William Shakespeare’s King Richard is a Machiavellian tragedy about the rise to—and subsequent fall from—power of Richard III of England. Much like the king’s quick and tumultuous rule, chatbots have become a disruptive technology in customer service, often having destructive effects on customer experience when not used properly.

Currently, customer service struggles to manage two diverse priorities:

  1. Reduce the cost to serve;
  2. Increase the quality of the customer experience.

Too often, cost is king—and that belief is driving tragic behaviors. Chatbots are considered low-cost solutions in the customer service world. And much like Richard III, companies who feel like they’re at a disadvantage head into the customer experience battle crying, “A bot, a bot, my kingdom for a bot!” However, chatbots, like horses, come in different sizes and abilities; they’re not all going to fit your needs.

According to the “Genesys State of Customer Experience” research report, even though 66% of businesses plan to use some type of chatbot within the next six months, only 2% of consumers want to use them. While bots and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have their place in the contact center, it’s a mistake to put those technologies—not your customers—at the center of your customer engagement strategy.

Instead, take a holistic approach that reduces the amount of customer engagement, enables agents to better support customers, gives agents relevant information to better meet customers’ needs, and provides end-to-end insights into customer and agent experiences. Doing so will reduce agent interaction time, increase self-service completion rates, improve experiences and give you better insights into the whole process.

Not taking a holistic approach will diminish the customer experience and, ultimately, can lead to increased phone traffic, disaffected customers and a poor customer experience reputation. To learn more about improving the quality of your customer experience, check out the webinar Get the Stats – Don’t Become a Tragic Customer Experience Statistic. The webinar will feature industry expert Sheila McGee-Smith and explain what the data means for your business.