The Data Behind Chatbots Increasing HR Efficiency
Consumers are slowly becoming aware of chatbots.
Our recent research (summed up in our 2017 Chatbot Report, grab it) showed while 75% of consumers have yet to interact with a chatbot, 57% know what they are and 35% already want more of them.
Clearly, the trend is on its way.
I am a firm believer in chatbot adoption coming from within company infrastructures. It makes a lot of sense because businesses have a lot to gain from improving internal processes without risking brand equity of potential public failure.
One of the departments we most commonly work with is HR. Improving HR efficiency with a chatbot makes, once again, a lot of sense. Why? This is exactly what we are going to cover in this article.
Below, we will look at five different data points that show how chatbots can improve efficiency in the human resources department.
Achieve your SLAs
The average business we work with experience a three-day delay between employees asking a question to HR and HR finding the time to answer.
Three days.
That's massive, especially when you know this is just an average. We have talked to departments that are 12 to 14 days behind, inbox full of employee information requests.
This is evidently unacceptable, on all accounts. The C-suite is not happy, the HR department is under massive stress to do things faster, and, obviously, the employees are disgruntled.
How can chatbots help?
Chatbots can help by automating some of the low hanging fruits.
Most of the employees' questions actually have their answers in the internal policy documents, thus entirely available to read. Unfortunately, us humans don't like to scan through hundreds of cryptic documents.
What do we do? We send a quick email. Multiply this by 1,000s of employees every week and you have a clogged up HR inbox.
Our HR chatbots learn the company's policies through all its documents and allow employees to simply ask. Instead of sending an email to an overwhelmed human, they can now send a message to a 24/7 always-happy chatbot and get an instant answer.
Get your time back
You know these emails I was talking about earlier, the ones that clog up HR's inbox, delay everything, and could easily be automated?
Turns out answering those represent about 30-50% of HR's time.
Think about that. Up to half of one of your most important department's time is spent answering questions that could easily be automated.
No wonder our HR chatbot solution is our most popular demand.
How can chatbots help?
It's simple: by giving your HR reps their time back.
Automating these queries gives them back the time to do the tasks that matter, whether that is strategising the next hires, handling payroll, or even just offering an actual human ear to your employees.
Centralise the HR information
Unfortunately, I don't have an actual data point for this one. Sorry. Still thought it was worth bringing it up here.
Most fortune 500 and upwards have multiple branches spread out across different countries. This means company policies, employee handbooks, and HR policies get spread out as well into different location, languages, and under different laws.
There is a word for that: headache.
HR efficiency goes down when they have to deal with finding the right information in the right department in the right country under the right laws. It gets complicated quickly, which slows everything down -- not ideal.
How can chatbots help?
An HR chatbot is a central hub of information for everyone, regardless of location, job role, language, or law.
As I mentioned previously, we teach our HR chatbots to understand all the paperwork there is to understand. Once that is done, it is just a matter of starting the conversation and asking the questions.
It completely bypasses the need for extensive research and confused queries to other countries. It is a one-stop-shop for all HR-related queries.
Give your employees immediacy
A couple of interesting statistics came out of our recent research about chatbots. I think two of them fit this topic.
In our study, we found that for 69% of surveyed, receiving an instant answer to their query is a priority. Instantaneity trumped ease of use, fun, and even human interactions.
We want things to happen now.
This directly relates to the HR department. Put this statistic up against the average three-day delays and you will quickly get why this is important.
How can chatbots help?
It's simple. Chatbots are instant.
For years HR software companies tried to sell self-serving HR as the most efficient way for employees to get their answer. It is not anymore (not to mention it never really worked).
The most instant way to get your answers is to talk to an automated machine that is there 24/7/365 to help you out.
Innovate with technology
Alright, this one might be a bit out there but I like it anyway.
During our research, we found that 43% of people believe companies that use chatbots are innovative.
What does that have to do with HR? I think on a psychological level, it has a lot to do with it.
We ran internal research with some of our biggest clients (10,000+ employees) and some of the feedback regarding HR delays were telling. Employees feel unloved, cogs in a machine, disregarded, and sometimes even disrespected.
Now, this is obviously not by HR's fault. They do everything they can to help.
How can chatbots help?
A chatbot can bring the innovation a business sometimes needs to show its employees it is doing everything it can to help them.
We love innovation, especially when it comes to dealing with issues we run into every day.
