The ability to offload some customer service queries to a chatbot is something more and more businesses are investing in, case in point, African mobile network operator Africell which recently deployed a chatbot powered by Infobip.

Africell operates in Angola, Sierra Leone, Gambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo and is one of Africa’s fastest growing mobile network operators. As such, the firm needs to keep a handle on its customer service operations and a chatbot is just the ticket.

The chatbot employs Infobip’s Answers platform which allows for the deployment of highly-customised chatbots. This is important given the various countries Africell operates in.

“By deploying the Answers chatbot solution, we will be able to advance our customer engagement strategy and provide contextual support via automated communication. The solution will result in time saving related to addressing basic queries and FAQs from customers, without the need to escalate these to the call centre,” explains Nadia Moati, group operations director at Africell.

Importantly, Africell will be monitoring customer interaction with the chatbot and make adjustments where necessary.

“Judging from the ease of the onboarding process, the interface appears to be really user-friendly,” says Moati.

Unfortunately, while chatbots can be useful, they can also be incredibly painful if not deployed with care. Here at Hypertext we have lamented the awful experiences one can have too many times. With that having been said, perhaps Africell can help lead a charge of well built and customer-centric chatbots coming to the fore in Africa.

Something worth keeping an eye on however is the rise of digital experts. These are chatbots that have been dialed up to 11 and are able to resolve complex queries without human intervention. These solutions are, however, more complex and require a lot more thought and planning than a chatbot might but they can lead to a better customer experience than one might have with a basic chatbot.