Hannah Munden2024-02-14

New Connect App Features to Empower Business and Customer Conversations

Customer care is a battleground for businesses in today's competitive landscape. Long wait times, inefficient routing, and limited availability can leave customers frustrated and damage brand’s reputation. We're excited to announce a wealth of new features for our chatbot agent app – designed to empower businesses to deliver a seamless and efficient customer experience.

Introducing the Automated Conversation Assistant (ACA):

Our new star player, the ACA, is an intelligent piece of technology that utilizes rule-based decision-making to optimize customer interactions. Imagine a tireless assistant constantly working behind the scenes, directing conversations, and ensuring customers are connected with the right human agent at the right time. Let's dive deeper into the functionalities that will revolutionize your customer service:

Opening Hours Functionality and Features

Seamless Support in and Out of Business Hours: Customer inquiries don't always occur within the confines of your business hours. The ACA understands this and offers functionalities to ensure a smooth customer experience even after you've closed your virtual chat doors.

For your customers:

• 24/7 Availability: Customers can receive automated responses outside of operating hours, explaining when live assistance will be available again. This eliminates frustration and sets clear expectations.

• Transparent Communication: The ACA can display expected response times for human agents during business hours, allowing customers to plan their interactions effectively.

For your business:

• Dynamic Updates: Opening hours can be updated dynamically within the system to accommodate changes in your schedule, such as holiday closures or extended hours for special events. No need to worry about updating external platforms or confusing your customers.

• Out-of-Office Mode: The ACA automatically transitions to an out-of-office mode when business hours end, ensuring customers are routed to the appropriate resources or receive informative messages.

• Insights and Reporting: The ACA tracks interactions outside of business hours, logging common queries and highlighting areas for improvement. This data can be used to create targeted FAQs or self-service options to address frequently asked questions.

Enhanced Queue Management:

Connect’s Automated Conversation Assistant now manages two queue distribution logics. These can be manually selected by your business or automatically swapped depending on inbound chat demand levels.

Two new distribution logics:

Parallel Agent Distribution - PAD: Submits inbound inquiries into several human agent queues at once, for the fastest response.

Next Available Agent Distribution - NAAD: Sends inbound chat inquiries to the next available agent, ensuring balanced workloads.

PAD will best serve businesses with high volumes and varying specialisms between agents, whereas NAAD may better suit businesses with less demand and agents of similar abilities.

Get the best of both worlds:

• Goodbye, frustration! Say goodbye to long waiting queues. The ACA can distribute inquiries across multiple agent queues simultaneously (Parallel Agent Distribution – PAD) to significantly reduce response times. We all know the pain of bad luck when you choose the wrong queue to stand in. Imagine customers receiving immediate attention instead of languishing in a queue of undefined length. This not only improves customer satisfaction but also frees up valuable time for agents as workloads are shared.

• Smart Routing: When demand is lower, the ACA can seamlessly switch to a "Next Available Agent Distribution" (NAAD) logic, ensuring each agent receives a balanced workload. This flexibility optimizes agent efficiency and ensures no customer gets lost in the shuffle.

• Data-Driven Decisions: The ACA doesn't just work blindly. It constantly monitors performance metrics such as queue lengths, agent wait times, and resolution rates. This data is used to automatically switch between PAD and NAAD, ensuring the most optimal distribution strategy is always in place. And this information isn’t just available to the systems, your business teams will have access to queue reports and the distribution logics to determine what is working best for your business.

Benefits for Your Business:

• Increased Customer Satisfaction: Faster response times and efficient queue management translates to happier customers. Reduced frustration means improved brand loyalty and repeat business. Forbes says that 73% of customers say that valuing their time is important in building customer loyalty. The ACA directly addresses this need by ensuring prompt attention to customer inquiries.

• Improved Agent Efficiency: By distributing workload effectively, the ACA allows agents to focus on what they do best – providing quality customer service. This translates to increased agent productivity and satisfaction. Additionally, the ACA can handle routine inquiries, freeing up agents to tackle more complex issues that require human expertise.

• Informed Reports: The ACA provides detailed reports on queue performance, distribution logic effectiveness, agent workload, and even common customer inquiries outside of business hours. This data empowers you to make informed decisions about resource allocation, service improvements, and potential self-service options for frequently asked questions. Imagine identifying peak hours and strategically scheduling additional agents to ensure consistent service levels.

For your industry's needs:

🛍 Retail:

The ACA can significantly enhance the customer experience in retail environments. Here's how:

Streamlined Sales Support: A customer wanting to know if a specific size is in stock can be instantly connected with a sales agent who can check inventory and complete a purchase, all within minutes. This streamlined process leads to increased sales conversions and reduces abandoned carts, a major pain point for online retailers.

24/7 Support: Customer is aware of opening times and can plan to come back at 9am to ask a human agent for advice on their shopping. In the meantime, automated responses may also help.

🚑 Healthcare:

The ACA can be a valuable asset in the healthcare industry, where timely access to information and support is crucial:

24/7 Patient Support: Patients often have urgent questions outside of business hours. The ACA can automatically answer FAQs about appointment scheduling or direct them to other means of contact for emergencies. This offers 24/7 support and empowers patients to find information quickly, reducing unnecessary calls to busy medical practices.

Specialist Agent Support: The ACA can identify human agents with specific skills and knowledge to match inbound inquiries relating to their specialism.

✈ Hospitality:

The ACA can significantly enhance the guest experience in the hospitality industry:

Personalized Recommendations: A guest enquiring about local attractions or restaurants can be directed to the human agent within the right department or with the best knowledge on each subject area. This not only enhances the guest experience but also creates opportunities for upselling additional services such as spa treatments or tours.

Real-Time Support: The ACA can address common guest requests such as ordering room service, requesting extra towels, or reporting maintenance issues. This allows guests to receive immediate assistance without needing to wait for a staff member to become available.

***We are pairing you with our next available agent. Your estimated wait time is 2 minutes***

Enhanced Transparency & Control:

The ACA doesn't operate in a black box. Customers will be informed about the distribution logic in place (parallel vs. next available agent) and receive estimated response times for human agents. This transparency builds trust and ensures customer expectations are managed effectively. Additionally, customers can choose their preferred communication method – web chat, WhatsApp, or even SMS – giving them control over how they interact with your business.

Control at Your Fingertips:

• Customization is key. You can set rules for parallel distribution, defining the maximum number of simultaneous conversations per agent to prevent overload and ensure optimal service quality.

• Expertise matters. Define rules for NAAD (Next Available Agent Distribution) to consider factors like agent skills and past performance, ensuring customers receive the most relevant assistance.

• Fine-tune control. You can even assign specific queues to individual agents within the agent flow builder, giving you complete control over who handles various types of inquiries. This allows you to leverage agent expertise and optimize workflow based on specific customer needs.

Empowering Your Agents:

The ACA doesn't replace your valued agents, it empowers them! Agents can access powerful tools to search, sort, prioritize, and tag conversations, allowing them to stay organized and manage their workload efficiently. Additionally, live status updates ensure smooth team collaboration by allowing agents to see if colleagues are available or handling complex inquiries.

Investing in the Future:

These new features offer a powerful toolkit to optimize your customer service operations across various industries. With faster response times, intelligent routing, valuable data insights, and a focus on customer experience, you'll be equipped to deliver an exceptional experience that sets you apart from the competition.