The adoption of emerging technologies is driven by how users react and ultimately interact with new systems. This dictates how fast an emerging technology will be adopted as mainstream, or alternatively gets discarded. A good example of this is WiMAX which was presented as the most promising broadband communication system, but when 4G followed close on its heels, WiMAX did not make it to mainstream.
Fig. 1: Apps such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp or WeChat have turned into crucial touch points for brands when communicating with their customers.
Recently, Gartner shared what it considers as the top ten strategic technology trends for 2018. Conversational platforms ranked sixth. Conversational platforms aim to provide value to both businesses and their customers by offering the possibility of having two-way real-time conversations and combine intelligent machine automation with human expertise. According to Gartner, conversational marketing platforms are part of a growing trend which will drive a paradigm shift that will change how companies with interact with their customers.
Until recently, the main problem with conversational platforms was the inability to make the “voice” sound human. Generally, people resist talking with what obviously sounds like a computer. Digital voice is starting to come of age as natural language processing and artificial intelligence (AI) systems mature. As the barriers between people and machines are removed, there is an explosion in consumer adoption and subsequently consumer expectations of how they want to interact with companies.
Conversational platforms encompass a range of user interfaces including automated chatbots, smart speakers like Amazon Echo and Google Home, as well as digital assistants like Siri, Google Assistant, and Amazon Alexa. A chatbot is an automated program that taps into deep learning technologies to understand the world and converse in a similar way to humans. They have evolved rapidly, and will continue to become smarter and more capable. Today, many of the world’s leading brands are turning to AI and cloud platforms to create chatbots that can assist customers with a wide range of tasks, at a higher level of emotional intelligence and understanding than ever before.
Conversational platforms will enable mobile and internet of things (IoT) apps to interact with enterprise systems via voice commands. These models will create a direct channel between business users and the line of business systems without the constraints of a specific mobile user interface. Just like web services or application programming interfaces (APIs), voice interfaces are likely to become a new integration model for enterprise systems.
Technology companies see the demand for voice technology in the consumer market and are actively preparing for enterprise proliferation. Cisco launched its enterprise-ready voice assistant, “Spark Assistant”, late last year enabling cognitive capabilities within the platform making it a comprehensive AI-powered collaboration solution. It is the world’s first enterprise-ready voice assistant specifically designed for meetings. The initial cognitive capabilities are designed to make it easier to: start meetings, join and leave meetings, call anyone in your organisation and navigate and control Spark devices.
The challenge that conversational platforms face is that users must communicate in a very structured way, and this is often a frustrating experience.
Conversational marketing platforms have several advantages including centralising all the messages received from different touch points at all times, helping to offer a user-friendly customer experience and assisting in supporting the visitors who most need you and convert those with high added value by segmenting them according to targeting behavioural criteria and directing them towards the best respondent routing rules. Apps such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp or WeChat have turned into crucial touch points for brands when communicating with their customers. That’s why conversational marketing platforms are becoming crucial differentiators: they help you be available across different messaging platforms at the same time, instantaneously.
iAdvize, a chat support software company, believes that machines are not here to replace human beings but serve them and give them augmented capabilities. Machines and humans are a perfect match because they are complementary. For example, in online customer service: 20% of conversations can be completely automated, 50% are supported by humans in charge of validating or correcting answers offered by bots, and 30% of them are handled by humans alone. Artificial intelligence can take care of “low value” questions and very frequently asked questions, and can guide customers towards the most suitable service to meet their demand.
A recent Gartner survey showed that 59% of organisations are still gathering information to build their AI strategies, while the remainder have already made progress in piloting or adopting AI solutions. Gartner outlines AI as its number one intelligent trend.
Humans are strange creatures. They dislike call centres and hate talking to a computer that speaks in a computer voice; but make the language and voice sound human, and all our phobias disappear. So, bring on intelligent conversational platforms and end the endless press-whatever-digit list, which seldom includes a digit that takes you to where you need to be!
