Meet Charlotte, the New SpiderTechNet Chatbot
Information Services has a new way to answer technology questions: a SpiderTechNet chatbot named Charlotte. Charlotte is available 24 hours a day in the lower right corner of every SpiderTechNet webpage.
Charlotte is an AI-based tool that’s been trained by the IS Help Desk team. The chatbot has access to SpiderTechNet’s 781 Knowledge Base articles and 192 Services, so it has the answers to many questions about UR technology. Need to connect a device to the University’s wireless network? Need to reset a network password? Charlotte can point directly to the information that's needed.
Scott Tilghman, Director of User Services, makes it clear that Charlotte is a compliment to Help Desk support, not a substitute for the personal customer service that is a hallmark of the Help Desk. Scott says, “Charlotte adds one more way for UR students, faculty, and staff to get the support they need. It is a great addition to our efforts to provide world-class customer service to the University community.” The Help Desk continues to welcome walk-ins to the service desk on the ground floor of Jepson Hall, phone calls, emails, or questions and service requests via SpiderTechNet’s web interface.
Charlotte may be of greatest benefit to students, who often seek technology support in the evenings or weekends when the Help Desk is closed.
Mirinda McCants leads the effort to bring Charlotte to the University. She has spent the last few months configuring the chatbot and working with testers both from within Information Services and in other departments on campus. And the work on Charlotte continues as the school year continues. “Every interaction with Charlotte helps to improve its capabilities. And the more feedback we get from everyone who chats with Charlotte, the better we can train the AI to be,” says Mirinda.
Next time you have a technology question, visit SpiderTechNet at https://spidertechnet.richmond.edu/ and click on the spider in the lower right corner, to give Charlotte a try.