Could a BPO be a Good Option to Manage Your Chatbot?

Chatbots have become very accessible. There are platforms such as TomBot and Zendesk which allow anyone to host their bot without any coding needed. While these platforms are marketed as user friendly and easy to customize, there still may be benefits to launching your chatbot through a BPO (Business Process Outsourcer) that you may already be using:

Here are some benefits to consider:

A BPO gives you more flexibility with your service offerings.

Chatting with a bot is quick and easy if it has the answers your customers are searching for, but it can be frustrating to chat back and forth with a bot that just isn’t getting it. If your chatbot is hosted by your BPO, you can easily use BPO live agents as a tier 2 transfer option, either by phone or directly through the chat.

Bundling services almost always results in a discount when you’re working with a BPO.

If you decide to go with that semi-automated support, or maybe you already have a separate team of agents, adding chatbot as an option will likely come at a discounted price. If your BPO offers chatbot as a service, they likely use one platform across all clients, so you would be charged less for the platform than if you were to pay for full licensing yourself.

Hand off the training to others.

Hosting your chatbot through your BPO, the chatbot will receive the same training as your agents. The bot would be updated on your behalf, so you wouldn’t need to spend time keeping two segments up to date.

Your partner would handle day-to-day management of the bot, which can be especially time-consuming when the chatbot is in its beginning stages. Aside from the new “training” mentioned above, consistent updates and attention to detail are key to building and maintaining a helpful bot.

Just as with any contact center service, you hire your BPO partner as the expert. Your BPO will have a team that understands both the chat technology and the product/service your business provides, so they’ll be in the best position to create strategic chatbot flows that make sense to both the user and your business.

As we all know in this business, there is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to contact center management. For some larger organizations, it may make business sense to bring chatbot management in house, just like it might make sense for those organizations to not partner with a BPO. However, many smaller organizations take an a la carte approach to outsourcing for various aspects of their operations. As automation solutions become more prevalent, it is important to evaluate the costs and benefits of either managing each new tool in house or through a partnership of some kind, including with BPOs.