People want you to handle their concerns about your product or service immediately. Fail to do this and they’ll turn to other brands. You’ll lose prospects showing interest in your business while disappointing existing clients who were expecting good service.

Implementing a chatbot or hiring a virtual assistant can address this issue, but if not done properly, it’ll just frustrate visitors with how you’re interacting with them. You may even develop a bad reputation among consumers and this will stay with you for a long time.

So, which one should you get for your enterprise to facilitate communication? Let’s talk about the perks of remote assistants and chatbots below.

Why Choose Virtual Assistants?

They can handle technical issues

A human agent doesn’t rely solely on a database for answers. While they might use canned responses, they adjust to the situation, think for themselves and forward matters to a relevant department if they have to.

This is why they’re preferred by customers who are looking for a detailed answer or who want to make a financial transaction online. They are capable of providing their undivided attention along with secure processing.

They can manage product damages

If you run an e-commerce site, you’ll need a virtual assistant to go through tickets for product returns. They’ll check the scale of the reported damage or defect and determine if a refund should be issued or not.

Plus, offshore virtual assistant services can document various problems, analyse recurring complaints and offer suggestions on suppliers or partners. You may also ask for their input on products to remove or replace as well as any trends for different seasons.

They can deal with upset customers

Only human staff can effectively detect emotions expressed in chat conversations, be it happiness, anger or frustration. Also, they can de-escalate a situation by sympathising with the customer and providing an actionable solution to the problem.

As angry clients are turned into loyal ones, there are fewer chances of your business getting a negative review. This can even turn around to the customer recommending your business to their friends and family because they were happy with how they were treated.

Why Choose Chatbots?

They can fill the gap

It’s not necessary to keep your chatbots online all day every day, but it’s nice to know that you can. You can set them up to appear online when your human agents have logged out for the day or when there are too many queries for your staff to handle on their own.

They can also cater to multiple customers at once, whereas a virtual assistant can manage only so many tickets per day. You’ll rest assured that every person who is contacting you will receive an immediate response, virtual assistants in the Philippines thereby improving their user experience.

They can perform sales

Because chatbots are never offline, part-time virtual assistant Philippines can serve as the perfect sales channels. They can remember previous answers and make personalised recommendations (i.e. upsell). Customers can then see products that best suit their needs or items that they never knew they needed.

Depending on how you set them up, chatbots can: (a) encourage shoppers to get and use coupons, (b) welcome new visitors and give them a tour of your website, (c) send reminders about carts that contain items, and (d) provide product information.

They can start immediately

With human staff, there’s often a variance in their experience and knowledge. Some will need the training to use the system, to respond the right way and to follow the process. You’ll have to consider absences, tardiness and sub-par performance on some days as well.

Chatbots simply need to have the right settings and they should be good to go. You won’t have to worry about fluctuating performance or sudden resignations. There is some maintenance involved and you’ll have to adjust to the software, yet that’s the extent of the preparation required.

So, Which Is Better?

If you’re wondering if it’s possible to have just chatbots to handle customer service, the answer is ‘yes’. You may automate the whole process then have complex issues resolved through email or phone call. This is cheaper than working with a call centre and provides 24/7 immediate response for clients.

We don’t recommend that you do this though. The ideal situation would be to combine the two so that they can fill each other’s gaps. However, if you had to choose only one, we believe that you should hire virtual staff for facilitating communication instead.

A virtual assistant can’t be online at all times but there’s an easy workaround for that: If you have more than one agent, the other can work the next shift so there’s always someone to handle queries. You’ll spend more on salaries but the human touch is always worth the cost.

As for training, this won’t be a problem when you work with Remote Workmate. We onboard our hire virtual assistants before sending them over to you. Plus, we hire skilled and experienced professionals, to begin with, so we’re confident our candidates will deliver quality performance.