “How To Be The World’s Smartest Traveler” (National Geographic).
For help with any consumer problem, please visit http://www.elliott.org/help
This article originally appeared in Forbes.
© 2019 Christopher
Elliott.Additional photos from free sources
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