CHATBOTS

Helping Drive Productivity& Engagement

in the Digital Workplace
By 2022, 70% of white-collar workers will
interact with conversational platforms daily.

GARTNER, 2019
 WHAT’S INSIDE

1 Introduction

2 Chatbot enters the digital workplace

3 AI helps Chatbots manage all kinds of tasks, conversationally

4 Where to start- Build or Buy?

5 More about Jinie - Your AI powered Vitual Assistant

6 The Future of Chatbots

INTRODUCTION

A chatbot is a computer program that can converse, verbally or

in text, with a user in natural language. It understands the user’s
intent and sends responses guiding the user in a specific direc-
tion, based on the organization’s business rules and data.

With the increasing use of AI driven natural language under-

standing, and the ability to exactly map the verbal or textual input
to an intent, chatbots have come a long way from simple scripted
response enablers to human advisors that can carry actual
conversations and actions.

Chatbot enters the digital workplace

Chatbots are rapidly entering the modern workplace, aimed to

make an employees’ life simpler. Chatbots relieve employees
from repetitive tasks so that people can work faster, seamlessly By 2024, 50% of structured
and intuitively.
repeatable tasks will be
It can significantly increase employee productivity and foster automated and 20% knowl-
constructive engagement by assisting them in automating edge-intensive workers will
mundane tasks like; answering helpdesk queries, on-boarding have AI-infused software as
new employees, applying for leaves or tracking leave balance, a co-worker.
answering FAQs, scheduling meetings and reminders, and much
more. The list is endless.
IDC, 2018
This can lead to cost savings, scaling up of operations, and
powerful automation opportunities, where chatbots trigger
actions and orchestrate processes across a range of applica-
tions.

Repetitive Time Consuming

Frequent and repeated tasks that Cumbersome processes that result

require exchange of the same kind time spent on non-productive
of information Tasks tasks
workplace
chatbots
can do

Need High Human Interaction Process oriented

Processes where there is scope Tasks that have well defined
to reduce human effort in favor business rules and standardized
of conversational tech processes

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AI helps Chatbots manage all kinds of
tasks, conversationally

While earlier chatbots were response based, today’s AI powered

chat-bots are leveraging some of the latest advances in natural Before, chatbots ran on key-
language understanding (NLU) and machine learning (ML) to
words and specific phrases,
deliver responses more contextually to meet employee needs.
now they run on the ability to
Contextual NLP and NLU is used to understand what users understand natural language
mean, i.e. mapping intent. Within NLP, neural networks are and map intent to command.
used to make inferences around matching, as well as to create
the right ensemble of algorithms that use a combination of
The future holds social chatbots
classical techniques and modern neural networks to finally
settle on the best matching response. that can have any kind of con-
versations, based on neural
Even though natural language processing and recognition is far networks and an understanding
from perfect, we are increasingly reaching a point where it will be of emotions.
soon hard to tell whether we are talking to a human or a comput-
er

Capabilities of An AI powered Chatbot

Understands Understands Understands Understands Understands

Intent of a Intent of a Intent of a Intent of a Intent of a
Text/ Speech Text/ Speech Text/ Speech Text/ Speech Text/ Speech
Command Command Command Command Command

Following aspects comprise efficient use contextual NLP/ NLU technology in a chatbot:

Intent matching: NLP algorithms help chatbot contextually understand a text or speech command
and map it to an intent. It continually learns from instances that did, and did not, match to a unique
intent to improve future responses and actions.

Conversational flows: help gain a deeper understanding of user behaviour by mapping popular user
paths, tasks, and exit points. This includes the top identified intents based on usage statistics,
instances a bot could not handle, and common follow-up tasks and sub-intents.

Augmented Learning: as a personal virtual assistant, the bot learns not only from a one on one
interactions. It draws insights from every conversation and improves responses and actions.

Intelligent hand-off: the machine doesn’t have to conduct the entire conversation. Chatbots have the
intelligence to know till when they can effectively help the user, and when should a live agent be
introduced for more complex tasks.

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How Chatbots improve workplace productivity

An intuitive and seamless conversational interface

Personal tech is shaping the user expectation from tech at the workplace. Today’s workforce prefers digital
communications tools such as messaging apps over phone-based conversations and face to face meetings.

According to Deloitte Human Capital trends, phone-based conversations and face to face meetings are down
by 30% and 44% respectively, instant messaging, work-based social media and collaboration platforms have
grown by 62%, 69% and 70% respectively.

Alleviate app fatigue

On an average an employee uses ~10 apps (20 for DevOps) daily. This is causing app fatigue and is leading to
a significant decline in workplace productivity - ~50% workers say, they must switch between multiple apps
just to get the work done and 70% say that work would be better if they could get all the important informa-
tion from their apps on a single window.

In this context, chatbots are emerging as a winner in the enterprise productivity landscape through several
potential benefits over traditional GUIs;

Rather than using 10 different interfaces to find information, users can just use a text or a speech com-
mand to get what they want using a chatbot.

Users can operate several business applications at once with a chatbot. It enables users to invoke
multiple chatbot actions with team members at the same time, and compresses multistep tasks into
a single command - such as, ‘Get the list of closures in the last 2 months and email it to X’ is one com-
mand that uses 3 applications – CRM, Excel, Outlook.

Significantly Cut Down Actions by Making 1 Request to Your Chatbot

Use Case: Apply for a Leave

Application Interface VS Chatbot

Login Please apply for aleave

on 23rd May 2019

Go to Leaves page

Fill out a form

Send for approval

Leave has been

Task Completed
applied
You Initiate Your Bot Initiates
Next Step Next Step
Do you want to let
Inform Team your team know?

Applying for a leave is just one of many use cases an internal chatbot can successfully execute in a matter of
seconds, improving productivity and engagement while saving costs for the business.

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Where to start – build or buy?

When considering bringing in a chatbot, it’s important to think about what the objective and expected results
are. Is it just a simple process that needs to be automated or is there need for something more sophisticated,
that will be interactive, learn over time, and improve?

This leads to a build vs. buy contemplation. On the surface it might appear that all you need is to build some-
thing that detects user input and provides an appropriate response. And, yes building a custom bot from
scratch can lead to a highly customized bot that solves problems specific to your organization form early on.

On the other hand, buying or building using a platform brings in unique ease of development, lower costs,
and faster time to market. For instance, Jinie a ready to use chatbot, brings in NLP/ NLU capabilities, built-in
frameworks, ML driven AI, and easy to use drag and drop features. Jinie can be up and running in a few
minutes for simple use cases, and, it significantly shortens time to implement more advanced use cases
based on self-learning, or contextualizing user’s response based on their intent.

The following table gives you a comparative view between the two approaches:

Custom build Build using a platform

ROI

Just like any software project, the cost to build a
custom bot varies wildly. It depends on factors like
quality of the developers, complexity of the tasks,
number of platforms the bot will use, number of
users and integrations. Unless your bot is
extremely simple, it will require a lot of iterations.
Add to this server costs, NLP integration,
payments, analytics, and much more making a
seemingly simple task of building a Chatbot,
extremely cost intensive with no guarantees of
success.
A ready to use bot like Jinie comes at a fraction of
the cost of developing, testing, implementing and
continually improving a custom bot.
Moreover, Jinie brings with it expected short term
and long-term outcomes (ascertained from third
party implementations) that establish an ROI
upfront; which can be tedious to ascertain for a
custom bot.
This an extreme advantage in favour of a platform.

Time To Market

Expect the initial build and implementation time
for a custom bot to be much longer compared to
setting up a ready to use bot. You will be starting
from scratch laying down foundations, that a ready
to use platform already has built-in and has further
enhanced over multiple implementations.
Jinie gets you started right from day one. For
instance, Jinie allows you to create policy and
storyline setup fast and easy. Which helps jinie to
be up and running in minutes for simple use cases.
It further provides advanced features like NLP, ML
powered AI, open APIs, pre-built integrations,
analytics, subscriptions, and platforms out of the
box- which significantly shortens time to market
for complex use cases.

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 Iterations and future development

You will need to tweak and train your bot continual-
ly. Bots will always encounter new scenarios. It
could be new words, new languages, unexpected
requests, technology advancements like better
NLU, sentiment analysis or other AI driven capabil-
ities.
A custom bot would require you to have a roadmap
in place, without which your bot can become
redundant quickly.
Training data is one of the most important aspects
for a chatbot to continually gain ML driven intelli-
gence.
Jinie has a vast training data set to learn from –
acquired from past implementations spread across
various use cases, industries, and workplaces of
diverse size and scale. All this is feeding AI
advancements into the platform backend and
making Jinie more intelligent for your use cases.

Since building bot is not your core capability, you Add to this continuous product improvement such
could easily be playing catch up and miss capitaliz- as new third-party integrations, features,
ing on new trends and advancements. enhanced UI, as an ongoing process.

All this is available to you in every new release

cycle, which will be a humongous task for any com-
pany which is not in the business of chatbots to
orient. For instance, a new release for Jinie comes
out every 15-30 days, with significant enhance-
ments.

Jinie provides significant headway on following aspects to help build a mature chatbot in a fraction of the
time and cost that could be spent building a custom chatbot:

• Triggers: Keywords, NLP/ NLU and ML engine, intent mapping, conversational flows
• Features: Chat (text/speech), workflow, responses, actions, etc.
• Integrations: ERP, HRMS, CRM, helpdesk, other bots and business applications
• Analytics: Real-time alerts, predictions. recommendations, and actions

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More about Jinie – your AI powered virtual assistant

Jinie, your AI-powered virtual assistant, provides instant and contextual responses, actions and insight for all
your employee queries and transactions. Leading to improved employee experience and productivity at the
workplace. While cutting support services cost for the business.

• Integrations: Jinie connects all your business applications including HRMS, Payroll, IT systems,
business intelligence, recruitment and more on one unified conversational interface.

• Access: Can be accessed through Google Home, Alexa or any enterprise messaging platform like,
Zippi, which is a collaboration platform that enables chat, file sharing, polls, task management and
much more.

• Conversational Input and Intent Mapping: a user can ask questions or request for information, as
well as relevant actions through a speech or text command.

• Responses and actions: Jinie provides AI powered contextual responses to all queries, and carries
out actions for requests (like raising helpdesk tickets, applying for leaves, sharing Form 16 & pays
lips and much more).

How Jinie Works

The follwing figure showcases the framework for how will Jinie integrate with and create impact for your
organization:

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Jinie’s Next Gen Features at a Glance

The follwing figure showcases the framework for how will Jinie integrate with and create impact for your
organization:

A Use Case Snapshot

The following tasks can be managed conversationally, in significantly fewer steps, using a single interface
with Jinie:

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 Jinie improves workplace engagement, collaboration
and productivity, with fewer resources

By 2019 integrated virtual em-

Jinie helps organizations achieve better workplace collaboration ployee assistants will increase
and efficiency by adding context and automation to the existing productivity by 10%.
communication structure. It significantly enhances employee
experience that can lead to a more engaged, efficient and
productive workforce in the following ways:
Gartner, 2018

Employee engagement and productivity

Employee engagement is not only a priority for employee retention, but it also improves productivity, efficien-
cy and job satisfaction. Jinie works as a customized virtual assistant to the entire workforce that significantly
improves employee connect and engagement leading to higher response and faster transactions.

Employee Engagement & Productivity

Pulse checks, Push/pre-emptive Faster transactions Personalized contextual

refresher quizzes, and interactive
and instant surveys notifications and
reminders
(5x higher Response Rate )
– single interface for attention to employee
multiple tasks for higher employee
(Cut time taken for experience score
completed action by (increase in scores by 15%)
up to 70%)

Push Notifications Transactions Personalized Attention

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 Collaboration

Access Jinie through Zippi- an intelligent workplace collaboration platform where cross-functional, remote
and external teams come together to- chat, manage tasks, align on ideas, share files, and work.

Employee Engagement & Productivity

Engage with your Assign tasks Instant Quick Polls and Create multi-level
entire workforce in conversationally. appreciation Surveys to Get threads in a bigger
one place Track in one place. and feedback everyone’s opinion conversation, cut
Provide rich context. in real-time. the noise.
Get reminders. Make decisions
as a team.

Access Jinie through Zippi

Collaborate with your team,
and your virtual assistant
in one place

Work Seamlessly in Teams

With Own team, OR with
cross-functional teams.

E.g. Your sales team can

collaborate with marketing,
on-boarding team, or
customer success team, in
one place!

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 Helpdesk Automation

Most helpdesk requests take time to answer when done manually, while the employee waits for a response
or an action for hours, and sometimes even for days. With roughly 30–50% of Level 1 Helpdesk support
requests being repetitive, you can leverage the power of NLU and cognitive automation with Jinie. Leading to
instant responses and a relevant action that will take significantly less time and resources.

Helpdesk Automation

Instant query resolution through Interactive Information sharing 20-25% bandwidth

AI instead of manual meetings - Policy Changes, Outage Alerts, release for Support
emails and subsequent follow Password change reminder, etc. teams
ups for query resolution

IT Ticket HR Query Ticket Release Manager

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Set-up Jinie – Do it Yourself (DIY)

Jinie is made to make life simple for everyone. It offers powerful DIY tools that makes its implementation and
set-up is extremely easy and fast.

The Future of Chatbots

Even though we have many examples of advanced, intelligent virtual assistants even today; the technology is
still in the early phases. There will be a shift away from chatbots being simply reactive, as AI becomes more
advanced and chatbots collect more data, bots will begin to develop the ability to predict what a user’s next
move might be, or what problem they may be experiencing, and act on it in real time.

Despite all the advancement, chatbots still augment humans, not replace them entirely. And that will contin-
ue to remain for the foreseeable future. But the future looks promising as chatbots will continue to make an
impact on businesses, with even more advanced levels of conversational abilities.

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About PeopleStrong

PeopleStrong is the largest HR Technology and Talent Acquisition solutions company in India. For a
decade now, our technology solutions and services have been enriching experiences at work for 700,000+
users at 250+ organizations across 14+ industries. On our journey to writing the #NewCodeofWork, we
deliver end-to-end HR technology solutions through PeopleStrong Alt, our next generation HR SaaS
technology product.

Along with Alt product suite, our Talent Acquisition, Recruitment and Consulting services leverages cutting
edge AI powered recruitment technology blended with best-in-class service delivery capabilities to keep
organizations talent ready for the future.

We are the first company in the HR space to be successfully assessed on SSAE18 and have recently won
the prestigious CIO’s Choice 2019 Award for Best Talent Management on Cloud.

To know how our experts can help push your business forward, drop a mail to marketing@peo-
plestrong.com or visit us at www.peoplestrong.com

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