Custom chatbot strategies are just that – custom. These strategies typically involve chatbots and humans in a hybrid model, with each serving a different purpose. For some, chatbots are the first line of defense and human agents are backup. For others, the opposite is true.
The Reserve Tier creates easy and seamless chatbot and human combinations. It is a new functionality that pairs with our latest advanced Guide Bot as a way to smartly route visitors to the right place at the right time. The Reserve Tier enables faster, more powerful and more intuitive chat routing configurations across bots and humans to support the automation and customization needs of complex organizations.
How the Reserve Tier enables hyper-flexible customer experiences
Our State of Chat report found that businesses tend to implement chatbots to handle highly specific job functions and business workflows. For example, a proactive Guide Bot that engages visitors under only specific conditions, like when items are left in a cart. This bot has a customized set-up and content that only makes sense to visitors if they have items in their cart.
The previous best practice to ensure that no visitors accidentally end up with the “Cart Abandonment Bot” was to add this bot to its own widget. All bot conditions were controlled separately from other widgets/departments.
However, we found that this is not cohesive to the digital conversation experience. Metrics were separate and the custom bot strategy overall required more time-consuming setup and ongoing upkeep.
Enter the Reserve Tier.
With the Reserve Tier, specialized bots with one specific functionality (for example, contextual proactive bots that engage visitors with items in their cart) can exist in the same widget, or ecosystem.
These bots can be easily combined with other tiers of agents and chatbots, so that each website visitor has the unique, personalized experience they expect. This is extremely critical for business success, as research from Epsilon indicates that a whopping 80% of customers are more likely to purchase a product or service from a brand who provides personalized experiences.
The Reserve Tier simplifies complex customization and routing needs
It’s important to first understand the SnapEngage tiering system in order to understand the true value of the new Reserve Tier. Priority Tiers represent the order in which chats are assigned, with Tier 1 being the first line of defense. Tier 1 can be home to human agents and chatbots alike.
All incoming conversations route to Tier 1 first to see if an agent or bot is available. If no one is available in Tier 1, the conversation is routed to Tier 2 to check for available agents or bots. This goes on until an agent or bot is available.
Prior to the Reserve Tier, it was more challenging and time-consuming to configure customized chatbots that are not part of standard Priority Tier routing. Typically, the best way to accomplish this would have been to place each chatbot in its own widget, and then selectively embed the widget into your website wherever appropriate. As you can imagine, this is a more complicated approach and comes with its own challenges and limitations.
This situation is likely fine for an organization that does not need a complex, multi-layered bot strategy. However, we built the Reserve Tier knowing that many of our clients need to carry out highly sophisticated bot strategies and therefore require a solution for handling complex bot routing situations with ease.
The Reserve Tier makes it possible to combine many specialized chatbots in a single widget, and use them as part of proactive or multi-function bot strategies, and greatly simplifies the overall implementation. It’s also possible to add specialized human agents to the Reserve Tier (such as a team manager or a specialist) whom you do not want to include in standard chat routing.
Integrate with and maximize existing custom chatbot strategies
The Reserve Tier allows you to avoid awkward mis-routing situations by only engaging visitors under the right proactive conditions at the right moment. This flexibility allows for multiple chatbots and handoff points. For example, a chatbot might proactively ask if a visitor has billing questions, another might ask if they require product assistance. Both bots can then have conversations routed to another general bot to collect standardized visitor information for follow up.
Additionally, a Survey Bot designed only to ask customized survey questions should never be in the regular rotation for incoming visitor questions. Now, it’s possible to proactively launch a specialized Survey Guide Bot which exists in the Reserve Tier and only triggers based on key criteria.
The Reserve Tier also eliminates the need to create additional widgets for special-case bots, which greatly simplifies setup, upkeep and even reporting.
Example scenarios to help you incorporate Reserve Tier into your 2021 chatbot strategies
Whether you fall into one of the following four verticals or if you’re looking to drive customer engagement in a completely different vertical, these common scenarios can be applied readily to your unique business and operations workflows. Here’s a few sample ideas to get you started:
Scenario 1: Implement multiple “secondary” proactive bots for a manufacturing company
A manufacturing company has several proactive bots that initiate whenever a lead views certain products on the website (such as tools, safety equipment, or accessories). After a website visitor engages with one of the conditional proactive bots, the lead is transferred to a shared general bot where they input standard information such as email, phone, company name, budget and timeline to purchase. Then, the lead is routed to a human sales agent who uses this prior data to quickly and easily set appropriate next steps with the lead.
Scenario 2: Implement a proactive survey bot to gather customer feedback for a healthcare practice
A healthcare practice would like to collect Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey data from patients after they complete and submit an online health questionnaire. They would like to use a proactive chatbot to accomplish this so that the entire process can be automated. They set up a survey Guide Bot (using the Rating prompt Step type) to ask how likely the patient would be to recommend the practice’s services to a friend or colleague (on a scale from 1-10) and place this bot in the Reserve Tier. Then, they set up a special proactive rule which will launch the survey Guide Bot whenever a patient submits the health questionnaire.
Scenario 3: Enable complex configurations with human agents participating in multiple widgets for an e-commerce company
An e-commerce company that sells outdoor gear has a human agent, Emilio, who is trained to provide support across all company product lines and is configured on the following product line widgets: Footwear, Climbing, Camping, Men’s Outerwear and Biking. Every few days based on order volume and current demand, Emilio rotates product lines based on which area is experiencing the highest demand and requires more backup support. As needed, the SnapEngage Admin (also Emilio’s manager) moves Emilio to the Reserve Tier for product lines experiencing low demand and keeps him in standard Priority Tier routing for other product lines experiencing high demand.
Scenario 4: Set up specialists or managers to handle specialized and escalated inquiries for a banking institution
A bank has a Customer Service team of human agents who assist with general banking customer service and questions about topics such as making a payment, ordering checks, applying for a credit card, loans and fraud reporting. All of these Customer Service team agents exist in Tier 1 and handle all incoming chats from the bank’s website. In addition, the banking team has one human agent who specializes in Fraud and another human agent who specializes in Loans. These two agents are configured in the Reserve Tier to ensure they don’t receive standard customer service inquiries so they can focus on other tasks. Whenever a customer has in-depth questions about Fraud or Loans that the Customer Service agents cannot resolve, those agents can perform a direct transfer to one of the specialized human agents that exist in the Reserve Tier.
You can also learn more about the Reserve Tier here. Stay tuned for more product updates, including the upcoming Post-Chat Survey Bot release.
Are you ready to drive increased customer satisfaction results with your customer base? Our team of dedicated bot experts can help you determine the best ways to use the new Reserve Tier to enhance your existing bot strategies and achieve your 2021 customer engagement goals.
