AUTOMATE CUSTOMER SERVICE WITH RPA CHATBOTS

RPA or Robotic Process Automation is the process of using software robots to automate various business operations that are repetitive in nature. This helps in reducing the number of employees, errors, and costs. The automation increases the speed of the process and allows for a better allocation of resources. 

You might have often noticed a popup message in some corner of most web pages. They are chatbots that are designed to answer your queries. Apart from websites, all major businesses, banks, applications, etc., are leveraging the power of chatbots for better customer experience and saving costs. In some cases, the chatbots can also be an effective medium to drive conversions. 

When we merge the cognitive intelligence of chatbots and the automation potential of RPA, the resultant technology is more intelligent and more productive.

When chatbots interact with customers or employees, they need access to data from different enterprise systems. It would be impossible for the bot to retrieve information without any modern API in place, and this is where RPA comes in.  

You May Also Like to Read about: UiPath ReFramework

Integration of RPA offers effective navigation to bots through the legacy enterprise systems. The RPA is considered revolutionary in the customer service industry because of the two main reasons: 

1. Robotic Process Automation allows the bot to integrate with multiple enterprise systems to retrieve information so they can easily handle numerous complex queries and requests in real-time.  
2. Similarly, when the chatbot receives a request or query, it can instantly trigger the RPA to carry out the monotonous tasks without any need for human intervention.  

We have already established that there is a tremendous scope to enhance customer services using RPA and chatbots. Let us now dig deeper to find out the core benefits of RPA bots: 

1. BETTER CUSTOMER AND EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE 

RPA bots can offer a great experience for the customers as well as employees. While it provides faster responses to customers in real-time, it frees the employees from the monotonous back-end activity and also fetches the required information for the employees quickly. 

2. REDUCED BUSINESS COSTS 

With the incorporation of RPA in customer service, the businesses can easily reduce their workforce and re-allocate their resources for more productive operations. This reduces the cost of operations for businesses and boosts productivity.  

Thus, with a rise in productivity without any extra investment, the business costs come down by a significant percentage. 

3. FASTER PROCESSING 

With the integration of Robotic Process Automation, the chatbots can easily navigate through the legacy enterprise systems to fetch the required information. When the RPA handles the back-end, the process becomes much faster as compared to the case when an executive is involved. 

4. BETTER ALLOCATION OF WORKFORCE 

As discussed earlier, with RPA bots taking the lead in customer service, the need for human interaction rises only for handling complex queries or requests.  

Thus, the companies can allocate their skilled customer service employees for other departments that could directly affect the growth of the company. The same is applicable to other resources like furniture, lighting, money, computers, etc. 

5. COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

With the incorporation of RPA bots, the companies can easily offer better customer service, and this, in turn, will help them stay ahead of their competitors. 

RPA bots can be integrated to enhance the overall customer experience, and at the same time, offer all the above benefits and more. RPA use cases in customer service mostly revolve around empowering chatbots. Here are some of the most common use cases: 

1. CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT 

Usually, customer engagement starts with the customer asking trivial questions and then leads on to specific queries or request. RPA bots are well suited for both purposes.  

The chatbot, using cognitive intelligence, answers to questions according to the emotional state of the customer. Whereas, RPA takes care of all the back-end process to fetch relevant information for the users so that the executives can focus on more complex issues.  

2. LEAD GENERATION AND DRIVING CONVERSIONS 

When it comes to RPA bots, they can easily generate leads and drive conversions. Whenever a person visits the website, RPA bots can interact with the visitor to record their information, and so the marketing team can handle it later. 

Moreover, RPA bots can further increase conversion by identifying the quality of the lead. In addition, they can also help in cross-selling and up-selling if they are integrated with smart recommendation systems. 

Also Read: Key steps to achieve successful RPA Implementation

3. PERSONALIZED CUSTOMER SUPPORT 

Chatbots can offer customer support through all platforms, be it Whatsapp, Maps, Google’s search page, etc. This enhances the customer experience a lot, and with RPA bots taking care of the customer support, the executives can focus on customer requests. 

4. PARTNER ASSISTANCE 

An RPA bot can also assist agents or partners of any business. From partner onboarding to providing information or documents that they need, RPA bot can do it all.

RPA integrates with a chatbot to enable it to complete several business processes, access data, and store information with legacy systems that do not have APIs. There are multiple RPA providers that could be integrated with chatbots depending on the use case. Some of them are UiPath, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, Prega and google Dialogflow.