Digging Deeper: Making Sense of Chatbot Analytics

With this in mind, we’ve compiled this guide to help you measure your chatbot’s performance and better understand the larger context.

What Gets Measured Gets Managed

Analytics provide a look under the hood. But not all metrics are mission critical. Here are the ones that can help you get a holistic view of where you stand.

Chat Volume

It’s recommended to start with a look at the volume of interactions your chatbot engages in with customers. This data tells the story of the number of users initiating conversations with your bot. A low conversion rate may indicate that users either overlook the bot option on your website or aren’t confident in its ability to meet their needs.

Chatbot Activity

Chatbot activity indicates the number of conversations your bot has during a specified timeframe. By keeping tabs on chatbot activity, you can identify patterns of peak activity. Analyzing chats during popular times can offer insights into when customers most frequently require assistance and the reasons for their outreach.

Topic Popularity

Personalization is everything in today’s world and that applies to customer self-service. Analytics can help stakeholders identify which topics engage your users the most and which ones are less relevant. With that in mind, you can better design the conversation flow around popular topics and revisit ones with lower engagement, effectively enhancing your chatbot’s relevance.

User Interaction Count

The number of users interacting with your AI assistant, whether first-time or repeat can be important metrics to track. To determine returning visitors, compare the number of users with the number of conversations during a specific period. If the number of chats exceeds the number of users, it suggests that some customers engage with your chatbot multiple times. Conversely, a comparable number of users and chats may indicate few returning visitors.

Goal Conversion Tracking

Goal tracking can help you evaluate your chatbot’s performance. For instance, if you use your bot to collect new newsletter subscribers, you can create a custom newsletter user list via segmentation. When users sign up for your newsletter during a chat, your AI agent can automatically add their email addresses to this list. This lets you track how many users subscribed to your newsletter through the chatbot.

User Information Gathering

Collecting certain data points from your users can help you better understand their needs and provide a more concierge experience. Chatbots can help companies seamlessly gather both active and passive data, including customer time zones, preferred communication channels, birthdays, and contact information. Seeing trends related to demographics and popular chatbot channels means you can program your chatbot’s communication to target audiences for optimal results.

Chat Transfer Analysis

While chatbots have come a long way since their inception, certain customer support issues still require human intervention. When necessary, your bot can transfer customers to available live chat agents. Keeping an eye on the metrics related to human takeovers can help you determine if you need to adjust your processes. For instance, this analysis can point to specific topics or scenarios where the chatbot struggles, enabling you to enhance its capabilities and limit agent interaction. At the same time, an automated-only approach isn’t necessarily the answer either. According to McKinsey, an estimated 75 percent of customers use multiple channels in their ongoing experience. The global consulting organization makes the case that an AI-supported customer service model should marry both the human element and self-service features.

Go Further, Faster with rSTAR

In short, using chatbots isn’t enough to reap the benefits of your investment. Digging deeper to tease out the stories behind certain patterns and trends can help you optimize and use them more strategically — and that’s a win for both the organization and the consumer. Tapping the right partner means you can unlock the full spectrum of benefits that AI can provide. Work with experts who can implement, integrate, and customize your AI initiatives so you can see tangible results like more ROI, increased market share, and a wide profit margin.