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Is Your Company Using Chatbots? If Not, it Should Be

Written by Jessica Gassler | Jan 19, 2017 7:42:21 PM

In today's EVERYTHING NOW world, enterprises are assumed to be available 24/7. Even HR teams are subject to this expectation, requiring to answer questions from employees on a consistent basis. Wouldn't it be better if they could get an immediate answer outside of business hours without interrupting someone's dinner? Well, now they can.

Meet snowBOT, The Smart Chatbot

Leveraging the power of artificial intelligence, snowBOT -- a smart chatbot for ServiceNow -- assists your HR department in providing real-time answers and the ability to create tickets when needed.

snowBOT is handling queries and creating tickets on behalf of employees. Being available 24/7 and able to process multiple requests at the same time, snowBOT is giving users the ability to resolve/raise their issues independently. 

With fewer emails being sent back and forth and increased HR portal usage, tracking of KPI (key performance indicators) becomes more accurate than ever while enhancing the user experience. If there is a question snowBOT is not able to answer, the ticket can be escalated to the HR team seamlessly. Reducing HR's time spent on common questions and users able to serve themselves results in real cost savings for the company. 

A lot of the buzz comes around this magical nonhuman thing that answers questions, something that is more like a movie than reality today ... The reality today is it's simply a better way to do simple things." 

-Michael Facemire, Analyst, Forrester

How Does a Chatbot Work?

The chatbot starts by receiving a request from the end user. It will then determine the user's root need, accessing the necessary data from the knowledgebase inside of the ServiceNow platform. Once it has accessed the required data, it will then relay this data in a familiar dialogue that will give the user a sense of personal engagement.

This technology has been used for many IT services and other facets of the enterprise, but is rarely utilized for HR automation. It utilizes artificial intelligence and natural language processing to create a friendly chat interface that is capable of understanding and responding to a user's requests. This allows you to do what others are doing with technologies like Slack.

V-Soft's snowBOT has been developed by using: ServiceNow for Chat Interface, HR Portal, Incident Module, KnowledgeBase, and wit.ai for natural language processing.

What Challenges Does a Chatbot Resolve?

With HR portals, all information is just a few clicks away. Despite this, the workforce still prefers sending an email as as simpler alternative. Not getting a response immediately can lead to frustration and complaints. HR, on the other hand, is inundated with these queries which have answers readily available. Some of these questions snowBOT is able to answer:

  • How much paid time off do I have?
  • When is our next vacation?
  • Can I have more information on our 401(k)?
  • What is the policy on maternity/paternity leave?

These issues can be aggravated during seasonal spikes in business and hiring ramps when HR is even more overwhelmed, translating to a need for an increased workforce.

Employees want--and often, expect--instant replies, but HR has a handful of other services to provide. They wish that these requests would be taken off their plate so they can focus on enhancing services and suggest an easier way for employees to create tickets versus sending emails.

snowBOT solves this problem by providing a real-time personalized service for the 24/7 needs of today's workforce, all while keeping existing staff levels. This in turn will build a responsive culture and enhance employee engagement.

Want to learn more about V-Soft's snowBOT? Or maybe you'd like to learn more about what a chatbot can do for your business? Reach out to one of our talented ServiceNow experts for a free discussion, no strings attached.