Consistency, efficiency, productivity – when it comes to the customer experience, these are surely the priorities.
Thankfully, delivering on all three fronts is now easier thanks to the rise of the automation leveraging chatbots.
Powered by artificial intelligence (AI), they are the modern new must-have for brands and organizations with the intent on responding to today’s 24/7 omnichannel communication challenges.
Leveraging smart automation functionality and machine learning technology, they are able to perform tasks and provide anywhere and anytime support via preferred channels which once relied solely upon human agent intervention.
The smartest conversational AI empowers organizations to do it all without negatively impacting the customer. Indeed, in most cases, the communication experience is actually enhanced.
“Customers’ needs and expectations change all the time – while many people go shopping and ask questions of instore salespeople, others prefer to enquire and shop online and receive the products in their homes,” says Asha Potla, Director of Product Management, Enterprise Messaging, at leading provider Soprano, whose powerful no-code conversational AI solution packs a potent punch.
“Conversational AI enables organisations or brands to enhance customer experience and deliver richer engagement with those clients. Instead of talking to a human, they’ll speak to a virtual assistant powered by AI that can provide better answers that are more relevant and contextual. People prefer that because the interaction can occur via their favoured communication channel from anywhere and at a time convenient to them.
“Also, as well as being effective, it’s highly efficient as we are able to seamlessly integrate with business and/or 3rd party applications and process the information – all in real-time. A purchase can be made, a question can be answered, or a problem can be resolved in just a few minutes with an option to transition to a live agent conversation if required. That’s a win-win for organizations and their customers.”
There are broadly two variants of conversational AI-powered chatbots: Machine Learning and Flow-based.
Flow-based conversational AI follows a set of rules, flows, and triggers to respond to specific interactions with users, such as helping a consumer submit a sales enquiry or guiding an employee through submitting a leave request or a support enquiry.
User organizations build structured chatbot scripts to guide people through standard processes, ensuring they are the same every time. They make things happen more precisely and efficiently.
Machine Learning chatbots work together with natural language processing; utilising automated question-answering or document signposting knowledge that has been added to the platform.
In both the cases, AI can be leveraged to build models that can evolve themselves to deliver meaningful conversations by bringing relevant data and context into the conversations.
For example, a user might ask: ‘What is the maternity leave allowance?’ The chatbot responds automatically using knowledge in the company employee handbook or from previously populated FAQs.
This type of chatbot learns from all the conversations it has had to improve accuracy and understanding over time.
In the case of Soprano, its platform leverages the power of both forms of conversational AI to answer questions in real-time and guide people to organised conversations and workflow processes.
It boosts sales efficiency by automatically presenting customers with the product or service that suits them. And it delivers internal HR efficiency gains by automatically filtering candidates, scheduling interviews, and providing an interactive onboarding process.
“A conversational AI approach removes barriers, and brings customer’s context into the communication making each interaction into a meaningful conversation.” says Potla.
“For example, when shopping using a computer or mobile phone, it’s easy for a consumer when they are asked by a chatbot: ‘Hi, how can I help you?’ AI brings to the table something all humans have been doing for decades: having natural conversations. They have the intelligence to understand the users’ intent or needs, and quickly give them the right answers they are looking for. It’s the human touch without the need for real agents.”
The supporting statistics are striking.
Recent research suggests that 40% of internet users prefer to interact with chatbots than human assistants; chatbots help companies to increase sales by 67%; and chatbots help save the healthcare, banking, and retail sectors $11 billion annually.
“Our AI platform is easy to use and can be used across different departments, languages, and use cases,” says Potla.
“There is no coding required, so it is simple enough for non-developers but has advanced modes for deeper customisation. And it is ISO27001 security compliant, so it’s perfect for enterprises and governments with multiple deployments and configurations.”
“What’s more, our highly trained team provides support from the initial build to analysing data to making constant improvements.”
To learn more about how Soprano can help your and your customers’ businesses leverage the power of conversational AI, click here.
