Five reasons why internal chatbots are good for your business.
We often associate chatbots with customer services departments and the ability to communicate with consumers, but increasingly they are also being used within large organisations to streamline operations, provide a better experience for employees, and automate routine tasks.
In our transformative world, unlocking the potential of chatbots offers huge benefits for everyone in an organization – not just the customer services department. They provide the ability to handle high volumes of queries simultaneously, freeing up humans to do higher value, more complex tasks and can be consistently accurate, reducing human error and providing reliable information quickly.
Why wouldn’t other departments want to deploy AI-driven virtual assistants with the hope of delivering the same benefits to their department or across their business more widely?
Here are five reasons why internal chatbots make sense in your organization.
- They make information more available.
Chatbots don’t sleep. They’re available around the clock to ask questions of, and they don’t tire of answering them – they’re at our beck and call. Whether it’s a query in the dead of night, or a request at weekend, they have the answers. They help when a human can’t, granting access and making organizational information available, empowering employees with swift, accurate and uninterrupted support. So, whether it’s an executive on a business trip in a different time zone, or a proposal to write on a Sunday in the home office, the information is at their fingertips when they need it.
- Efficiency gains.
Humans would be the first to admit that they are often the bottle necks in large organizations. Delays in decision making, workloads, over reliance on key individuals with specialized knowledge, or a lack of available skill sets in the business at any given time, make us more inefficient. Conversely, chatbots don’t resist change – when new systems or processes are introduced, they don’t feel the fear or uncertainty that we do and don’t impede innovation or slow progress down. The ability to adapt quickly to changing business factors means that internal chatbot use drives efficiencies for an organization and eliminates many of the bottlenecks within the business.
- Services and information on demand.
The ability for employees to self-serve, provides opportunities for organizations to deliver resources that can be consumed in line with demand from staff – as and when its required. Streamlined onboarding for new staff, training and development on demand, easy submission of leave requests, expense reimbursements, scheduling of meetings or access to internal systems. It’s all consumable at a time, in a place, via the chosen channel by the employee, putting them firmly in the driving seat and control of their role within the business. Chatbots help to empower people.
- A happy, skilled workforce.
There is a daily grind to any role, but eliminating the most mundane and process driven tasks makes for a happier and ultimately more skilled workforce. Chatbots can take on the most repetitive and routine tasks with a smile on their AI-driven faces. Answering questions, providing documents, advising on company policies, and pointing people in the right direction to find what they’re looking for. In turn, the humans can focus on developing their skills in other areas where value is added, whilst progressing through the ranks of their organization unimpeded by the humdrum.
- Cost reductions.
It stands to reason that if you automate business processes by reducing the ‘handling time’ of any query or issue, and unshackle your workforce to do worthier, more valued, and enjoyable tasks, business efficiencies improve, and costs are reduced. The ability for employees to self-serve, reduces cost per interaction as the chatbot can handle multiple questions from multiple users simultaneously, scaling cost-effectively with demand.
AI-driven chatbots have the power to re-imagine and transform the communication between internal departments and employees. Nevertheless, a word of warning – the aim should be an AI assistant that employees want to talk to – one that delivers value to them and puts their needs first. This requires a human-centered design, which requires experienced conversation designers who can refine their language skills, keep conversations moving efficiently and deliver the desired content with style and ease.
If you’re ready to start developing your chatbot or are looking for a team that can help you get the most out of your existing solution contact our client services team to arrange a no obligation call . Client services are available to answer all your initial questions from which solution is best for your business type through to how to train your conversational AI team.
