How can you improve your customer experience and strengthen support without increasing the workload for your customer services? By encouraging customers to be autonomous with selfcare solutions!
FAQs, chatbots, community forums… Over the past few years, these tools have become part of customer services, enabling users to find an answer to their question quickly, and to solve problems themselves. Selfcare solutions can reduce the number of incoming requests by 30%, thereby improving your customer service department’s productivity and lowering costs. Meanwhile your customer experience is also improved because the customer’s question is answered quicker than it normally would be, exactly when they need it, even late at night or during the weekend.
Certain tools, such as chatbots, by directly performing actions. This is made possible by several methods, including the combination of chatbots and RPA (Robotic Process Automation).
This article explores the benefits of this solution for customer services, particularly in the tourism industry.
Chatbots and RPA – from information to action
Chatbots can provide users with generic answers, contextualised ones (depending on whether the user is using a computer or telephone, their location, or other variables), or even personalised ones (if they have been authenticated).
To enable customers to perform actions from the bot, such as checking their latest bill, filing an insurance claim, editing information on their customer account, or changing a reservation, the company needs to connect the chatbot to its tools (CRM, IS, reservation management tool, etc.). Several methods can be used for this:
- Connecting the bot and software via a dedicated API (Application Programming Interface)
- Coupling the chatbot with RPA (Robotic Process Automation) technology, which is also connected to the company’s various tools
“RPA is the technology that allows anyone today to configure computer software, or a “robot” to emulate and integrate the actions of a human interacting within digital systems to execute a business process. RPA robots utilize the user interface to capture data and manipulate applications just like humans do. They interpret, trigger responses and communicate with other systems in order to perform a wide variety of repetitive tasks. Only substantially better, an RPA software robot never sleeps, makes no mistakes and costs a lot less than an employee.” UI Path
Chatbots understand the user’s request and simulate human conversations, whereas RPA automates collection, analysis and information writing operations, in order to edit documents, forms and web pages without human intervention, even if human supervision remains important.
The benefits of automating processes via a chatbot
The main benefit for users is the availability of the tool and the time it saves. Chatbots handle the entire request immediately, even outside working hours. As for companies, they can extend and refocus their human operators’ productivity, generate lower costs, and reduce the risk of errors.
The advantage of RPA technology is that it serves as a single interface for the bot. Companies don’t have to deploy a dedicated API for each application / software they wish to connect to the bot.
Automating processes via a chatbot is beneficial for customer services that receive a lot of requests, such as companies in the banking, insurance, travel, logistics, consumer goods, telecommunications and healthcare sectors.
Use cases in the tourism industry
Since last March, a lot of people have had to change or cancel their reservations. A train ticket, a holiday rental, a plane ticket to go abroad, or any kind of booking for an in-person event… Employees in the tourism sector have therefore had to cancel or change reservations multiple times. Their job consists in answering customer questions, cancelling the initial booking, sending an email confirming the cancellation, and sending a credit note or refund. In the event of a modified booking, they have to reserve a new time or date and send the customer their new reservation details. These repetitive and time-consuming tasks coincide with a difficult economic period for the industry, which has led to partial or total unemployment.
Devoteam, specialising in innovative technology consulting, UI Path, a robotic process automation company, and dydu have combined their expertise to automate reservation modifications and cancellations by associating a chatbot (dydu technology) with RPA (UI Path technology), integrated to the client’s CRM.
A search for the customer’s booking can therefore be carried out using their name and reference number, entered into the chatbot (or any other relevant identifier). The robot then edits the contract, changing the dates or cancelling the reservation, saves the new contract and sends it by email. The chatbot then informs the customer of an incoming email.
This is an unprecedented solution for the tourism industry, enabling players to respond instantly to the growing number of customer requests and relieve pressure on their operational teams. This tool was initially designed for hotels, but could also apply and be extended to restaurants, airports, transport companies, etc. With the aim of offering an ever more qualitative customer experience, while addressing the industry’s current economic and social constraints.
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