Why is it important to provide an end-to-end conversational experience to your customers?
Regardless of the sector, companies that are in intense interaction with their customers are now choosing to serve their customers through conversational experience and automation. The solutions, which include the human element and AI-based virtual assistants, continue the conversation started with AI with live support and video calls and have a serious impact not only in the quality of the customer support but also in increasing sales. However, it is important for the companies to have a holistic approach when choosing this solution, both for the sake of the management of the system and the impact it will create. So what does an end-to-end conversational experience mean and what are its components?
With the end user’s rising demand for digital experience, companies are focusing more strongly on conversational experience, AI-based chatbots and voicebots. In Gartner’s “Gartner CIO” survey, 83% of respondents say they will increase the use of digital channels to reach customers, and 79% say they will increase the use of self-service. However, the number of solutions that have a holistic approach and position human and AI with a correct model is very few. The solution’s capability to include all the necessary components as well as the ability to present them with the most proper design plays an important role in obtaining successful results.
What components should a holistic conversational experience contain and how should it be designed?
According to Gartner, by 2025, half of corporate employees will communicate with a virtual assistant on a daily basis; by 2024, at least 40% of enterprise systems will have conversational AI technology. Both rates were around 5% in 2020. In the upcoming period, most of us will communicate with a virtual assistant as a daily habit. So, let’s try to clarify the concept of end-to-end conversational experience and the requirements this experience should have.
1- AI-based automation of frequently repeated topics
First of all, companies need to make a decision about identifying frequently repeated topics and answering them automatically. Identifying the topics to be covered by automation is the first step in designing an end-to-end customer service journey.
An AI-based virtual assistant, which has been trained and correctly designed with the specified scope, instantly answers the questions from the customers. For example, in sectors such as e-commerce, where many customer questions are concentrated in a small group of topics, it is possible to resolve 70-80% of the incoming issues only with this automation, with an AI-based chatbot.
In addition, the integration of the chatbot / virtual assistant with the internal systems of the company and providing a personalised experience to the customer is important for an end-to-end conversational experience. For example, in order to answer the question “what is my account balance”, the assistant needs to integrate with the bank’s system and take the account balance information and provide it to the customer. Other examples might be an e-commerce chatbot, allowing to complete the purchase phase in the conversational field, a telecom chatbot that informs the customer about the last billing information. In order to answer these questions, the AI-based assistant must be integrated into the internal systems of the institution, bank systems, cargo systems, payment systems, and product search engines, etc.
Besides, the natural language processing technology is another factor that affects the quality of the experience. The system should be based on an advanced AI infrastructure that enables you to understand your customers’ questions. A virtual assistant prepared with traditional software methods instead of natural language processing and machine learning technologies will provide limited experience.
2- A model where human element is included when necessary
Regardless of the industry, no matter how advanced the ability of AI to understand and respond to the customer, in some cases, customers want to communicate with a human, for instance, when they want to ask a question outside the defined area, if the case is urgent or for other reasons. The requirement of an enhanced experience is to be able to respond to the customer’s request at this moment, instantly, that is, to transfer it to a customer representative without interruption. The client should not feel any interruption in this transmission, but should be transparently informed of who he or she is dealing with and continue the dialogue with the representative. For such a structure, the vendor should offer an interface that allows your customer representative to talk to your customer.
All research shows that models based on human-AI collaboration create higher customer satisfaction and a more efficient customer service system. For this reason, the human elements’ existence in the loop completes the structure you have established.
An additional feature that takes this experience to a higher level is that the AI, which has already been trained in the scope you have determined, monitors the customer representative and provides the answer instantly. The representative can send the response directly to the customer or edit if necessary. This not only shortens the solution time and increases customer satisfaction, but also contributes to cost management.
3- Enriching the live support experience with video calls
Sometimes it is not enough just to chat with the customer representative, it is necessary to make a video call. In such cases, it is important to offer your customer the opportunity to initiate a video call instantly. A customer who is transferred to a live support representative should be able to take the call to a video mode at any time. Of course, if the representative on the other side of this conversation also should accept this proposal – in the case of bilateral approval, the video call is started.
A few key features improve the experience when it comes to video calling. For example, being able to share a screen during a video call, annotating the screen, and inviting a third person by sharing the link are important features of video calls that are crucial for certain use cases.
In addition, video call recordings should be available for later review. All these features should be available on mobile and desktop devices at any time.
Use cases that this end to end experience with video call is more relevant
Digital customer acquisition
It allows the customer acquisition process to be realised as if the customer is physically talking to the company officer. It is an important use case especially when the regulation allows digital onboarding or customer acquisition but requires that the customer and the officer see each other on an online platform. For instance, the customer who is welcomed by the AI-based virtual assistant of the bank can initiate a video call with the customer representative and start the process of becoming a customer.
Damage assessment
This use case is relevant for insurance and e-commerce sectors. In insurance, in case of any claim, the customer is welcomed by the virtual assistant of the insurance company, stating that he/she wants to talk to a customer representative and connects to the representative via video. He / she shares the images about the damage and starts the necessary claim process anytime / anywhere. Similarly, in order to detect the damage of a product purchased online, the customer logs into the support system of the institution with the virtual assistant and shows the damaged / missing part of the product by making a video call with the representative. Thus, the condition of the product is determined in a very short time and the necessary return process is started.
Technical support
When technical support is required for electronic devices such as home appliances, computers, mobile phones, printers, modems, satellite devices, the customer writes to the virtual assistant of the company for support and states that he / she wants to talk to the customer representative. He clicks the video call button and shows the device to the representative to get a description of the solution or creates a service request by communicating the situation. In the same way, support can be obtained with video calls during the installation of devices such as computers and printers.
Installation and troubleshooting of online products
There are subscription-based, online systems and products that we purchase individually or that we use for business purposes. When it comes to support needs, making a video call with a representative and getting support by sharing the screen during the call allows the problem to be solved or the installation to be completed quickly.
Visual support for the employees
Virtual assistants provide support not only to customers but also to company employees in many areas such as IT, HR, procurement or legal fields. While some issues can be resolved easily by chatting, for some issues, especially those that require technical support, video calls create a significant benefit. For example, an employee working in the field writes to the support assistant, then sends a request to be transferred to a human and receives video support to explain the problem and get guidance on how to solve it.
Demo and product sales
Let’s think about a chatbot created as a sales support assistant to welcome and guide the customer both in subscription-based online products and physical products. At a certain point of the conversation with the AI-based assistant, the customer can connect to live support and initiate a video call to see the demo of the product or see the physical product. Thus, the customer is offered an enhanced online sales experience by meeting with a live representative, seeing the product or seeing the demo, asking questions about the product in real time, similar to the in-store experience. Such an experience is quite valuable in increasing sales in many sectors.
CBOT Platform has the technology and the tools to deliver this end-to-end experience
CBOT Platform has the necessary technology, tools and modules to create such a holistic experience. CBOT Platform offers this experience thanks to the following modules:
- CBOT CORE, main AI module
- CBOT FUSION, the module that enables to quickly create complex flows without the need of any coding
- CBOT ANALYTICS, monitoring, analysis and reporting module
- CBOT LIVE CHAT, live support and video call module
- CBOT SPEECH, the module which enables integration of CBOT with IVR systems via voice technology
The model described in this blog, created on the CBOT Platform, is based on the effective cooperation of humans and AI. By using AI in the most efficient way, solving all issues that can be automated without requiring human intervention, but providing instant uninterrupted transfer in cases where the human factor is needed, and beyond that, the customer representative and the customer’s video call on CBOT Live Chat provide high quality customer support and helps the company to increase sales.
In addition, CBOT, a WhatsApp Business Solution Provider (BSP), offers this end-to-end experience through all channels such as web, mobile, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and more.