Today we’ll be exploring Zendesk Answer Bot. Companies of all sizes are adopting AI to automate resolution of the 265 billion customer support requests made every year. A customer support chatbot serves as the first line of defense to respond to customers and help resolve a customer’s questions before looping in a human. As a result, the best chatbots can help save up to 30% of customer service costs while also improving the customer experience.
Zendesk, one of the largest customer service platforms in the world, has its own AI offering: Answer Bot. In this article, we’re going to dive into what the Zendesk Answer Bot is, costs and features, how to best leverage the technology, and when you would choose the Answer Bot over a more advanced solution like Netomi’s AI customer service.
What is Zendesk Answer Bot?
Zendesk Answer Bot is an artificially intelligent Zendesk chatbot that aims to improve customer experience on any customer-facing website. Answer Bot leverages machine learning technology to suggest articles from a company’s Zendesk Knowledge Base to answer customer questions. Essentially, when a customer asks a question in the chat window, mobile app or Slack, the Answer Bot scans the knowledge base and instantly provides links to multiple articles within the chat while a customer is waiting for a human agent. It serves as a way to deflect a simple, everyday question like the details of a refund policy from human agents, ultimately reducing resolution times.
If a customer is able to find an answer to their question, they can mark their answer as resolved. If the customer needs further assistance, a human agent is looped in. Answer Bot can also suggest articles to a human agent within the Zendesk dashboard.
How much does Zendesk Answer Bot cost?
Zendesk’s Answer Bot is priced per resolution, based on when a customer marks that their question was resolved. Pricing is also dependent on the total number of answers, or depth of a knowledge base. You can use the calculator on Zendesk’s website (linked in the “What to expect from Zendesk Answer Bot” section below) to get a ballpark estimate on how much Answer Bot will cost you.
To see how Netomi’s chatbot tools can integrate seamlessly with the best knowledge base software for your company, get in touch to book a personalized demo!
How can I make the most of my Zendesk Answer Bot installation?
Before you adopt Answer Bot, you’ll want to first focus on creating your Zendesk Knowledge Base. A knowledge base is essentially a library of articles covering recurring topics and questions on products and service. For retailers, this could be questions related to return or refund policies, the process of how to modify or cancel an order, or how to best care for or clean products. Before building out a travel chatbot, travel and hospitality companies would benefit more by first building out their knowledge base to cover customer questions including the process of booking or upgrading, checking-in, or required documentation.
Implementing the Answer Bot is an effective way to extract more value from a Knowledge Base as it further amplifies all of the content that already exists. Without an extensive Knowledge Base that covers the most frequently asked questions, the Answer Bot will deflect few tickets from a support team.
What’s the difference: Netomi AI Chatbot vs Zendesk Answer Bot
While both leverage machine learning, the Zendesk Answer Bot and Netomi AI chatbots are very different offerings that are designed for different support teams with different automation goals. With that said, Zendesk does offer an intelligent integration with Netomi which could give you the best of both worlds.
What to expect from Zendesk Answer Bot
The Zendesk Answer Bot can be looked at as a great first step into AI. Answer Bot leverages machine learning more to deflect customer questions from human agents, not fully resolve issues on a personal level. The bot suggests articles by picking the best answer from the available library of content, but not necessarily the most accurate response. According to its website, Answer Bot automates an average of 6% of incoming tickets and charges approximately $1 per resolution. Answer Bot is ideal for Zendesk customers who are already using Zendesk Suite and want to offload a few basic customer questions.
What to expect from Netomi’s AI Bot
Netomi’s solution is purpose-built for AI-powered customer service. Compared to Answer Bot, Netomi can automate between 5x-8x more tickets depending on the industry (30%-50%). In fact, Netomi’s AI has recorded the industry’s highest resolution rate at 87% for WestJet. One major difference is that Netomi’s AI chatbots focus on personalized resolution rather than just deflection. Netomi’s AI chatbot is designed to replicate a human agent: it can decipher the intent of what a customer asks based on a semantic analysis and sophisticated natural language understanding (NLU). Additionally, Netomi can understand un-natural language, typos, emojis and errors. Netomi also maintains business-specific entity maps to understand business jargon, locations and information unique to specific industries.
If the Netomi chatbot hasn’t been trained on a specific topic it can pull articles from a knowledge base like the Answer Bot. Furthermore, Netomi’s AI bots integrate with back-end systems – like CRM or order management systems – to provide personalized, contextual resolutions for an individual customer, not simply generic articles. So, instead of just providing a link to an article on a return policy, Netomi bots can actually process a return. Netomi’s AI can also be deployed across a variety of channels including email and social, whereas Answer Bot can only be used via chat for now.
How Zendesk and Netomi work together
Netomi partnered with Zendesk to create the ultimate Zendesk chatbot – a seamless experience for Zendesk customers who want to up-level their customer support. According to Greg Dreyfus, a Zendesk Platform Architects Team Manager: “Partnering with Netomi, you can have your own bespoke AI chatbot, your own way of engaging with AI to give exactly the experience you want to offer. This is their core. This is what they do and they are very good at it.”
The Bottom Line on Zendesk Answer Bot
Both Zendesk Answer Bot and Netomi’s chatbot platform help to decrease resolution times by providing instant answers. Deciding which solution to adopt depends on your support team’s needs and your customer expectations. Zendesk and Netomi partnered together to offer customer service teams the best of both worlds. If you’re looking to automate a little, Zendesk Answer Bot is for you. If you are looking to implement a more robust AI solution that is still very Zendesk-friendly, check out Netomi.
Find out what your ROI will be if you build an AI chatbot. Try our free chatbot ROI calculator.