Leveraging the Value of AI Self-Service – Workativ

What is an AI Self-Service system?

Self-service has been around for quite some time now in the form of portals and intranet sites but isn’t quite popular as it’s time consuming and contain static information that results in productivity loss for employees. AI Self-Service is changing all that now by providing self-service using AI tools like a conversational AI chatbot.

Through NLP and NLU, conversational AI chatbots can understand the intent behind an employees’ question or request instantly and deliver an appropriate response or action. Creating engaging and guided conversations for delivering an omnichannel AI self-service to employees becomes much more simpler with a Conversational AI chatbot.

Moreover, employees should be able to resolve simple IT issues like password resets and account unlocks themselves via AI self-service. This enables IT agents to focus on resolving non-repetitive enquiries faster while a conversational AI chatbot take care of the repetitive ones like password resets and account unlocks via AI self-service. It also gives employees a sense of satisfaction in resolving their IT issues themselves.

Why Is AI based Self-Service Important?

AI Self-Service isn’t a ‘nice to have’ – in post pandemic remote working model, it’s vital for any business as it helps support a company’s greatest asset – its people.

Enabling a high level of self-service to employees will empower them, make them feel more engaged, increase their productivity and free up valuable resource within your HR and People teams.

With better tools in the hands of employees and managers, HR and People teams can be untethered from much of the traditional paper pushing and transactional processes, allowing them to play a stronger consulting role in the business and provide a people focused strategy which can keep up with the needs of today’s workforces and facilitate the experience they expect.

After all; we all know the value HR and People teams bring – freeing up the team’s time from admin means you can concentrate further on delivering great experiences that your people will love.

No Code - Free Conversational AI Chatbot

Potential challenges to introducing an AI Self-Service tool

The convenience of AI self-service may improve worker satisfaction with the company. However, to avoid the perception of disengagement and depersonalization, and to encourage employee participation in automated services, businesses must implement AI self-service thoughtfully.

While user acceptance and system efficiencies can make the transition to AI self-service well worth the effort, there are certain initial challenges to consider:

  • Self-service availability in all kinds of channels: When going for the AI self-service route, companies should be wary of the pitfalls of not offering a true omnichannel self-service experience to their employees. Omnichannel in the sense, the AI self-service should be available on apps like Microsoft Teams, Slack and their corresponding widgets on mobile devices as well so that employees who use the app of their choice can access the self-service from the comfort of their favorite chat hub.
  • Making sure it connects multiple systems: The AI self-service should integrate with multiple apps like HR, ITSM, and IAM so that employees don’t have to log in and out of each and every app every time they want to access different apps. The AI self-service should serve as a single point of contact for all their business’ apps.
  • Continuous improvements to the self-service: Adopting an AI self-service is definitely not a one-time thing. Tracking how employees are using the AI self-service and continuously making efforts to improve the AI self-service’s workflows based on analytics so that employees can make use of it in a jiff is vital to a business’ hiccup free operations.
  • Making sure data in the knowledge base is clean and integrated well with the self-service: It is imperative to verify whether the data in the knowledgebase that’s linked with the AI self-service is up-to-date so that, when employees use the self-service, outdated information doesn’t hinder the AI self-service from providing employees with the information related to their queries.
What makes AI based Self-Service a must have?

AI self-service systems are important from every perspective with respect to both, the employees and the management.

Let us list some of the key aspects of the AI self-service system that is making it a trending requirement at present work culture.

  • Employees get access to all the present applications of an organization through a single digital channel
  • Information is easily accessible on various chat channels like Slack or Microsoft Teams to ensure the convenience of employees
  • AI self-service can retrieve performance notes, these notes can be tracked by employees and managers both at the same time, thus helping them track their activities accordingly
  • AI self-service offers a platform for regular interactions between employees and HR professionals. Time off requests from employees can be tracked easily by managers rather than them going through the leave submission information and approving it manually, everything is automated, helping the payroll professionals also to prevent any sort of confusion and inefficiency. AI self-service also acts as a platform for updating any information related to the employees. Digital time cards here can even help the employees to track their working hours in an automated way. All of the documents of HR can be shared at a single platform to be accessed by employees
  • In the Age of Digital Everything, employees expect the technology they use in their personal lives to carry over into their work. By providing employees with AI self-service that takes away the pain and tedium of tracking their expenses manually, you can give them what they demand, keep them happy, help them stay productive, and let them focus on the jobs they were hired to do (rather than wasting time on manually tracking their expenses).
  • AI self-service uses natural language processing to attend to simple IT queries. AISS fulfils the need and presence of a Level-1 IT support assistant. AISS extracts info from a knowledge base, FAQs and user guides and brings it to the actively used messaging apps by employees like Slack or Microsoft Teams. AISS is also equipped to handle incidents and security. AISS reduces IT ticket costs and increases the productivity of IT help desk staff by taking care of repetitive tasks. AISS can seamlessly integrate into existing apps. This can free up the time of IT personnel by accomplishing simple repetitive tasks like resetting passwords, unlocking accounts, provisioning users and more. The conversational interface of AISS allows users to get their IT issues resolved just by stating their issue.
The Major Benefits of AI self-service

Here are some of the major benefits of deploying a AI based Self-Service.

1. Cost Savings

Companies can save costs by automating tons of repetitive enquires from employees like password resets and account unlocks that can be easily solved via AI Self-Service. By making use of a no-code workflow automation platform like Workativ, businesses can effortlessly create a seamless AI self-service for their employees via a conversational AI chatbot. The conversational AI chatbot can even be easily integrated with popular chat hubs like Slack or Microsoft Teams, letting employees access the self-service at the comfort of their favorite communication channel. All these translates to superior cost savings for businesses as businesses don’t even have to spend anything when it comes to implementing the AI self-service. The AI self- service also saves help desk agents from having to look into repetitive queries, letting them focus on task that really require human intervention. Letting employees resolves their IT issues themselves via self-service also ensures that there is no disruption to employee productivity resulting in better ROI.

2. Save Time and Efforts

Routine IT/HR administration sucks time and energy from management (or your HR teams) that could be spent on other things. With an AI self-service in place, those with IT/HR duties will have more time to focus on things like strategic business partnership activities, hiring, and training.

Employees no longer have to wait for someone to research and provide them with the copies they need. AI self-service allows companies to distribute key information about compensation, policies, and benefits quickly to the entire workforce.

3. Information Accuracy and Transparency

Lots of key information can get lost in translation when you work with an intermediary. IT and HR systems with AI Self-Service helps eliminate duplicate data entry and increase record-keeping accuracy by allowing employees to check and change their data.

Employees can update their own information, including certifications, emergency contacts, addresses, and phone numbers. Getting information directly from the source increases efficiency and reduces errors.

AISS also gives employees one source for all company information, such as handbooks, policies, and announcements, cutting down on confusion and miscommunication.

4. Improved efficiency of administrative tasks

Companies are constantly looking for ways to increase efficiency, improve results, and lower costs. As your company grows, it’s important to think about maximizing efficiency and accuracy with an employee-friendly AI Self-Service. A conversational AI based software like Workativ relieves most administrative tasks so you can focus on more strategic planning for your organization’s goals. Some of the ways AISS can save your admin from immense workload are as follows:

a) Updating databases

AI self-service enables admin to conversationally add/remove/update employee databases. Then, it can add the same on the company’s IAM and ITSM apps as well.All without intervention.

b) Easy document accessibility

AI self-service ensures employees have access to the documents they require anywhere, anytime. Employees can ask the AISS to retrieve a document and it does that in a jiff.

c) Automate Announcements/reminders

You can set your AI self-service to automatically send announcements/reminders to your employees on your company’s Slack or Microsoft Teams channel or to their email IDs.

5. Improved employee morale

AI self-service provide a single platform where co-workers can communicate their ideas and work together towards successful project completion. These systems also provide an employee directory with contact details along with a calendar for birthdays, work anniversaries and other important employee milestones. This way, employees can interact with each other socially at the comfort of their chat hub like Slack or Microsoft Teams and improve the spirit of camaraderie. Further, as social interaction between employers and employees increases, employees feel more connected with the organization and make more valuable contributions.

Help employees with the transition to a AI self-service tool

When rolling out an AI self-service, keep in mind that some employees may not immediately adjust to accessing documents and information on their own, and may instead feel more comfortable reaching out to HR. Counteract any hesitation and maximize adoption by providing workers thorough training on the system and stressing the benefits of immediate access to information, as opposed to waiting for another team to respond to an inquiry. Built-in data analytics can also determine who among your workforce is not using the system, or using it incorrectly, and may benefit from additional training. If, after implementation, employees still reach out to HR/IT agents for information available on the AI self-service, consider sending out reminders and offer as-needed training to keep this capability top-of-mind for employees.

The future of business and the role of AI self-service technology

As businesses look toward the future beyond the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on the economy, technology is sure to play a critical role in business recovery. Learn more about the benefits of AI self-service today.

Workativ’s no-code Conversational AI + Workflow Automation platform allows you to integrate with your ITSM,HRMS, Access Management and 50+ apps and create the desired workflows to give your employees the IT/HR support they need, instantly.  Try Workativ today by signing up for a FREE now

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