June 16, 2020
Residents Get Answers Faster with Live Chat Functionality
Avenue Living Communities' (ALC) has added its newest team member Clark, but it is more robotic than human. Clark is learning more every day. This live chatbot has recently been integrated into the ALC website to enhance customer service, experience, and engagement.
"We are thrilled to introduce Chatbot Clark, our newest team member. Clark helps us with our live messaging," says Murray Danyluk, Director, Sales and Marketing for ALC. "Clark assists our call centre agents with frequently asked questions using pre-loaded answers and will keep learning with each customer interaction."
Opening the live chat on the ALC website opens the door to an instant conversation. An existing or prospective resident can open a chat, and the chatbot can begin answering questions immediately, handle maintenance requests, and respond to operational inquiries.
"Clark gives our customers another opportunity to reach out and receive answers in a quick and efficient manner," says Danyluk. "If someone prefers to chat to a live bot versus emailing their queries to our teams, they can type their concern directly into the live chat. If the query is straightforward enough, they will get an answer within seconds. Chatbot Clark is streamlining our resident communication experience."
Clark can hop on many conversations as needed. Since it's been up and running, ALC has seen Clark handle up to six conversations at once.
"Clark is very responsive. Every week, we update the conversations, so that it gains knowledge through previous chats," says Danyluk. "As we notice popular questions or subjects that arise, we add the answers into his conversation list, so it's continually learning, growing, and expanding its artificial intelligence capabilities."
If Clark cannot answer, it will redirect the query to a live agent in the ALC call centre. But Danyluk says its ability to answer questions will expand rapidly. "We do have Resident Experience Specialists who give Clark immediate backup if it's not able to answer during business hours. Each Specialist is set up to manage up to four chats at a time." By managing the more straightforward requests for information, Clark increases the bandwidth of the Resident Experience Specialists to manage more complex queries.
The launch of Clark the chatbot is another example of the innovative technological initiatives and customer service that ALC has embraced throughout its operations, during COVID-19. With 20,000 current residents across the Prairies and continually climbing, artificial intelligence paves the way for growth.
"We're always on the front edge of technology," says Danyluk. "We're constantly looking for innovative ways to improve our processes, respond to our customers' needs, and enhance our resident experience."