One HR Chatbot to Rule Them All
Product used: custom HR chatbot.
When an HR software platform goes all-in with cognitive automation
Our client, a benefits, payroll, expenses and rewards HR platform had a hugely successful offering, with thousands of clients across the country. However, they weren't resting on their laurels. The rapid growth in HR automation and HR-focussed AI start-ups over the previous 24 months had them spooked.
They needed something new and modern to show their clients they're still at the bleeding-edge. Our idea? A single chatbot deployed onto their platform that knew every employee at every client, that answered specific questions on specific benefits and policy documents based on who the user worked for.
We call it a bot-framework. One bot, who changes personalities, knowledge and conversational functions on-the-fly depending on who it is talking to.
Simple, right?
6,000 bots in one
From the start, we had to think about scale. We didn't want each client having to configure the bot themselves. It needed to work without any manual machine learning training, setting of FAQs, or, heaven-forbid, dragging and dropping. One day a bot should pop up at the bottom of the platform and offer help, and, it had to help.
We developed a bespoke machine learning algorithm to enable the bot to automatically read and 'understand' a client's HR handbook and policy documentation. To set the bot up, all the client had to do was upload whatever HR-orientated document they wanted the bot to pull knowledge from. The goal? To go from uploading a document to fully-functioning HR chatbot in less than five seconds. Tricky.
Our solution used many modern technologies. To name a few...
Silent authentication, so the bot knew whom it was talking to, sentiment analysis to understand if the person was grumpy, natural language processing to spot intents in conversations and machine learning, lots of machine learning.
On-demand HR-service. At scale.
A user logs into the HR platform and, if they like, rather than dig through all the documents, they can click a call-to-action at the bottom right of their screen. Springing to life is the HR-assistant.
Thanks to silent authentication, it knows who the user is and which company they work for. It has already loaded their specific details and is ready to help. From answering questions from the HR handbook like "What is the maternity allowance?" and "Is there a subsidised train season ticket?" to RPA/process based conversation flows like extending sick leave or applying to work from home.
It's a single, highly-trained HR chatbot that changes depending on who it's talking with. Clever.
For our client, it means less burden on their service desk, a more attractive core product and even an opportunity to increase pricing. For their clients, it means employees are always getting up-to-date information with less burden on their front-line HR. For their employees, it means answers to questions in real-time, no waiting for a response from HR and the ability to get that information 24 hours a day.
I think we all deserve a round of champagne!
Bring your HR project to life through AI chatbot technology. Talk to chatbot experts.
