Introduction

As explained in different articles , a chatbot can be used in three main families of use cases:

We will focus here on business chatbots that enable the automation of business processes. Thanks to current technologies, chatbots can go much further than simple FAQs. The chatbot reinforces your teams and allows you to:

1. Handle more requests with the same team
2. Focus your efforts on the highest value-added requests
3. Make your organization more automated and independent of the know-how of some of your elements
   
   

The idea of this article is to suggest tasks that a chatbot can automate in the following areas: IT support and customer service.

1. IT Department Automation

The DSI teams are there to help employees work better by providing them with the tools (hardware and software) necessary for their work. They are central to all organizations since they allow them not only to properly manage internal processes, but above all to breathe innovation into all existing business units.

These teams mainly work on the following subjects:

• Computer assistance to users : several levels of assistance and help with resolution exist. These teams are there to help users when they are unable to use a particular application, when they have lost their access or when a bug occurs. Level 1 generally handles support requests while Level 2 and 3 are there to deal with and fix bugs and perform on-site interventions.
• Access management : in all organizations, there are new entrants and new leavers. The IT support teams are there to ensure that everyone’s access is open on time so as not to create friction.
• Ordering/purchasing equipment and licenses : the DSI teams are also there to purchase equipment (PCs, telephones, servers).
• Production management : the DSI also manages the creation and operational maintenance of applications purchased or created in-house. This involves project management, testing and bug reporting.

Here are dedicated articles on automatable tasks for each of the above topics.

Automate IT support

Here are the tasks you can automate in IT support:

• Simple answers to recurring questions: the chatbot answers a question with a simple message or by indicating the link of an article in your knowledge base
• Self-care resolution procedures: the chatbot asks the user to carry out successive operations to solve his problem
• Direct actions: the chatbot performs a task on the user’s application or desktop (eg: forgotten password, clearing a browser’s cache, etc.)

Automate access management

Here’s what a chatbot can do to help you better manage access to your company’s applications:

• Request for access to an application by existing collaborator
• Creation of the accesses necessary for the arrival of a new employee
• Deletion of access when an employee leaves

Automate material orders

Your employees often need new equipment. A chatbot can help streamline this process:

• Report an outage on a device
• Device Repair Request
• Report a broken or stolen device
• Order a new accessory (charger, bag, mouse, etc.)
• Order new hardware (PC, smartphone, servers, …)

Automate production management

Many actors are involved in the creation, testing, maintenance and support of applications developed by the teams of the DSI. On one side you have the developers and on the other the business teams who will be using the tool. These projects work well if they are managed in an agile way. And chatbots can help make the organization more agile by doing the following:

• Add a new feature request
• Report a bug on the application
• Get notified when a new feature is in testing or in production

2. Automation of the customer experience

The customer experience is at the center of the strategy of all organizations, whatever their size and their field of activity (B2B / B2C). If automation is not always welcome, it becomes necessary to meet the expectations of ever more demanding customers ( see our analysis of Forrester predictions for 2019 ).

The customer experience covers very different areas depending on the company: marketing, qualification of leads, sales, training, customer support, etc.
We have chosen some of them based on what we have been able to do with our customers or observed on the automation market in general and chatbots in particular:

• Technical questions about products : if you have many references with important technical information, a chatbot can help your prospects find the right information in a single question
• Lead qualification : the chatbot is a good way to help your visitors make an appointment with a salesperson in a few seconds, all integrated with your CRM software for a perfect experience (sending an invitation with email and appointment reminder)
• Customer support : the chatbot is ideal for helping your customers solve their problem faster
• Complaints and claims management : the chatbot will help your customers report their problem in a fully digital way

Here are some articles that detail these possible automations.

Technical product questions

If you have a large number of products with technical documentation in PDF, it can sometimes be complicated for your prospects and customers to find precise information quickly (price, dimensions, compatibility, etc.). A chatbot can help them:

• Find fixed precise information on a product: price, dimensions, …
• Find variable information for each product: availability in stock, delivery time depending on the area, etc…

Lead qualification

The chatbot is probably the best way to help a prospect who needs to contact you quickly. Here’s why :

• Appointment booking with a salesperson in synchronization with your calendars and your CRM
• Instant exchange with a sales representative (live chat)

Customer Support

The chatbot is a good way to help your customers solve their problem on their own more quickly than if they contacted your customer service by phone. Here’s what it could do for them:

• Provide simple answers to simple questions
• Perform an action on behalf of the user: increase the payment limit, subscribe to an additional package, reset a password, etc…

Complaints and claims management

Following the purchase of a defective, broken or not as described product, a customer can contact customer service by passing a chatbot. The latter will be able to process the request, diagnose the problem, in order to solve it more efficiently.

• Declare an insurance claim, for example
• File a claim for a defective product
• Know the status of a file
• Know the refund policies etc…

Following an invoice dispute, or an unpaid invoice, the chatbot will have to check the invoices, explain the displayed price and ensure collection.