06 Aug How Global Mobility Managers Can Make Use of Chatbots

You may or may not own an Amazon Echo or a Google Home. But as a global mobility manager, expect to be constantly dealing and interacting with a similar software in the very near future. This conversation is not just confined to your being at home either. It’s ongoing and can happen 24/7 if you want. All you need is a smartphone or a mobile device beside you. Welcome to the age of the chatbot.

Chatbots, those small AI-powered chat boxes that pop up on websites occasionally, will soon become more and more mainstream. They are expected to venture beyond that online platform to communicate with you in more mobile and flexible apps. They just won’t be relating to you as a customer service ‘bot, although that function and service will always be in their programming. They can be your travel guide, accountant, weather guide, global news source, and all-around “consultant.”

As cited by The Business Insider, a report by Grand View Research forecasts that as these ‘bots enter more business sectors and audience platforms, their market value will rise to $1.23 billion by the year 2025.

Programmed to adapt to the needs of a global mobility manager, chatbots can soon be helping you in the following manner:

First, they can function as your virtual assistant. As described by The Business Computing World, they can be non-intrusive administrative assistants who will help you organize your work and your life. They can also clear your clutter. Chatbots can start your day by advising you of your workload, schedules, meetings, and appointments.

They can be made to filter your emails and calls, notifying you of the ones that pop in from your VIPs and silently temporarily putting aside the ones that look like spam or are not in your priority list. They can alert you about looming deadlines, such as the report you are about to submit, or the urgent things that you have to finish in the next 48 hours, like that rock star assignee you need to sign onboard, no matter what.

As virtual assistants, chatbots can also be a “friend” who can help you de-stress by “reading” out to you a chapter from your favorite e-novel or playing a song from your playlist while you’re on commute.

What will make this function more frequent in the future is that chatbots will increasingly become hands-free. No need to type on a web browser or a chatbox. Just click the app, put on your headset, and interact with your chatbots using a voice command.

Second, Santa Fe Relocation points out that chatbots can increase your efficiency and improve your metrics. This goes way beyond the normal Q and A. The more sophisticated chatbots can run through your financial statements and highlight the inaccuracies that you should correct — even before you submit them to your accounting officer for a review.

They can highlight global trends that can impact your job and your goals, such as the passing of an immigration bill in a certain country or the rising cost of relocation and shipping. None of this will no longer catch you unaware with the right ‘bot raising the right signals.

Finally, Relocate Magazine says that chatbots can be designed to respond to your specific industry needs. They can come up with a FAQ list to answer your assignee’s usual queries — that alone should save you time emailing each candidate the same replies to the usual questions. They can constantly search for the global recruitment hotspots, calculate the compensation and benefits of the assignees, and align your job requirements with their qualifications.

One way to familiarize yourself with chatbots is to often use your Siri or similar apps. California Corporate Housing has either Google Home or Amazon Echo installed in its furnished apartments. Assignees and global mobility managers who live in them already have a significant head start in exploring what we might call the era of the chat bot.