In this episode of the process and automation podcast, Sasha and Arno will share tips for faster adoption of chatbot technology.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the process and automation podcast with the automation guys. Arno, what are we covering today in our episode? Thanks Sasha. So today we’re going to look at a couple of tips. We’ve compiled to really accelerate the adoption of chat bot technology with inside your organization.

Now, of course, you know, there’s a lot of hype out there with, um, uh, you know, with regards to chatbots, um, AI driven virtual assistants, assistants, uh, and all of these are really focused around, um, You know, to drive better outcomes for digital engagement. And this is for large organizations, it’s very small organizations.

So this kind of whole new customer centric way to interact with, with clients and partners and suppliers is it’s really gaining a lot of momentum. And I think, you know, chatbots is, is key to really enable us to, to move forward with that way of thinking. You know, we want to have these virtual assistants.

That can, um, enable this customer interaction to be very fast and to drive outcomes that’s very quickly. And of course, you know, all of this is driven by. AI cognitive services that allows us to, to, to build really intelligent sort of interactions with our customers. So, so really again, what we want to do is as sort of just presented tips for, for faster adoption for, um, for, for this tech to chat bot technology with inside your business.

So that’s the first point we want to, we kind of want to look at is, um, we want to. So when you, when you do this with inside your business, you really want to, um, you know, clarify the purpose of the chatbots prior to adopting it, you know, and you should have a really, really strong business case for this.

And there should be a strategic purpose behind your adoption. And, you know, you need to have a very, very good implementation strategy, and you have to have really good business goals, um, you know, prior to adopting chatbots. And, you know, I think that that’s a, that’s a key driver to the success of this initiative.

So really want to look at four elements here. Um, so the first of all you want to. Look at the purpose, and this is kind of like a blueprint for, for rolling out chat bots. You know, what, what is this purpose, um, for bringing in this conversational, um, sort of, uh, digital, conversational agent with inside your business and what’s the kind of the skills needed, um, you know, for, for this.

A digital worker or this digital bot to be able to, um, interact with your customers. Um, and, and the next sort of element of this is really, what is the job that this actual chatbot needs to perform? Um, and the experience we need to install with insight, this bot. Also the third thing is we need to look at, look at the content.

So, you know what, what’s the objective, what’s the content that this will serve. What’s the information it will provide. And also the fourth point is the attraction. How will this actually interact with end-users that’s at the other side of, of this digital channel, right? Yeah. So, um, I think. So the next, the next good point we can jump into is how we define the key strategy and the metrics and how we can measure success. I think this is a key part. Uh, I think it was any kind of project was any project you kicking off. Um, so chat bot is not very, very different to that. So, um, part of the development. Um, the deployment strategy, um, in, in companies, um, uh, should be a well-defined set of metrics to, to measure that project success.

So everyone needs to need to understand where, where are we going to otherwise you don’t really know where, where if you have reached your desired outcome. So yeah, some of these key metrics, um, you could look at, um, are sort of the percentage of the reduction in resolution time, um, when using these chatbots.

So when it comes to sort of customer service, uh, for example the percentage of the reduction in manual effort. So, um, so before, you know, you had to maybe do a lot of work in Excel, copying and pasting. So if, um, and responding to, to incoming requests via email and that kind of stuff. So, um, how does, does this look like?

Um, uh, after implementing the chatbots, um, Percentage of incident resolved end to end through chat bots. I think that’s a very powerful one to, to, to achieve. Um, so as you probably have read as well in the news, or maybe have heard in our previous episodes, so some, some companies achieved 80%, uh, um, um, uh, efficiencies or improvement, um, in, in the interim process.

So it’s something really to, to. To aim for, it’s a great measure of success here. Um, if you get that number very high, um, the end to end, um, uh, resolution through chatbots, then, um, another measure is really, um, the user experience and dissatisfaction, um, because. Uh, any new technologies you bring in it all sounds nice and fancy, but if, if, if the users, um, uh, are not really keen on using that technology, it’s, it’s literally worthless.

And, um, yeah, so that’s, that’s a very important, uh, factor here, um, to do, um, To look at ’em and to listen really to the feedback you might get as well by, by implementing these new technologies, then, um, I think another sort of final, really important measure here. So they are the other matters, obviously as well.

But, um, uh, we, we think this is important. Um, uh, the percentage of users leveraging these chatbots, um, as their sort of primary channel of communication. So if you. Pluck these, uh, these chatbots, for example, an MS Teams or Slack for internal facing, um, scenarios, and your employees are picking this up to two self-services wedge HR and, and on all sorts of other areas.

Um, if this STEM becomes sort of your primary channel of communication while this is, this is incredible. So. Yeah. So here, here are a few measures we think are important. Um, yeah, so the list can, can probably go on and on. Yeah. And I think the not the next sort of, I guess tip is to start simple, but choose things.

That’s got a very high impact. Um, you know, they always compare a chatbot to a very young, new employee. That’s keen to learn fast and accelerate. And, um, you know, you need to mimic that. Um, you need to see a chatbot to something that, um, on day one you can start with something very simple and. As you then kind of grow the knowledge of that bot, um, and be a bit more specialized.

Um, then you can also train it to feel increasingly complex tasks. Um, so you might have on day one, a chat bot that automate very simple, repetitive tasks, such as HR FAQ’s. And of course, you know, that that’s a very simple. Initial use case for it, but then you can grow that. The use case to do more complicated HR tasks.

Now, previous episodes of this podcast, we have talked about use cases specifically in HR, um, for chatbots and then numerous. And I think the message here is that if you just start simple, you choose the ones with a very high impact. You prove the technology work. And then from there on, you know, you can scale that out and incorporate.

More use cases, more functional, um, sort of, uh, areas that chatbot can, can, um, engage with employees with and. Effectively kind of grow that into something quite large, but grown on the fact that it is successful, it’s very effective. Um, it ensures that this high degree of engagement, high degree of satisfaction, employee satisfaction and, um, you know, and scale that out across your organization.

So I think, you know, kind of starting small as is. A big part of this, right. To test it out and prove it works. Absolutely. So, um, I think again, like, was it many and any other new technologies you don’t want to pick a sort of, um, yeah. Was Wiz big, big. Goals in mind, but you don’t want to pick a sort of the most complex process and area you want to want to change and improve on.

So enterprises need to really look at initially maybe for what we call a minimum viable product and MVP, so that that can reduce some, yeah, just a manual intervention by automating the bulk of this repetitive and tedious task. So, and, um, Yeah. As, as normal, prior to, to launch at scale, um, it is really useful to, to do this POC or pilot to demonstrate, um, sort of usability and, um, and the impact internally, um, um, was, it was such a small use case.

Um, Arno mentioned a few earlier and we talked about the SHR services, um, holiday requests. Those kinds of things are very easy, eh, impactful because they are so they are. Addressing nearly all a, basically every employee in the business, but it does. So you can test and really, really nice here. And then, um, yeah, during that pilot project, the chatbot can be observed.

The conversations can be refined because, um, yeah, so you have to sort of. Yeah, just structured a conversational flow a little bit, and then you need to see how the AI is dealing, was all that kind of stuff. So all that, that, um, that needs to be defined. So it’s all right. And the context. Um, and then once they, once it’s working the productivity and, uh, sort of the efficiency criteria are met, um, sort of success criteria as he also discussed.

Before the chatbot can be, can be, um, you know, then, uh, widespread, uh, into the organization can be announced to everyone and, um, yeah, launched really everywhere, maybe in other, other regions of the company and other departments. Yeah. And then the successful, intimate, intimate implementation, often off the pilot, um, uh, will then be the basis, um, um, to, to brokers further and, um, to really maximize, um, that, that.

The value prop technology. Yeah, that’s very important. I think once you get that first successful implementation under your belt, or, you know, off that initial pilot, you know, that will really pave the way. And that will also be a very logical progression, um, you know, to extract maximum business value. You know, or from this, this chat bot initiative.

And I think it brings us to the next point, you know, you have to think big and you have to do that from the beginning. And, you know, and I think when you’re trying to achieve this. That the highest level of productivity using chatbots, you know, it’s important to identify sort of all of those processes and, and roles and, and, and, and customer touch points.

For example, that can be automated. And plan all of those future deployments in, in stages. You know, it’s always better to adopt a phase approach and to automate, you know, processes using chatbots in different departments and spanning kind of different roles and different processes. And, um, you know, I think what you need to guard yourself against this.

Uh, I guess there’s this notion that exists with inside the enterprise. Um, that’s got this. Inertia to change. And what it means is that it doesn’t want to change direction. It’s it’s down this track. You might try and bring new technology in, but because of this kind of organizational inertia, it doesn’t want to change.

Um, so you want to guard yourself against that. Um, and you know, that’s one of the pitfalls you need to recognize, um, you know, when you deploy this and that can really be avoided by using a sort of a tube. Pronged approach, in my opinion. So, you know, th th the first one is as sort of a top-down approach to drive this chatbot adoption, um, from the kind of, from the business leadership.

So it trickles down into the, the business units. And another approach is where you start from the bottom up, where you. Uh, approach, I guess, that that is sort of the, the business users and make them evangelists of the benefits of, of chatbots. Um, so, so, so they can drive adoption amongst senior employees.

So that kind of goes up the chain. But I think that, um, the technology is really progressive. I always say, you know, that the art of the possible is extremely wide and there’s no reason why you should think big, although. You can start small. You can still have those there’s this kind of like this big, um, Plans for this and this big initiatives already planned.

Yeah. And, um, was, was all the excitement, uh, or this new technology, uh, out there. And, um, uh, if, if internally the team gets excited about this technology, it’s also worthwhile to think about, um, um, developing. Uh, in-house skills on this term chatbots technology and on that specific platform, I think that’s, uh, uh, that’s sort of key if you’re kicking off.

Sure. You can kick off maybe with some, uh, implementation partners. Uh, but, um, so as soon as you sort of outsource out of the MVP stage, I guess you, you want to have that capability in house and, um, Uh, yeah, so that’s, that’s a very, very important, um, otherwise it’s not really worthwhile to, to really think about, uh, a long-term solution.

Uh, and, uh, so that’s, that’s the first thing. So you need to really up-skill, um, to your, to, you need to upskill your team and allocate the right time, give them the time to, to, to learn these new things. Um, and, um, Yeah. So that’s, that’s, that’s a, that’s, that’s very important so that it can then be included in the project teams and, um, um, do the tweaks during initial testing and during the pilots and, um, as well being, uh, uh, as well, and then Benji list here and there was in the business, um, if they have the skills, um, so.

Yeah. So one, one important thing to consider here is to ensure you’re able to, to, um, to have that learning available from day one. So, um, but, but most of these vendors out there, they provide really good academies, um, uh, for, for that kind of stuff. And yeah, I think, um, the, as we mentioned before, um, To set the setting at, um, these, these metrics to measure the, the chapter performance and impact.

So those, those things are really important too. Um, To, to be done by, by the team who is looking after the chat bot solution. And, um, yeah, I think, uh, and evaluate more and more of these training tools, um, to create really the focused, uh, sessions UIT and the subject matter experts really need, um, uh, otherwise yeah, you do your MVP, you, the implementation partner might leave.

Because you don’t have any sort of, uh, expensive for extensive budgets for the implementation partner. And then, then you’re suddenly thinking about your training requirements. I think that’s, that’s a bit too late, so to, to, to be really successful and to support this fast adoption of chatbot technology, that’s, uh, that’s also a very important point.

Yeah, sure. Very, very good tip. Um, and I guess if you’ve already got RPA deployed with inside your organization and perhaps you’ve got a RPA center of excellence, um, you know, it’s a very good springboard to actually leverage, to get chatbots. Embedded with inside your organization as well, because you know, a lot of the center of excellence lessons learned and the center of excellence, uh, sort of, uh, practices extends to.

Chatbots as well, you know, from, from RPA perspective. And, um, you know, I think you should really, if you do have an RPA center of excellence, um, you should really try and kind of align those two together. Um, and again, you know, a center of excellence will help you to, to prioritize the processes. Um, that has got a very big potential for this conversational automation and also to, you know, to ensure that they are deployed, uh, in a way that, that that’s got a high degree of quality, um, compliancy standards are met, for example.

And, you know, it also is deployed in a, in a way that allows for coordinated communication with all of the various stakeholders that that’s involved with inside these, these, these, these projects. So again, I think if you’re in a good position where you have got to. RPA central of excellence. Um, because of course, you know, that that’s a, a good framework to govern the rollout of these automation projects, um, you know, try and use those best, best practices of your central of excellence.

Um, and, you know, try and try and use us bank best practices for, for rolling out your, your, your chatbot projects. And I’ll bring it in date. Um, so, so the next important part is all about, um, change management, um, the introduction of new technology, um, yeah. Can, can have different, uh, different impacts within the organization.

Some people are, um, some employees have really hyped and Dayday are very happy, um, that. That robots are taking over. Um, so this is what lots of people feel. Um, but others are. Yeah, definitely. Um, maybe not so happy, they don’t understand that. So, so, um, although businesses, um, uh, really, really now focusing on this idea of a virtual assistant or a chat bot.

So, um, some, yeah, some, some concerns are there that admitted might reduce headcount and costs. Um, or it definitely had a console. I think reducing cost is not necessarily a concern, but, um, reducing the head count is, and, um, yeah, I think it is, it is too is important to emphasize when we, um, implement chatbots.

Um, that is all about, um, the route. Sort of the overall customer experience. Um, and they, and, and the, the, the values we, we give our customers, um, and, uh, internally, actually an externally, um, productivity goes up. So that, that, that should be sort of the main focus and not, uh, it’s nothing against humans. So, so the reality and future looks like, yeah.

So that the companies of the future, um, Looks like we have processes where we combine people, uh, AI and bots. Uh, I think that’s, that’s, what’s already happening more and more, and we have to sort of. Understand that, and maybe accept that. But, um, it was proper change management. Uh, it is very crucial, um, from the start really, um, to, to get people on board and to avoid that resistance of the, of any, any initiative we might start.

Um, because if, as soon as you, you just am. Put this in here. Just tell everyone you have to use it. Um, uh, people will, will not use it. Um, you will see this in your metrics. There’s no user adoption. People will ride a lot of bad messages on internal chats and then all that investment all the time you spend on it, maybe because.

Some areas of the company thought it’s a good idea. Um, that that’s um, yeah, so that investment is going to sort of know where, um, so it’s, um, yeah, as I mentioned are very, very important to, to make that clear it is helping, um, uh, people, um, during that job. So to have more time to get, get on valuable activities, more meaningful activities, and because we can automate more end to end and they are really working, uh, on, on, on the meaningful.

Um, yeah, so that’s, that’s a very important part in any, any kind of, um, digital transformation project to not, yeah. Um, Leafly, um, your, your employees behind, um, yeah, well, you know, like they say, um, these virtual enterprise assistance, um, our support to human interaction, other listen for it. And I think that that’s really true.

I think that, um, you know, if, if you have got proper internal communication, Um, what the chatbots are they to do, and that it’s an assistance and ensure that message is very clear to employees. You know, employees will be. I’m on board with this, the positive, um, sort of nature of the adoption of this, these conversational automation, um, sort of initiatives you’re running and, uh, and the benefits to themselves, you know, it’s going to make their day job easier.

Um, it’s going to sort of freed them up so that they can focus on more productive work. Throughout the day. Um, and it kind of brings us to, to kind of the next point in, um, you know, this top tips to bring chatbots into what you drive adoption for chatbots into your business. It’s really to give a chat bot.

Uh, personality, right? Because, you know, if you give a bot a personality, it really helps a user to connect with it on a, on an emotional level. And, um, you know, so we have to have these personality attributes. That’s, that’s kind of like, Assigned to these, to these bots to compliment the user’s personality that will interact with it.

And also the users needs, um, and the way they interact with the bots needs to be reflected in the interaction styles and, and of the services, these, these, this bot offers. And, um, you know, I think that. You know, w w we talk about human behavior. And I think that if you look at the usage and usability and the usefulness of these virtual assistants, it really directly impacts the user’s ability to achieve their life goals.

And, you know, and it can be a really good primary motive, beta for the user to use these chat bot services. Um, especially if there’s something of value that’s on offer. And, you know, if the bots personality is favorable, Um, and, uh, people like interacting with it, then they, they will, they will use it. Right.

Um, if I think that the conventional, uh, bots that we used to see prior to, um, I would say the intelligence, what we see these days, um, people used to interact with it. They didn’t like it because they know it was a bot. Um, and then node was useless because it couldn’t. To kind of provide them the information they need, but these days, because it’s sort of, um, very intuitive, it’s AI driven.

Um, it’s, you know, you can make it very friendly. Um, you can give it a recognizable name. Um, it it’s, it provides the outcomes that the users want. Um, people pay attention to it, that it is this personal assistant. It’s not like this old, you know, the Microsoft clip that used to. Pop up in the old days on windows.

And it says, you know, I see you want to write a letter. Can I help? No, you know, that’s just pre-programmed stuff. And it’s like, just go away, Bruce, with this, you know, you can actually give it a personality. A lot of people actually give all of their bots specifically in HR and finance names and it’s sort of just gifts.

Authenticity. And, um, you know, I think the ability for a virtual assistant to respond authentically, um, is, is actually very important. And, uh, you know, I think that you, you must, you must use this to your advantage, to, to, you know, to kind of like drive that adoption. Um, and, and to make people engage with it.

Yeah. Date, um, Yeah, too, if they have a nice name and, uh, have maybe even a, a nicer image on, on the little chat window, doesn’t look too technical then, uh, then it works quite well. Um, maybe that’s not nothing. What it really cares about. It probably cares about other stuff when, when implementing this, uh, this new technology.

Um, so. Very often was this a, was these platforms, um, these days, um, they are low code driven. So sometimes, um, um, You could kick off, uh, as a, as a stakeholder in the business, you kick you off a project potentially without it, because you don’t need in a traditional sense developers anymore. Um, so we talked about this, this whole low code movement in all different areas of intelligent automation.

So this does really helps to get, um, get, get the journey started and to get, uh, to, to resolve very fast. Um, but th. But that, that shouldn’t mean that we are not speaking to it anymore. Um, because at the end of the day, um, if something doesn’t work, they, they will definitely be involved because the system is needs to be supported and very likely, um, these types of technologies, they are not stand alone, like a low code, um, web application also.

So chat bots are only good when, when they connect to internal systems a lot. And, um, for that, um, Obviously we need to install a properly, it needs to have proper governance around it. What can be done with this Chapo technology? Um, everyone needs to know about, um, where it’s at integrating. Obviously security is a big concern when it comes to chat bots.

Um, so, so it’s very important to foster that collaboration between it and, um, uh, not just it as well as other, um, subject matter experts within the company. And, um, yeah, only, only. Yeah. If we work really in a team, have this, does internal collaboration working then, um, then, then it will be a successful, um, um, go live late on as well.

Um, yeah, so it will be supported and everyone will be happy. Yeah, no, I absolutely agree with that. And I think, you know, the kind of the main takeaways from this session is really that these virtual assistants are playing a. Increasingly important role in customer engagement and, uh, you know, more and more businesses out there are exploring the use of this technology, um, to increase employee satisfaction.

And like you said earlier, Sasha, you know, we are. Seeing an explosive growth in the popularity with up to 80% of companies out there already using virtual assistance or planning to implement it, you know, in the next kind of year or two. Um, and you know, despite all of this popularity, um, they, they are aspects to consider when you implement conversational technology using chatbots, um, you know, and, and training a virtual assistant.

This it’s not really. Different to training a human employee. You just need the time and investment. And, um, you know, you, you, you need to invest that into. The initiative, um, you know, to ensure that you get those outcomes you want, and, you know, you need to start with a very clear strategy and set up that key metrics.

Like we touched on earlier to evaluate the success of your initiatives. Um, and you know, you need to mobilize the right people. You need to, um, mobilize it, the subject matter experts and all of these. People need to engage. You build this minimum viable product and to start learning this learning experience, to demonstrate the usability of chatbots.

Um, you know, even if the impact is initial it’s at small scale, you know, you could scale that up. Um, and from there on, you know, you could further expand this initiative across the organization. And, um, you know, you need to ensure that you communicate the embrace, the benefits of what these virtual assessments can bring to your business.

And of course, like we said, don’t forget, give each of your chatbots a personality right. Then, um, then it will be a success. And if you, if you like a, sort of the sound of, uh, of chatbots and you, your thinking about this, um, hopefully these, um, these tips, um, too, To get a faster adoption of Chapo technology.

Uh, we’re helpful. Um, uh, hopefully you can take one or two points, um, from this podcast episode, um, today. And, um, yeah, if you like to, uh, learn, learn more about Chapo technology and, um, need a helping hand, uh, reach out to, to myself or Arno. Um, so you, we will obviously put all the information again as, as always, uh, in, into the show notes and.

Yeah, I think, um, it’s an exciting technology and, um, yeah, I definitely, um, uh, we encourage you, um, to, to have a look at chatbots and, um, we’re looking forward to all your feedback, um, and, uh, all your questions you might have, um, you know, visit, visit our website, the automation guys.net, um, um, to, to leave your, your feedback and submit your suggestions or posts on LinkedIn, that kind of stuff. Um, we are everywhere on all the social channels and yeah, we’re looking forward to all your, all your comments.

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