The Ultimate Guide to Onboarding Chatbot

It’s nearly impossible to emphasize how important onboarding is. If done properly, it could save you months. AI chatbot for onboarding allows you to recruit the right candidates and enable them to find necessary information without the fear of being judged. Plus, you would improve your HR’s efficiency by delegating repetitive and time-consuming tasks to these AI-powered agents.

Chatbot Onboarding Advantages for Your Business

The working lifecycle, as our parents knew it, is long gone. People entering the workforce do not dream of staying with one company for the rest of their lives. Instead, they want to stay for as long as the pros outweigh the cons. This implies two things:

• Onboarding new people happens more frequently.
• The onboarding experience needs to be thorough and enjoyable since it’s crucial for future contribution and productivity, as well as the desire to stay with a company.

Both points lead to the same conclusion: you need to upgrade your onboarding game. Demanding more from your HR personnel isn’t a solution; they’re already crowded with applications and time-consuming tasks, affecting their patience and focus.

If only there was a way to automate these tasks without the risk of losing your brand’s authenticity. Or is there?

Why are AI chatbots excellent tools for user onboarding?

If you’ve been in the business for a while, you’re well aware that onboarding looks pretty much the same for each new employee. Apart from being repetitive, this phase also includes a huge possibility for human error, which affects how the new hire will perceive your company.

All of the faults mentioned could be prevented by introducing onboarding chatbots. There are lots of use cases for onboarding chatbots, from automating various HR tasks to helping new employees receive onboarding of equal quality.

How is the сhatbot onboarding implemented?

Put simply, a chatbot is an AI system that uses natural language to interact via a chat interface, most commonly using texts, but some are able to process speech or graphics as well.

There’s another, perhaps simpler type of chatbot, which is rule-based. This means it’s limited only to scenarios it was programmed to respond to, whereas AI chatbots use machine learning, meaning they can learn from previous conversations.

This allows for comprehensive task automation of the most commonly used types of onboarding content:

• Review CVs;
• Gather the necessary documentation;
• Address frequently asked questions (FAQs);
• Scheduling and interviewing;
• Skill testing;
• Giving feedback;
• Updates on application status and more.

This software is mostly used by new hires, but also by employees responsible for new hires. It’s launched after the iteration phase is over and the company approves the prototype, usually by using an agile approach.

Clarify Your Chatbot's Objective

If we start by saying that onboarding is the initial process of starting at a new company, it’s easier to resonate with the onboarding chatbot’s objective – making this process thorough, reliable, accessible, and engaging.

Chatbots for onboarding should take over predefined HR tasks, so the most important part is to decide on the exact steps that should be incorporated into this new software. Additionally, take into consideration that your bot should treat users fairly, take users’ privacy seriously, and prevent any misuse.

Moreover, you need to agree on your bot’s personalization, such as tone of voice and avatar. Whatever you decide, make sure that it’s fun to talk to so that your user engagement and satisfaction rates remain high.

Finally, in order to retain customers, you should be transparent about using AI bots as a part of your onboarding process.

Integrate Essential Tools and Information Sources

Companies that lack good onboarding have one thing in common: they usually divide the process into several steps, which might be well-planned individually, but they fail to interconnect them.

What you’ll need for adequate training is pretty much what your HRs have access to—an introduction to your company culture and infrastructure. It would also be useful to speak to the IT and accounting departments since they could have relevant opinions on the system.

Finally, ask your employees what they wish they had known sooner, and implement that into your bot.

How do we onboard new users/customers with conversational AI?

New hires, especially if they’re young, can oftentimes feel hesitant to ask questions, which may result in knowledge gaps. Moreover, they want to blend in smoothly and leave a good impression. That said, they may feel more comfortable speaking to a chatbot than a real human, just because conversation with an AI chatbot feels more private.

Needless to say, bots are available 24/7, which is a huge advantage compared to human agents. The fact that they’re always available makes it much easier and more convenient for new users to engage, thus minimizing the risk of losing leads.

Outline Your Onboarding Workflow

Whether you already have a well-planned onboarding workflow or not, designing it for a chatbot usually implies you’ll have to start from scratch. In this context, workflow is referred to as procedural conversation flow.satis

It may be easier to understand how to design a workflow if you compare it to AI chatbots for food delivery that rank high in customer satisfaction. They have to ask each customer what food they would like to order, if they want a beverage with that, etc.

Similar logic applies to chatbots for onboarding.

For example, it could look something like this:

1. New hires should provide the necessary documents.
2. They should go through company policy and guidelines.
3. Managers should provide the necessary equipment and CRM.
4. HR should introduce new hires and other employees to the working environment.

However, you should also consider scenarios where user interaction with an AI bot could exceed its competencies. When this happens, you should define how the human-bot handoff will look so that it doesn’t seem like an incident but rather a recognized action.

Last but not least, you should ensure that your bot handles data in a secure way.

Compile Your Initial Question Set

When thinking about how to onboard new hires, make sure your chatbot includes a guide for both social and performance-related assistance.

You may be surprised by the fact that applicants usually ask relatively simple questions. They want to learn about the employer, other employees, internal systems, or some other practical inquiry.

The general information that could compile your original question set is:

• Practical information like registering work hours, days off, and sick leave;
• Personal information related to the specific position;
• Client’s profile;
• Instructions about internal systems;
• An overview of other employees.

Evaluate and Track Your Chatbot's Performance

By now, you probably know what makes a well-built chatbot even better: the feedback. Keep track of the engagement rates while the platform is being beta tested, by asking new hires, employees, and even the chatbot itself what can be improved.

Especially after someone has just gone through the onboarding process, you could analyze user experience—was the AI chatbot for onboarding missing something, and how were their first days at the company?

Let us mention another, often neglected, part of the evaluation – applicants who didn’t make it. In the end, someone you didn’t hire today could make a perfect candidate in a couple of years.

Conclusion

Try to remember how it feels to start at a new company. In the first few days, so much information will be thrown at you that you’ll forget most of it. Instead of asking your colleagues to repeat themselves, you could just turn to your 24/7 available ally, the chatbot for onboarding, and easily access all relevant information that’ll allow you to blend in seamlessly. With today’s widespread adoption of AI, chatbot implementation is more accessible than ever and affordable to any brand that wants to stay on track with current trends and expand its services to a global audience.

FAQ

•  How do I integrate an onboarding chatbot with my existing systems?

Look into companies that provide this service or ask someone who already implemented it to recommend products they found. Once you’ve settled on a company, provide information about the necessary tools to receive the most accurate chatbot prototype.

• Can the onboarding chatbot be customized for my company’s needs?

Absolutely. Some companies are skeptical about onboarding chatbots because they fear they might give generic responses but, with proper training, these tailored solutions can reflect the exact image you want to portray.

• What types of content can an onboarding chatbot deliver?

Onboarding chatbots are the most useful for FAQs, interviewing, email onboarding sequence, and screening. Depending on your needs, you could customize the bot to get assistance with various tasks, such as sending proactive messages.