As technology progresses forward in leaps and bounds, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a hot topic for not just developers, but marketers and decision-makers worldwide.
A facet of this comes up in particular for business - for user support and customer service. In this, conversational AI has taken the stage and made quantum leaps toward the future. Going as far back as its earliest implementations, such as simple chatbots to answer FAQs on websites, conversational AI promised great advances to come with its host of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML) capabilities.
It’s an implementation of technology that heralded great change in the space of the modern service. Here’s an analysis and overview of this great invention that will soon take the service world by storm.
A Short Overview
Conversational AI is represented today by the widely available virtual assistants such as Siri and chatbots used on various E-commerce platforms by many brands. It makes use of two functions to work - the aforementioned ML and NLP capabilities.
In short, “machine learning” represents the software’s ability to learn from its usage. It then takes the information gathered and “learns” from it to improve for its next interaction. This means that the AI will only get better as time passes and more interactions occur between it and any user. “Natural language processing” is the process by which the AI understands language, recognizing words and phrases that it is fed and responding in kind.
It is by uniting these two processes that most conversational AI come to be. Although it may sound complicated in theory, this is in fact how the interaction between most customers and chatbots on social media/websites occur.
The Tangible Benefits
Every business aims for the ideal customer service experience when dealing with their buyers, and conversational AI aims to achieve that goal as best as it can. In realistic terms, no two customers are the same, and some will require deeper interactions or will inquire more than another.
It is this gap that the AI aims to fill in most use cases. However, that’s not the only benefit that can spring forth:
The global conversational AI market is growing from $5.78 billion in 2020 to a projected $32.62 billion in 2030, according to a report from Allied Market Research. The report goes on to state that the adoption of these technologies in healthcare, telecommunication and retail industries is the driving factor for this projected growth, highlighting the rising popularity for such a feature.
What does this mean for brands, however?
Intangible Concerns
Although it could be argued that the implementation for such software takes away the “human” side of interaction, there is evidence to show the opposite is true. According to survey statistics taken by ServiceBell, 60% of survey participants like to send and receive messages using a chat service. In another report by Insider Intelligence, over 123 million users in the US will use voice assistants at least once a month, with the number projected to rise over the next few years.
From these statistics, we can infer that the existence of conversational AI is something that is being accepted throughout the world. Brands may benefit from the consistency of service that an AI can provide a consumer, every time they visit.
A brand can build loyalty through consistent service, as a customer will be glad to know that they receive the same level of service every time they come in for a request and will be more likely to return if they enjoyed that experience. Coupled with the ease of access to reach an AI or virtual assistant, and the personalized service that an AI can provide, this is likely to make a particular brand top-of-mind for any consumer.
Of course, not every problem can be solved by this AI - it only learns what it’s been fed with, after all, and businesses should know when to switch it out for a human interaction. However, the efficiency and versatility that can come with this technology is something that shouldn’t be ignored for the future, and that’s something even the biggest of brands don’t argue with.
Take Amazon - the world’s biggest retailer - and their implementation of prompted questions on their website. Even Siri and Alexa make use of natural language and machine learning to provide better answers to the many questions it receives from its users every day.
It’s one thing to have AI replace jobs of human workers, but the benefit of Conversational AI is not conditional - it doesn’t have to replace anybody to be useful.
Brands should consider implementing this in one form or the other - either to provide a personalized experience and delight their users, or even to provide a consistent service to their customers who don’t have a choice but interact at odd times.
It’s a lubricant to the everyday queries, purchases, and interactions that some of us dread going through. Why wouldn’t we, as customers, want a better experience as we go through our daily lives?
It’s not the solution for everything customer service related - but there are many uses in many industries - many situations which could benefit from consistent service at any point. It’s worth a shot to examine the implementations and see how your business could benefit from this technology.