Solve internal inquiries with chatbots! We will also introduce case studies

In this article, we will introduce the problems that occur in the internal inquiry business, their causes, and the benefits of introducing chatbots as a solution, along with actual introduction cases.

3 tasks for internal inquiries

Internal inquiry operations personnel have to deal with inquiries from all departments on a daily basis. Most of them are inquiries with similar content , and there are many cases where they are dissatisfied, saying, “I wish I could see the business manual…”.

First, I would like to introduce three issues that are common in internal inquiry operations.

1. We receive many inquiries that can be resolved without asking
2. Information is not stored or shared at the helpdesk
3. Switch to remote work and receive inquiries even outside business hours

1, We receive many inquiries that can be resolved without asking

Many help desks are constantly receiving questions that can be answered by checking the operation manual or FAQ page.
Most of this is due to a system in which the necessary information cannot be found immediately . The fact that the business manuals are scattered and the search function is not useful is causing an increase in the burden on the helpdesk.

<Reasons for inquiring without doing research on your own>
・Cannot immediately find the information you need
・FAQ pages and work manuals are huge and difficult to read
・Employees think it is faster to contact the help desk

2, Information is not accumulated or shared at the help desk

If there is no system in place to appropriately share and register inquiries from employees, information will not be accumulated at the help desk.
This can also cause new issues to arise, such as the dependence of work on individual skills and the inability to improve inquiry work .

Inquiries from employees are constantly updated. Naturally, the helpdesk also needs to be updated to keep up with new questions.

<Causes for not accumulating knowledge at the help desk>・There is no
mechanism to record the content of inquiries from employees and their responses .

3, Inquiries are received even outside business hours

Due to major changes in working styles over the past few years, there are cases where inquiries are received outside business hours, and the need for inquiries outside business hours is increasing.
If we increase the number of helpdesk personnel or increase the operating hours for that purpose, the burden on the person in charge and the cost will increase.

With the above background, AI-equipped chatbots are attracting attention, especially after 2020 .
From the next chapter, we will introduce the merits of using chatbots to handle internal inquiries.

3 benefits of responding to internal inquiries with chatbots

An AI-equipped chatbot is a smart solution to the problems of internal inquiry work introduced so far.

In this chapter, we will introduce three specific advantages of how chatbots can solve the problems of internal inquiries.

1, Reduction of costs for internal departments in charge

The biggest advantage of introducing a chatbot in internal inquiry work is that it can reduce the response cost of the department in charge.

By incorporating a chatbot into the inquiry business flow, it will be able to handle inquiries from within the company. As a result, it will be possible to reduce the response cost of the department in charge, and the person in charge will devote resources to other tasks.

In actual chatbot operation, frequently asked FAQs are registered preferentially and displayed as a list when the chatbot is activated.

In a case study of a customer who actually introduced Sciseed’s AI-equipped chatbot, sAI Chat, the chatbot was able to resolve 10% of contract-related inquiries sent to the department in charge each month, and up to 2,500 inquiries were automatically resolved . Chatbots can also be used by in-house helpdesk staff to refer to manuals, making it possible to improve work efficiency across departments.

2, Uniform quality of inquiry response

One of the advantages of introducing a chatbot in-house is the ability to “uniform the quality of inquiry response”.

Responding to internal inquiries tends to depend on some veteran operators, and it often happens that the content of the response varies depending on the person in charge.
In addition to operational errors, this situation also causes employees to perform the wrong tasks, so immediate action is required.

A chatbot that responds to inquiries according to certain rules will not cause situations where the quality of response differs depending on the operator.

3, Aggregation of in-house knowledge

By introducing a chatbot, it is also possible to aggregate in-house knowledge.

sAI Chat, Sciseed’s AI-equipped chatbot, stores the query keywords actually entered by employees in a database, so it is possible to quantitatively investigate what keywords are used in most inquiries .

For example, if you notice that FAQs that are not registered in the chatbot are frequently searched, you will interview employees who have the relevant knowledge (knowledge) and create A based on that. In this way, it is possible to operate by consolidating the knowledge that is scattered throughout the company as an asset .

In fact, Company C, a chemical manufacturer that operates sAI Chat, our AI-equipped chatbot, noticed that many words related to improving the skills of employees, such as “thesis”, “qualifications”, “MBA”, “research”, and “in-house study abroad”, were entered through quantitative research of search keywords .
From there, by adding QA related to the above keywords, we were able to scoop out small latent needs and requests within the company, and as a result, succeeded in building an internal knowledge base.

As explained so far, chatbots are tools that play an active role in various fields other than simple “business efficiency improvement”.
From the next chapter, we will introduce actual examples of how in-house chatbots contribute to corporate activities.

A case study of using a chatbot to solve internal inquiries

Here, we will introduce specific examples of how chatbots have been used to solve internal inquiries. If you are considering introducing a chatbot in your company from now on, please use it as a reference to grasp the introduction image.

HR1 Co., Ltd. | The number of inquiries for the year-end adjustment system has decreased dramatically, and the reception rate has reached 100%.

HR One, which provides personnel and salary outsourcing services to a total of 300 companies and 300,000 customers, receives a large number of inquiries regarding year-end adjustments from the end of October to the end of the year.
In 2018, the company introduced an artificially incompetent chatbot on a trial basis, but it still did not produce the expected effect, so it was Cyseed’s sAI Chat that was newly introduced.

After a three-month lead time, we were able to implement the system while running alongside our staff, and as a result, the number of inquiries decreased dramatically. The call reception rate has reached 100%, and we are now fully able to fulfill our role as a call center.

Major telecommunications infrastructure company A | The number of inquiries during the busy season is halved

Company A, which has multiple systems and approval processes/formats for each contract content, introduced sAI Chat, which specializes in handling FAQs related to contract procedures.
As a result, the 15,000 monthly inquiries have been reduced to 7,5000 , and we have succeeded in improving the efficiency of internal inquiry operations using chatbots.

Background of introduction of AI chatbot

With 100,000 support FAQ pages scattered throughout the company’s internal portal, it was difficult to find the information they needed.
Therefore, when the system was updated, we received about 15,000 inquiries a month , and we were in a situation where we needed to make drastic improvements to our internal inquiry operations.

Flow to improvement 1, Organize the existing FAQ

In the example of Company A, the introduction started by identifying 500 high-priority items from a large number of FAQs . In order for employees to feel that “this chatbot is convenient”, we will prioritize items that are likely to be frequently asked to be registered in the chatbot.

In addition to the above, we will revise items where the answer text is longer than necessary .
Even if the correct information is answered by the chatbot, if the answer is a long one that requires scrolling many times to read the full text, it will not be used because it is easier to understand if you call in.

Flow to improvement 2, Brush up on Q

Next, we will upgrade the AI ​​chatbot after introduction.
In particular, since the company was a company with many system changes and replacements, we held regular meetings with Sciseed on a regular basis and worked hard to maximize the effect based on actual data.

・Because it is likely that many users will get stuck on the login screen when a new system is introduced, we advise to create a Q&A on login using images, etc., in advance.

・Since you are subscribed to the Customer Success Plan, we are taking steps to respond to future inquiries as described above, and are devising ways to significantly reduce the time taken to respond to phone calls and emails.

Major manufacturer B | 96.8% of all inquiries were completed by chatbots, and knowledge sharing was also successful

Company B has introduced sAI Chat in a total of four locations: the accounting department, the information system department, the personnel department, and the expense settlement system .
For personnel departments, in addition to supporting multiple languages ​​such as Japanese and English, our products are being used in various forms, such as embedding an AI chatbot directly in the expense settlement system.

Main effects of introducing AI chatbots at Company B

In particular, sAI Chat, which was directly embedded in the Expense Reimbursement System, was able to resolve 96.8% of all 25,000 inquiries, which was a very successful result. (The remaining 3.2% are email inquiries)

In addition, the knowledge of departments scattered in each region is now accumulated within the chatbot. Since the operational flow of the chatbot includes “meetings across regions and QA maintenance,” the knowledge that had been scattered within the company was gradually consolidated.

As can be seen from the above example of Company B, chatbots not only improve internal inquiry operations, but also have secondary effects such as consolidating and storing internal information assets (=knowledge).

Future efforts with Company B

As of September 2021, the company has introduced a total of 5 sAI Chats, but in the future, we aim to compile them into one FAQ page so that they can be searched at once.
This is because we can provide a more convenient search experience by integrating sAI Chat installed in various places in the company into one portal page. In November 2021, we plan to implement SSO (single sign-on) linkage.

1, smart from the start

sAI Chat is a chatbot equipped with an in-house developed AI that solves the problem of “long-term learning at the beginning of introduction” common to many other AI-equipped chatbots.
Since the accuracy of the automatic response by artificial intelligence is very high from the beginning, it can be highly effective from the beginning of introduction, and can be operated while keeping learning costs down.

In addition, sAI Chat is a chatbot that can respond to all kinds of cases, not just internal inquiries, as it has a function to switch to operator support for questions that are difficult for AI to automatically answer.

2, Functions and designs that pursue ease of use

sAI Chat is equipped with a “question sentence suggestion function” to guide users to the correct answer, as well as natural sentence search.
In addition, it is possible to customize the design to match the atmosphere of the introductory page.

3, With chatbot operation support

In addition, our staff will accompany customers who have introduced sAI Chat from introduction to operation, and will support them until the end so that the results of the chatbot can be maximized.

In addition to internal inquiry chatbots, there are various aspects such as customer chatbots and call center chatbots. If you are considering introducing a chatbot, please contact us at this opportunity!