Chatbots in Salesforce
Learn how to improve your customer support and service with the help of ValueText's Chatbots in Salesforce.
Chatbots have become increasingly popular in recent years, as more and more businesses are adopting them to provide quick and efficient customer service. These virtual assistants are designed to simulate human conversation, allowing customers to interact with them via messaging platforms and get the information they need in real-time. Chatbots are basically transforming the way we communicate with businesses and customers. In this blog post, we'll explore the world of chatbots in Salesforce and how they are transforming the way we communicate through texting.
Chatbots in Salesforce are one of the most advanced feature of ValueText (Top Rated Messaging App natively build for Salesforce). With their help you can automate most of your business scenarios because these bots can automatically identify a contact, update a records, create a record and access records in Salesforce.
What are Chatbots?
Chatbots are programs designed to mimic human conversation using natural language processing and machine learning algorithms. They are programmed to respond to text-based messages and provide information or assistance in real time. Chatbots can be integrated into various platforms, such as messaging apps, websites, and social media platforms, making them accessible to customers wherever they are.
Chatbots can be customized and used in a variety of ways. Most of us as consumers are familiar with bots for customer service. They're also used with popular chat and messaging platforms like SMS, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and WeChat.
With chatbots, people can have a conversation or interact with a software program that helps them find answers quickly. Most importantly, a chatbot can influence a customer relationship by responding to requests quickly while meeting customer expectations.
Chatbots in Salesforce can be used for a variety of tasks, including open a case, create a case, ask for a donation, and even manage payments by sending links and updating fields in Salesforce.
They are a cost-effective solution for businesses to provide 24/7 customer service without the need for human staff to be present at all times.
Chatbot Benefits
Chatbots and texting provide several benefits for both businesses and customers. Some of these benefits include:
- Cost-effective: Chatbots are a cost-effective solution for businesses to provide 24/7 customer service without the need for human staff to be present at all times.
- Efficient: Chatbots can respond to customer queries quickly and efficiently, providing an improved customer experience.
- Convenient: Texting provides a convenient way for customers to communicate with businesses, and chatbots can be accessed through messaging apps, making them easily accessible.
- Personalized: AI-based chatbots can learn from user interactions and provide personalized responses, leading to an improved customer experience.
Chatbots & Texting
Texting has become the preferred mode of communication for many people, especially younger generations. Chatbots have adapted to this trend and can now be accessed through messaging apps, making them easily accessible to customers. This means that customers can interact with chatbots in a way that feels natural to them and get the information they need quickly and efficiently.
Texting also provides a convenient way for customers to communicate with businesses. Customers can send a message at any time of the day, and the chatbot can respond in real time. This can lead to an improved customer experience and increased customer satisfaction.
How Do Chatbots in Salesforce Work?
ValueText's Chatbots in Salesforce work by chaining bot elements together inside a single bot record. Each bot element holds the questions, templates, and conditions for one step of the conversation, and the bot routes a contact from one element to the next based on their answers, updating or creating Salesforce records as it goes, until the conversation is complete or handed off to a live agent.
Bot Element
The bot element is the child element of the bot. Each bot element holds templates, options, and conditions. Those conditions include when to be executed and what text it has to send. Also, a single Bot Element can hold many Bot Elements like the roots of a tree. I'm glad your imagination is working, keep it going.
Bot Form
The BOT Form is storing all the data (question & answer) of the bot, it is like a little diary. The Bot Form will help you to drive the data to any object in Salesforce like, leads, contacts, and even custom objects.
When the Chatbot has been executed and completed the status of the BOT Form will get updated to "Completed". This will allow you to trigger a Flow and pass the data to different objects.
ValueText's Chatbots
As of the moment ValueText supports two different type of Chatbots "Request Bot" and "Keyword-based Bot".
Request Bot
We would recommend you to watch a 30-seconds video before you read more about the "Request Bot"
Chatbot use case: Collect data from a customer
- The flow starts from Salesforce. These bots can be executed from a Flow or be triggered manually.
Ex: When the case is closed, you can execute the bot from a Flow to collect feedback from the customers. Also you can define a keyword so the customer can cancel the Chatbot at any time.
If the customer who started the Chatbot hasn't completed it (not answered questions) you can setup bot expiry which will cancel the bot after 5 minutes of inactivity.
Additionally, you can apply business hours to your chatbots. This means that if the customer sends a message during non-business hours, we can send a feedback reply by adding a bot element.
Keyword-based Bot
- These BOTs can be executed by your customer with the help of keywords. When the customer sends you a text "HELP" the respective BOT will be executed.
- You can define your own keyword like HELP or HI.
Ex: By publishing your phone number on your website your customer can reply with a specific keyword to create a case, apply for loan or get more information about a promotion.
Chatbot use case examples
- Collect feedback when the case is closed.
- Escalate or create a case VIDEO
- Collect data from your customer and update your Salesforce.
- Assign the work orders and acceptance automation.
- Convert incomplete data lead to complete data lead VIDEO
Rolling Chatbots Out in Your Org
A bot is only worth building where a conversation repeats. Four steps get one live:
- Pick a repeating conversation. Look for the exchange your team retypes: the post-case feedback question, the missing lead field, the appointment confirm. Those are the ones a Bot Element chain can hold end to end.
- Decide who starts it. A Request Bot is started from Salesforce, by a Flow or by a user, so it fits anything triggered by a record change. A Keyword-based Bot is started by the customer texting a word you define, so it fits anything you publish on a website, a receipt or a sign.
- Set the exits before the questions. A bot needs a cancel keyword, a bot expiry so an abandoned conversation closes itself, and business hours so an out-of-hours message gets an answer instead of silence. All three are configured on the bot, not written into the questions.
- Route the answers somewhere. The Bot Form flips to "Completed" when the conversation ends, which is the trigger a Flow watches to write the answers onto the Lead, Contact or custom object. Answers that land in fields are reportable in standard Salesforce reports; answers that stay in the message body are not.
Choosing the app that runs the bot is a separate decision: the SMS and messaging apps for Salesforce differ on whether they carry chatbots at all.
Conclusion
Chatbots and texting have transformed the way we communicate with businesses. Chatbots provide a cost-effective and efficient solution for businesses to provide 24/7 customer service, while texting provides a convenient way for customers to communicate with businesses. As chatbot technology continues to evolve, we can expect to see even more creative solutions for businesses to improve their customer service and provide an improved customer experience.
