Learn How AI Chatbots are Replacing Call Centers during the Pandemic

The COVID-19 outbreak has hit the world’s economy harder than ever and most of the businesses are left paralyzed and inoperable. As a result, people from various industries are losing jobs at a high pace, even those with automated work culture. However, to keep their businesses running when social distancing has become a need of the hour, people are turning to technological innovations such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. So, it comes as no surprise that organizations have lately started to approach bot development companies.

In this post, we will look at how AI chatbots are sliding in to take over call centers during the CoronaVirus pandemic.

Let’s see How the Change is Being Processed

Brian Pokorny, the IT director of Otsego County, New York, neglected AI systems thinking that he may not be able to afford them. But after the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak, the state government reduced the price by 50% for all government staff. The pandemic hit forced Pokorny, to allow a fewer number of employees at his call center.

On the other hand, the number of residents calling to seek reliable guidance and medical information about the virus, increased. In a quest to find a solution to this problem, Pokorny picked Watson Assistant for Citizens. This solution was offered by IBM to various sectors such as government, research institutions, and healthcare organizations with 90 days of a free trial. A team of Watson helped him install a chatbot to answer the most common questions asked by the callers, such as ‘how to get tested for the COVID-19?’ or ‘what are the common symptoms?’

Well, the best thing about this software is that it made the expansion and updating of chatbot’s responses easier. This means as queries evolve, the owner can update the responses accordingly without any hassle.

From February to April, IBM witnessed traffic increase to Watson Assistant by 40%. This happened when grocery stores, understaffed government agencies, and financial services tuned to deploy Watson Assistant or similar systems to manage a new flood of calls.

After the success of Watson Assistant, Google also launched the Rapid Response Virtual Agent in April, which offered services at lower prices.

The Effectiveness of Chatbots

The Corona Virus pandemic is emptying the call centers due to the rise in fear of getting infected. Meanwhile, the number of callers seeking the right information is also accelerating. This puts both government and non-government agencies under pressure to try new technology and tools. In the past few years, natural language processing has improved dramatically, causing AI chatbots and voice-based assistants to be more responsive and easy to build and deploy. We can say that once installed, these systems likely stay while proving their value because of their affordability and ease of use.

Designed to ease clients’ conversation, both IBM’s and Google’s platforms work more or less like the voice-based assistants – Siri and Alexa. The purpose of these systems was to get as many questions answered as possible before any callers are assisted by humans. It will not only put less pressure on call centers but also prevent customers from waiting.

The benefits of AI chatbots and voice-based assistants are countless. These innovations have a bright future in making conversations easier and more convenient than ever. If you’re planning to deploy AI chatbots on your business website or any messaging platform, then approach an experienced chatbot development company. We, at SoftProdigy, have been delivering high-quality bot development services for several years. To know more, feel free to call our experts today.

Summary – From healthcare to institutions, and government as well as private agencies, all industries are replacing their call centers with AI chatbots, during the pandemic. Learn how these bots are more responsive and affordable.