How Chatbots Can Help Your Remote Team Work More Efficiently

Imagine a chatbot, a super-smart virtual assistant working with a remote team. Let’s call him Andy and hear him converse intelligently with his human boss.

“Hello Matt.”

“Andy, do I have new approvals?”

“You have one new approval awaiting your response. Would you like me to read it to you?”

“Yes.”

“Vacation request from Mark Angel for this Friday. Would you like to approve?”

“What is their vacation balance?”

“They have 8 days remaining. Would you like to approve it?”

“Yes”

“The vacation request for this Friday is now approved”

This chatbot is impressively efficient, right?

But many remote employees are exactly like Mark, the HR manager. A remote worker's ability to be efficient depends on the availability of excellent communication tools, like AI chatbots, webinar platforms and virtual assistants.

Although all businesses use chatbots only for customers’ support, many organizations deploy them in internal communication with employees. In fact, research by Gartner predicts that about 70% of white-collar workers will interact with conversational platforms like chatbots daily by 2022.

Chatbots can boost the efficiency of remote workforces in the following ways:

1. Chatbots provide round the clock help

Remote work has improved and revolutionized the business world. Even then, it still has its downsides. One of the most common disadvantages of this work model is its tendency to isolate employees who work from home.

Employees working in an office environment can easily communicate with their colleagues. Also, they can get intervention and help from management and support teams. Remote workers sometimes struggle to gain access to the above mentioned resources.

Smart businesses have turned to chatbots to provide round-the-clock support to their employees, irrespective of their work location.

The need for remote workers to have round the clock support was stressed by Vaishali Gohel, Senior manager, Cloud Solutions Hub at Oracle, who observed that:

If you have remote workers who work unconventional hours or in different time zones, invest in chatbots that can help to address any concerns or problems that may arise outside office hours.

Chatbots can efficiently respond to remote workers wherever they need to access important information. With round-the-clock support, remote workers can experience increased workplace efficiency.

Darshan Somashekar, who runs im-a-puzzle, explains,

2. Chatbots increases employee engagement

Employee engagement is key to the growth of any organization. This fact was evident to Sandra, who felt frustrated with her life as a single mom who worked from home. Like many remote workers, she struggled with lots of problems associated with remote work.

Sandra’s frustration stemmed mainly from poor work engagement like:

• Inefficient feedback
• Poor senior leadership and communication.
• No or late acknowledgement of feedback

After a lot of deliberation and research, Sandra realized that a chatbot could easily solve all of her problems. Chatbots can deliver employee engagement by:

• Giving qualitative feedback through one-to-one conversation
• Making the voice of remote workers to be heard
• Providing an engaging interface with targeted conversation

However, the process of engaging remote workers takes a huge chunk of management’s time. This is largely due to the space and time that separate remote workers from management.

Chatbots technology can enhance remote workers' communication with management and their fellow workers.

Don’t take AI for granted. Curb employee meltdown by:

• Letting chatbots handle employee engagement tasks
• Sending personalized messages to workers to keep them engaged

3. Chatbots promote transparency

Workplace transparency is the practice of being open and honest when dealing with employees in an organization. Once your workers see you as opaque or untrustworthy, then you will have issues with trust.

If you want to earn the trust of your remote workers, you must promote transparency in the workplace. Current research found out that 53% of workers feel left out in critical decisions by management.

A great way to build trust among your employees is to use tools that support transparency. Businesses can use chatbots to provide vital employee information to all workers, no matter where they are.

Employees will develop trust, for example, when they can access critical information on company policies and salaries at the touch of a button.

Another way chatbots encourage transparency is it helps remote workers speak out against office injustices.

Remote employees rarely experience physical workplace abuse. Some reports, however, show that remote workers are not immune from workplace abuse and harassment. Technology has made it possible for remote workers to be exposed to mental and emotional abuse.

People who work with colleagues are more likely to speak out than those isolated from their team. Organizations should provide channels such as chatbots and online forms. These tech tools make it easier for remote employees to report abusive or inappropriate behavior.

4. Chatbots are great for continuous training and support

There are many reasons businesses should organize continuous training for their employees. Continuous training helps employees improve their knowledge and skills on the job.

The need for continuous training is even more important for businesses that have remote employees. In remote work situations, it’s difficult for management to follow up on the progress of their employees.

Apart from the knowledge that comes from formal education and training, people continue to learn in informal settings, like the office environment. People working in the office learn from management and their fellow workers. Remote workers lack such opportunities because they are physically separated from management and fellow employees.

Some educational institutions like Georgia Tech have harnessed the power of AI-driven tutor chatbots to enhance the learning experience of their students. Businesses can also use chatbots to teach and reinforce skills that lead to high efficiency and productivity.

Chatbots can come in handy when management wants to create remote work courses and deliver them bit by bit to employees. One advantage of using chatbots for continuous training is that it allows remote workers to learn at their own pace.

With chatbot technology, employers can ensure that their remote workforce is equipped to handle their tasks through continuous training.

5. Chatbots reduce pressure on remote workers

Reports show that many remote workers suffer from burnout due to pressure associated with working from home.

Below are the reasons your remote workforce is under pressure.

• Some remote employees work on the weekends
• Work more hours during the week
• Balancing work and house responsibilities
• Dealing with distractions

Remote workers, especially those working in customer service and human relations departments, are usually overwhelmed with complaints and inquiries.

Management can ease the pressure on remote workers by deploying chatbots to take care of some of these customer service issues.

We saw the power of chatbots to perform repetitive tasks at the height of the pandemic. Many health facilities were overwhelmed and turned to AI and chatbot technology to attend to their clients.

This trend is likely to continue. According to recent statistics, AI and chatbots could automate up to 73% of healthcare administrative tasks by 2023.

Wrapping up

From all indications, remote work will continue well into the future. Businesses can use chatbots to deal with the challenges associated with working from home. So far, chatbots have helped to resolve the problems of:

• Communication
• Isolation
• Customer support
• Lack of transparency
• Lack of diversity

Do you use chatbots? How have they helped you to improve the efficiency of your remote team?