With an estimated 34,000 chatbots in existence—most in response to a growing need for automated assistance in customer care—Sprout Social is introducing Bot Builder, a set of tools to help companies create their own automated support systems.
Bot Builder is the result of an exclusive partnership and joint product development with Twitter. Bot Builder will help companies create, preview, and deploy Twitter chatbots in a matter of minutes. With it, companies can streamline conversations and map out customer experiences based on simple, rules-based logic. With the bot’s Welcome Messages, which greet customers as they enter a Direct Message on Twitter, and pre-determined Quick Replies, brands can provide agents with quick context for every conversation.
"Sprout's Bot Builder is built on the belief that great customer experiences come from real conversations. Automation should not replace human agents, but augment their workflow to result in better and faster outcomes," said Aaron Rankin, chief technology officer at Sprout Social, in a statement. "We developed self-configurable bots to do just that. Brands can rely on the bot to quickly and consistently collect customer information, so the agent has context even before their first interaction."
"Sprout Social has long been one of our favorite solutions for businesses who want to get the most out of engaging with customers on Twitter," said Ian Cains, group product manager at Twitter, in a statement. "We're really excited that they're keeping up their leadership by being the first to market with a scalable, simple Bot Builder designed for customer service teams."
Several Sprout customers, including Evernote and Monarch Airlines, had exclusive early access to the Bot Builder. Since using Sprout's Twitter Automation Tools, Evernote has helped 80 percent more customers on Twitter per week and seen an 18 percent decrease in replies sent per conversation.