Customer service & co.: How bots are shaping the future
Human traits: chatbots improve service
The contact center of the future receives information about the customer as soon as the phone rings and can predict with a relatively high degree of probability what the caller wants to talk about. However, the artificial intelligence (AI) behind this does not make humans superfluous, but complements them. It simply expands the skills of the employees there, assists them in many situations and makes them more productive, allowing inquiries to be processed faster and better. For example, if you call your bank and get stuck on hold - or have to explain your request to one employee after another. Many financial institutions have therefore shortened their customer journey with the help of chatbots, which can answer frequently asked questions more quickly and directly. If a conversation is still necessary, the customer is forwarded to a "real" employee who has access to the previous history and chat communication of the person they are talking to. This significantly improves service quality and the overall customer experience. People like dealing with people, but artificial intelligence means that human-like virtual assistants and chatbots are increasingly being used. They use natural language to understand more and more nuances and contexts, building on the traditional communication between employee and client. Many companies are integrating chatbots into their existing applications in order to meet increasing customer demands and optimize the customer experience.
Seamless omnichannel communication
Poor customer service can cost a company dearly: It affects customer loyalty, leads to customer churn and hinders the acquisition of new customers. However, chatbots, CPaaS and other technologies with contextual communication will ensure that fewer applications will be needed to process transactions in the future. And they will speed up the process of notifying customers of delays or changes, both of which will bring huge benefits to companies. The "bot revolution" has brought forth technologies that provide more context to customer queries or problems and have a solution ready in an instant. But that's not all: bots can communicate with customers anywhere - via chat, in-app message, SMS or voice message. This seamless omnichannel communication is still one of the biggest problems in the customer experience in many areas: companies are often unable to bring the different communication channels (SMS, landline, apps, voice messages, social media) under one roof, in other words, they are unable to link these different communication channels into a continuous dialog. In each channel, the customer has to explain again and again who they are and what they want. This is because every conversation on one channel took place in isolation from the communication on the other channels. This is now changing for the better.
Embed chatbots in CRM platforms or databases
One of the most important drivers for the further development of chatbots is technical integration. Bots can be integrated into CRM platforms, unified communications systems or internal databases. Chatbots that are used in isolation are merely pre-programmed response packages - they have neither data to help you nor a backup. An integrated chatbot, on the other hand, can use historical data to skip repetitive questions, for example, and can also use sentiment analysis to recognize when a user is annoyed - and then immediately forward them to a call center employee. APIs allow companies to integrate their chatbots into a broader communications ecosystem and make them not only smarter, but also more useful. In addition, some of the most important AI innovations of recent times have been developed in the field of voice bots.
Voice as a user interface
More and more devices can be controlled by voice, such as the aforementioned smart home assistants Amazon Alexa and Google Home. Voice commands are not only faster, they also eliminate the need to look at the screen - unlike manual input. With this uncomplicated method, private and professional tasks can be completed in less time without interrupting the daily routine. And this is just the beginning: voice and gesture control are also finding their way into cars, for example. In the future, we will use voice interfaces to organize our lives - both privately and professionally - and this also applies to shopping: We will soon be talking to voice bots online about the products we are interested in under the heading of "voice commerce". This will render the argument "you can only get advice in a store" obsolete, which in turn will have a massive impact on the way we store. What's more, the entire internet is undergoing a transformation - from the soon to be old-fashioned text input with mouse and keyboard to a system dominated by videos and voice. Screens and keyboards will eventually become a rarity.
Top priority: development of cross-platform bots
The development of programs for devices with artificial intelligence and virtual agents or assistants is now one of the top priorities for future-oriented developers. Billions are currently being invested in this field of research. It is still a challenge to develop bots that interact across platforms. But in the coming months and years, there will be more and more SDKs and other frameworks that can be used to create cross-platform voice bots, and we are heading towards a world where API-powered bots that seamlessly switch between different channels such as phone and chat will be the norm. Most bots are based on technology that combines natural language processing with speech recognition and can be applied to almost any communication channel, which is a boon for the customer as they can interact with the bots as they please: via Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, voice, chat or messaging. This type of flexible, dynamic artificial intelligence will ensure that customer service becomes more consistent and comprehensive. Customers who need help will receive support at any time, via any channel.* Thomas Klar is Country Manager Germany for Nexmo, Vonage's API platform. Klar is an experienced industry expert in the cloud communications market and has proven his ability to drive revenue and capitalize on new market opportunities.
