Self Service Bots

He sounds so genuine, so enthusiastic, and so….willing to help.

I’m talking about my bank’s self-service bot, who intones eagerly:

“Hello! I’m RBC’s self-service assistant! In a few words, tell me what you’re calling in about!”

Now, I pride myself on speaking clearly (my livelihood literally depends upon it) and I’ve worked enough in the automated speech space to know that the shorter your request – and the fewer words used – will be better for the bot to understand.

So, I start with:

“I need to reset my password.”

An uncomfortable pause (at least for me) occurs, and the bot says:

“Hmmm. I think you said ‘password’. Is that correct?’

It sure is. I reply: “It sure is.”

He then delves deeper into my request:

“Sure. I can help you with that. I just need more information. You can say things like: ‘password doesn’t work” or ‘forgot password.” Go ahead when you’re ready.”

Deep breath.

“I need to reset my password.”

A pause.

“OK. I think you said: ‘password issues.’ Is that correct?”

For the love of all things holy.

“Yes”. I reply, knowing full well that we have been at this for about a minute already, and I’m no closer to arriving at a solution than when I started.

Then he said: “I’ll transfer you to a live agent, but before I do that, can you say or key in your 16 digit RBC client card number followed by pound?”

I went ahead and did that, the numbers were repeated back, and then I was apparently put in a queue, only to hear Mr. Bot chirping in every fifteen seconds or so, reminding me that “many answers to common questions can be found on RBC.com!” And also: “We’re experiencing a longer than normal call volume.”

To say that the bot didn’t exactly enhance my experience with the bank is an understatement. It’s also a fair statement to say that this encounter was an exercise in futility; a maneuver constructed to keep me busy and to possibly weed out the callers who aren’t willing to go through lots of hoops to arrive at a solution to their issue.

This company/customer relationship is too fragile and too tenuous to risk on bots who can’t intelligently respond to even basic questions or who can hope to fulfill their promise of putting the customer in a position of “being ahead” from having gone through the line of questioning.

Two things to keep in mind if you’re contemplating adding a self-service bot layer to your IVR:

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Want to erode the customer relationship? Disrespect their time and patience.

I have harped for years in other blog articles about how callers are short on both time and patience. Think about the last time you called into a company, and how easily irritated you were by steps you had to take which you thought were superfluous or needless. You called in because you couldn’t find an answer to your question on their website, and you need direct, live customer service – sooner than later. Don’t waste your caller’s time. Don’t use up their patience. Respect the fact that they have specialized questions and get them to service in as few steps as possible.

Don’t automate unless it’s an actual timesaver.

Bots seem cool. It’s viewed as progressive and tech-savvy to have an “assistant” answer the phone and automate the sorting process, especially if you name it and you feel he’s a good outward=facing agent for your company. ?And it would be – if it actually works. Why did RBC’s utility not recognize a professional voice talent saying – clear as day – “I need to reset my password”? That’s one to ponder. All I know is: if I couldn’t make the bot understand me, how the does the elderly/accented/general public fare? They don’t. Don’t have a bot unless it’s an actual enhancement to your customer relations.

Sorting – even the basic sorting done by a well-written IVR – can be a time-saving resource which can ensure that the right agents are handling calls which are in their specific wheelhouse. Where it breaks down is when it’s handled by a non-intuitive bot, not trained to recognize even basic commands, and the customer/company relationship is in danger of being permanently compromised.

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Allison Smith a professional voice talent specializing in IVR/call center/AI prompts. Theivrvoice.com, @voicegal. She hates talking on the phone.