Transforming chatbots with next-gen knowledge

Vendors are promising the world with their chatbots, aka virtual assistants, but they are not delivering on their promise.

According to a consumer survey by Dimensional Research, chatbots ranked dead last in customer satisfaction among all digital touchpoints.

Forrester also predicts a backlash as customers continue to get into conversational dead-ends with chatbots.

KMWorld held a webinar with Kate Leggett, VP and principal analyst serving application development and delivery, Forrester Research and Sam Hahn, technology evangelist, eGain Corporation, who discussed how to make the chatbot experience more helpful and less a hindrance.

Customer service organizations value the delivery of great customer experiences, Leggett explained. At the same time, self-service and digital volumes are expected to grow, feeding into the usage of robotic automation and digital agents.

By combining a knowledge management strategy with chatbot utilization, users can discover the right answers, she said.

How a chatbot works successfully includes the following steps:

• Customer asks a question via web chat
• The chatbot makes a conversational suggestion or surfaces relevant information from knowledge base to agent in real time.
• An agent pushes suggestion to customer or modifies/personalizes the suggestion, or rejects the suggestion and types their own answer.
• While this is happening, a machine learning loop watches interactions and uses agent’s actions to improve future suggestions.

Couple chatbots for intent derivation to knowledge management for answers, Leggett said. Knowledge powered chatbots empower organizations to deliver great employee and customer experiences.

The eGain Customer Engagement Solution can help merge these tools, Hahn said. An eGain virtual assistant goes beyond “meet and greet,” he said. The solution can context-aware escalation to live chat agents, if needed. Knowledge and AI guidance helps resolve complex queries and provide product advice.

An archived on-demand replay of this webinar is available here.