Human vs Machine

Markerstudy has introduced ‘chatbots’ to their centralised employee HR and IT Helpline function. This is part of a collaborative project between the two departments to automate processes in order to improve service delivery efficiency without compromising service quality.

Automation technologies are nothing new to Markerstudy, as their Technology Teams have been running a number of initiatives within the group since 2017, including Machine Learning tools that support pricing, process automation tools, and now automated chat technologies. Their latest development targets HR joiners, movers and leavers processes, and the downstream requests for system updates, so the support of these with virtual chat agents is seen as the next step on an automation journey.

Adam Miller, Group Head of IT, commented

“Within Markerstudy IT we’ve been exploring voice AI and piloting fully autonomous chatbots since Q4 2019, so it’s been a natural progression to apply this technology to our wider staff base, starting with automated chat support for our 3,000+ workforce. The application of chatbots into our daily working practices introduces more efficiency and removes some of the mundane repetitive activities carried out by our service teams. The chatbots do the heavy-lifting, freeing up staff to perform higher value activities, giving greater job satisfaction and enhancing professional development.”

Markerstudy report that last year over 9,000 chat queries were received by HR, and more than 16,000 by IT, many of which were repeat questions or required directing to the correct place on the employee information portals. Using chatbots, staff are guided to find the answer themselves. And if a query is unable to be resolved this way, staff are transferred through to a live HR or IT agent as before.