COVID-19 (coronavirus) & customer service – how chatbots and live chat can help

COVID-19 (coronavirus) & customer service – how chatbots and live chat can help

The COVID-19 coronavirus situation creates increasing demand for information. Chatbots can help you respond quickly and consistently.

Does the rapidly changing situation with COVID-19 (coronavirus) mean your customers have more enquiries than usual? And possibly that you have fewer staff on hand to answer them?

Have you considered quickly automating aspects of your customer service or using live chat to help to ease the load?

COVID-19 coronavirus creates increasing demand for information

Travel information and restrictions are changing all the time as a result of COVID-19 (coronavirus). Supply of goods can be limited. You might need to cancel an event. You may not be able to send installation or service staff out on jobs.

Situations like this raise lots of questions – about delivery dates, refunds, cancellation policies, whether something is likely to go ahead, when a product will be in stock, the practicalities of a service call...the list is long and ever-changing!

Your customers need information, and your staff are busier than usual. There’s also the possibility that staff may not be able to come to work.

One way to alleviate some of the pressure on your team is to triage the calls and questions with the help of a chatbot and/or use live chat to respond online.

How could a chatbot help?

Routine questions can be dealt with by a chatbot, so your customers get answers fast, and your customer service staff are freed up to handle the more complex enquiries.

Chatbots like FAQ Bot are designed to answer frequently asked questions 24/7, no matter how many people are asking.

Working from home? Provide support remotely with a chatbot that supports live chat

If your business is interrupted by people getting sick or having to work from home, a chatbot can provide a customer service front line.

And if live chat is part of the package, agents and support staff can respond to queries and requests wherever they are located, without the need for a new system.

FAQ Bot now has live chat, so conversations can be escalated to one of your team when there's a need or an opportunity. Or you can offer live chat as the main contact option if you wish.

Keep your staff up to date with centralised, easy-to-access information

Harvard Business Review has identified that regularly updated, centralised and widely shared factual information is key to leading an organisation through a crisis like coronavirus.

FAQ Bot can be implemented on Microsoft Teams, SharePoint or your staff intranet, and is a quick and friendly way of connecting staff with organisational policies and info. If staff have a question, they can just ask your HR bot – no need to find the right person or policy document.

This is particularly helpful when situations are evolving rapidly, as in the COVID-19 outbreak. Just update your bot’s knowledge base and be confident that all staff have access to the latest information.

Chat to us now about improving access to your information with FAQ Bot, or using our live chat capability.