What Are Bots? [Definition]

For all the stories of gutted call centers and struggling service interactions, there’s still an awful lot of innovation coming out of the customer service industry. Technology designed to improve a decades-old problem of stagnant customer satisfaction has surfaced, and terms like A.I. and micro-learning are thrown about like gaudy strands of beads at Mardi Gras.

To help, we’re continuing our Definition Series of re-introducing and defining industry terms in 400 words or less for the busy manager. Today, we’re defining bots in contact centers:

What are Bots?

Bots are robots that will take over the world.

Just kidding. They’re not. But, bots have been noted by some (not us) to be so much better than humans that they’re in fact replacing people with technology.

But is that really…responsible to say? Or is it even true?

We think not. Actually, we’d prefer to serve up a double-shot of nope to that. Bots were created to help humans, particularly those in the customer service industry, do their jobs better, faster and more effectively.

Here’s a more accurate definition of bots:

Bots are artificial intelligence-driven actions that automate pieces of the customer journey at a personalized level to help call center agents do their jobs better.

They’re usually found in a chat interface, but that’s not the only place they’re helpful. In fact, bots can be used on social media, email, chat, voice and most places in between. They pull in data to personalize your conversations at scale without relying on humans to answer simple inquiries or gather more information. And they create automatic, natural-sounding conversations using the data you already have on your customers inside each interaction.

The automation they provide allows your agents the flexibility to spend a little more time working on more complex issues and amplifying your first call resolutions, ultimately improving your customer satisfaction.