In past years, the term “digital worker” was given to a person with technical or well-crafted computer and digital skills. In present-day, that has all changed. Digital workers are now defined as software robots trained to perform specific tasks in partnership with their human contacts. “They can fully understand human intent, respond to questions and take action on the human’s behalf, leaving humans with control, authority and an enhanced experience.” said IBM in a Let’s Talk segment in May 2021.
This may leave you wondering what the future will look like for employees. The truth is that digital employees have many pro qualities that you can not get from a human. The best is they are 99.9% error-proof on all writings and communications. Even the best writers are only 90.4% error-free, an excellent rating for a human employee. Bots are also great for assisting in checking the stock of products, answering basic product questions, checking benefits questions and giving answers, and collecting employee data. These are just a few examples of the hundreds of commands. Digital employees do not come with a personality, so you will never get customer service calls that your digital employee has been rude to your clients.
The cost of digital workers is much easier on your budget than the standard employees that report to brick and mortar offices that you will need to pay the building rent and an office setup and supplies and then maintain it. Digital workers also increase employees’ bandwidth, allowing companies to relocate the workforce to more strategic tasks. They can work more efficiently, completing tasks 15% to 17% faster than most employees that are professionals in the field of each requested task.
So, where are these Digital employees working? You may ask. Currently, the primary sectors you will see these bots at work currently with their applications running seamlessly are the following areas,
- Supply Chains- Retailers, including Amazon, are using bots to assist in checking stock quality and pricing of products and giving product descriptions.
- Human Resources- In this field, bots can answer benefits questions in real-time, collect employee data and route more complex tasks to the subject matters expert, evolving the employee’s experience with the company.
- Sales and product support- Once again, bots are great at answering product questions. This helps the customer succeed, and the sales team manage both existing and prospective customers, which also aids with customer service areas. They can also route customers by urgency levels, so high priority tickets are addressed promptly, improving the overall customer experience.
- Call Centers- Both inbound and outbound call centres are another area using a high number of digital employees. Bots can make and receive calls giving information to the customers during a set time allotment on certain days, as bots have complete programming capabilities in the field.
Thousands of companies monthly move toward using digital employees where they can as they have the advantage of being 5x faster than their human counterparts with a 99% accuracy rate, and on average 10-year employment costs 50% less on average.
In summary, there are many things that the Digital Employee or bots can do for a company that can eminently help with work overflow and employee costs. Most corporations are still planning to have both digital and human employees. This allows the customer to have a digital front to answer the basic questions but still have a warm personality of an actual human response with empathy when things go wrong.