Automated help desk

Conversational interfaces for customer support

Reading and Understanding of problems

A help desk is a resource through which organizations provide their customers or end users with assistance on products, services and other resources. It is a key component of any IT organization which usually provides assistance through phone numbers, chats, email or dedicated websites (issue tracking software). When users are required to send an email or use a dedicated tool such as a website or chat to request assistance, they are required to provide a description of the request and an appropriate set of labels, in order to make the problem easily recognizable. It is hard to properly use labels which are quite often misused. It is also hard to correctly route the ticket to the best suited operator just by looking at the labels - a thorough reading and understanding of the description is required.

Impact of the Covid-19

In critical situations like the one caused by COVID-19 emergency help desks have been flooded by tickets that are not always properly created and operators, forced to work remotely, who can provide only limited support to users.

Conversational Interfaces: much more than a simple chatbot

An automated system that takes care of ticket analysis, classification, routing and duplicate detection in order to optimize the process can lead to a better service. To further improve the process a conversational interface can be proposed, to allow the system to gather more precise information whenever the labeling subsystem yields inconsistent results. The conversational interface can interact with the user through a chatbot, either accessible by a web browser, dedicated phone app or common chat services, such as Telegram or WhatsApp.

The conversational interface is able to guide the user by asking questions to:

better understand the nature of the problem;
classify the issue by assigning it categories and labels;
detect if there is already an open ticket for the same issue;
give direct support (if possible) by referring to guides;
open a ticket on the trouble ticketing system for manual analysis if an immediate solution to the issue cannot be found.

Digital transformation with Cluster Reply

Cluster Reply Automation Intelligence practice has skill, training and experience with Hyper-automation technologies, including conversational interfaces, cognitive services and Robotic Process Automation. Cluster Reply can tailor the conversational interface solution to fulfill different customer needs, assisting during the entire solution lifecycle, from planning to design, implementation and support and making sure they choose the correct approach to enable success.

Azure Bot and Azure Machine Learning

The solution proposed by Cluster Reply uses Azure Bot Service coupled with Azure Machine Learning to receive, analyze and process user requests. Azure Bot Service is a comprehensive platform that enables you to build intelligent, enterprise-grade bots and provides tools to easily connect them to popular channels and devices. With native integration to Azure Cognitive Services bots have the ability to speak, listen, and understand users. Azure Machine Learning is a cloud-based environment that can be used for any kind of machine learning, from classical machine learning to deep learning, supervised, and unsupervised learning. It supports Python or R code and even zero-code/low-code options so that the developer can build, train, and track highly accurate machine learning and deep-learning models in an Azure Machine Learning Workspace. If the Trouble Ticketing system does not provide a control interface accessible by API, an interface layer can be built by using Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technologies to manipulate its user interface. Examples of RPA technologies are Selenium to automate web interfaces or Power Automate UI Flows to automate windows applications.
Cluster Reply

Cluster Reply specializes in delivering Cloud Solutions using the Microsoft Azure platform. Cluster Reply is a global award-winning Microsoft Gold certified partner with over 20 years’ experience delivering application development, integration and cloud infrastructure solutions using Microsoft technology. Delivering a complete cloud Managed Services solution; on-premises, hybrid and cloud to enable you to digitally transform your business with the Microsoft Azure cloud. Cluster Reply have helped our customers to achieve success through offering experience, expertise and best practice guidance to optimizing your current IT investments.