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WHITE PAPER - TSC EXPERT ANALYSIS DISCOVERING DECODING Chatbots explained Messaging and chatbots The five chatbot families EVERYTHING YOU (STILL) WANT TO KNOW ABOUT CHATBOTS
WHITE PAPER - TSC
EXPERT ANALYSIS DISCOVERINGDECODINGChatbots explained Messaging and chatbots The five chatbot families
EVERYTHING YOU (STILL) WANT TO KNOW ABOUT CHATBOTS
2
64%
27B
$1.25B
64%
5
61%
round-the-clock availability is the key advantage of chatbots
for 64% of people surveyed.
customer service hours will be saved thanks to
chatbots by 2023.
The worldwide chatbot market
by 2025.
of people would choose instant messaging over email or the telephone.
of the 20 most popular apps
on the Apple Store in Q1 2018 were instant messaging apps.
of baby boomers like chatbots’ ability to
answer simple questions instantaneously.
INTRODUCTIONChatbots two years on: let’s go even further, by Laurent Uberti
DECODINGChatbots: back to basicsChatbots, a maturing market to be handled with care
EXPERT ANALYSISHow to design and enhance your chatbot, by Josselin MoreauFocus on chatbot roll-out, by Geoffrey Boulakia
DISCOVERINGRevisiting chatbot familiesOther chatbots we like
CONCLUSIONFrom chatbots to voicebots, by Geoffrey Boulakia
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Sources : State of the chatbots, 2018 ; Grand View Research, Inc, 2017 ; The Top Mobile Apps, Games, and Publishers of Q1 2018: Sensor Tower’s Data Digest, 2018 ; Juniper Research, 2017 ; “Facebook Messaging Survey” by Nielsen, Mars 2016 ; State of the chatbots, 2018.
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CHATBOTS TWO YEARS ON: LET’S GO EVEN FURTHER
LAURENT UBERTI
Excitement around chatbots is intensifying. At the moment it feels like every day is one where ano-ther brand is launching another AI-enhanced conversational app. This intensity we’re experien-cing started building in 2016. That’s when Facebook integrated chatbots into its Messenger platform and in doing so, helped to create a proper ecosystem for users, brands and developers. By April 2017, 30,000 chatbots called Messenger home. Now that number stands at over 300,000. And while Facebook was the first to enable brands to offer customers a cross-device, cross-channel chatbot experience, the other major platforms, from WeChat and Viber to Telegram, are catching up.
When we published our first White Paper focusing on these smart conversational agents in 2016, it was because we recognised their potential - even though chatbots as a channel were still in their early develop-ment stage. Thanks to our experience and our ability to map innovation to the reality of delivering customer relations, it was clear to see how this technology was set to simplify consumers’ daily digital lives.
The time since that publication has been an especially rewarding one for customer relations. It has seen the introduction of chatbots across a number of different channels, exponential market growth and genuine technological progress.
Far from being a fad, chatbots have asserted themsel-ves as a fully fledged customer service phenomenon. They are now demonstrating the power we predicted to not just simplify, but to enhance the customer experience - be it for insurance, retail, utili-ties, or media and entertainment. Brands are realising that the conversational messaging app is the channel of choice for consumers who want to communicate. On Messenger alone, Businesses and customers currently exchange 8 billion messages a month.
Likewise, for TSC, the Sitel Group digital CX agency; chat-bots have become part of our day-to-day experience. Having delivered dozens of chatbots for customers in very different sectors throughout Europe and beyond, we have acquired leading-edge expertise and refinedthemethodicalapproachnecessarytode-liver for the most demanding of brands.
But crucially, this best-practice approach has been honed in collaboration. Our capabilities have been enhanced and reinforced by reaching out to the right partners and by being challenged by the growing expectations of our growing client base.
Together we have become evangelists for chatbots when they enhance the customer experience. We have spread the word by participating in conferences and workshops, highlighting their usefulness and features and underlining what they can realistically achieve.
And this is why, two years on, it is time to revisit the subject with a new White Paper with new objectives. It aims to go further into the chatbot universe; to help you understand their capabilities via a closer look at solutions TSC has delivered for major brands; but above all it aims to help you grasp the reality of their potential impact on your business.
Technology may be changing, but customer expecta-tions - speed, reliability, and seamlessness of service - remain constant. No matter how innovative, if a brand can’t meet a customer need or takes too long to deliver a response; that customer engagement will stop. It’s why our clients are becoming more demanding, and it’s why the most ambitious CX aims of yesterday are already today’s must haves.
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1 DE-CO-DING
1 - DECODING
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CHATBOTS: BACK TO BASICS1.1
WHAT EXACTLY IS A CHATBOT?
On its own, a chatbot, or bot, is no big deal. It’s a com-puter program designed to simulate a written (think Messenger) or oral (think Amazon Alexa) conversation with a person; and to automate certain processes wit-hout human intervention.
A chatbot is a perfect blend of artificial intelligence and language processing and is part of the third big family of digital interfaces after websites and apps.
Rather than being used as marketing gimmicks, chat-bots are being used in an increasingly prominent role within customer relations and in delivering customer satisfaction. However, this deployment only works when the bot is a clear extension of a specific brand and its values, and when its use really does enhance rather than hinder the customer journey.
SUPER POWERFUL CHATBOTS
It should be clear. A channel that’s open all hours and that can provide an instant answer while demanding nothing from the user other than to first pose a ques-tion, presents a number of advantages.
A chatbot can hold multiple conversations with multi-ple users simultaneously. It saves precious time for increasingly impatient, increasingly demanding consumers. It makes browsing through page after page of a website in search of an answer a thing of the past. A chatbot brings your FAQs to life by guiding users through a series of questions to gather the infor-mation needed to understand what they want and serve up the appropriate content.
The most advanced AI-guided bots can take this further and can deliver responses tailored to the individual. Butfirstandforemost,achatbotisadigitalexten-sion of its brand. Its tone, vocabulary and turn of phrase must be in tune with the organisation’s corporate identity.
If built around the brand and executed correctly, a bot will bring your customers closer to your business. Once it’s been configured and trained, a chatbot becomes a smart conversational agent. It can automate simple customer service or deliver tailored support and res-ponses such as making product recommendations or highlighting specific services in line with an individual’s wants or tastes.
WHAT ARE THEY FOR?
Chatbots exist to simplify the conversation between brands and consumers. At present they fall into five broad categories in terms of use case that TSC
classifies as: commercial; customer service; experien-tial; entertainment; and human resources.
Happy customersBetter experience.
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Chatbots exist to simplify the conversation between brands and consumers“ ”
WHERE DO WE FIND THEM?
Increasingly, the chatbot’s natural habitat is the mes-saging app, where direct integration is now the norm. This is a huge boon for businesses. These platforms are quick becoming the communication interface of choice for consumers – WeChat, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp have a combined 4.6 billion active users. This means that consumers don’t have to down-load yet another app to access a chatbot, or complete a registration form and create yet another account and password to get started.
It also means that once open, the channel stays open. While a user is busy chatting to a friend on Messenger, they can also interact with a chatbot on the same plat-form to book an Uber or order pizza. The experience is seamless and natural, no switching between apps or screens required.
WHEN DID THEY APPEAR?
Chatbots predate the PC. Work by MIT on the first, christened Eliza, started in 1964 but it is in this century that the wave a technological progress washed the first virtual agents ashore. This tide has continued coming
in, giving us Facebook’s Messenger chatbot integration in 2016, plus genuine progress in the field of artificial intelligence. This has enabled chatbots to do more than simply articulate a list of FAQs.
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Like everything from PCs to tablets, chatbots have tra-velled along the adoption curve and passed through the hype cycle. They arrived with fanfare in 2016. They hit their peak of unreasonable expectations in 2017. Now they’re moving along the curve towards maturity
thanks to an acceptance of past disappointments and an understanding of their true capabilities. Chatbots are not a magic wand, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t have a magical effect on your business.
THE THREE TYPES OF CHATBOTS
There are three chatbot types: Basic; Intelligent; and Hybrid. “Basic” chatbots are designed around simple decision trees that guide users through a series of pre-set questions. “Intelligent” chatbots understand natural language and are endowed with artificial intel-ligence. There are also “Hybrid” chatbots that occupy the space between intelligent and basic and that com-bine scripts and AI but require human intervention in more complex cases.
No category is better than another. A basic chat-bot is simple to build and needs the least technical development. However, each potential question and answer combination has to have been anticipated at the pre-development stage.
Basic chatbots don’t make mistakes because they’re providing specific responses to specific questions. Yet they’re limited in terms of customer experience. A basic chatbot means that users have no latitude in the way they ask questions or on the subject of those questions.
An intelligent chatbot is big on experience because it gives users the freedom to ask the types of questions they want, the way they want to ask them. But to deli-ver that type of customer experience requires not just a more complex design and development phase, but also a learning phase where the bot is trained to deli-ver the expected customer outcomes.
LEARNING TO CONVERSE MORE EFFECTIVELY
The importance of the learning and training phase is often underestimated and has resulted in brands launching chatbots that have not been thoroughly tested. If a bot cannot understand a request, it cannot provide the appropriate answer.
For example, French newspaper Nice Matin has been very open about why its intelligent chatbot, Tibot, failed to deliver and was taken offline. Its development team didn’t spend sufficient time analysing how the publication’s user community communicate – i.e. the type of vocabulary and approach to spelling. So the bot wasn’t trained for these outcomes. Secondly, upon
launch the publication didn’t make it clear exactly what Tibot was there to do. Users presumed they were talk-ing to a journalist and got some interesting answers as a result.
Such experiences highlight the emphasis companies like TSC place on fully evaluating all parameters, from the diversity of situation, to vocabulary and brand identity, before deciding on a basic or intelligent chat-bot. “Ultimately, for many clients the solution isn’t one or the other,” explains Josselin Moreau, TSC’s Head of Strategic Planning. “In many cases the challenge is to deliver a seamless blend of both – a hybrid chatbot.”
CHATBOTS, A MATURING MARKET TO BE HANDLED WITH CARE
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ANALYSING MISTAKES
Thanks to the experience that comes with dozens of successful chatbot implementations, we are in a strong position to point out the pitfalls to avoid for brands serious about building a solution that delivers a va-lue-added customer experience.
The first mistake organisations make is thinking that a bot can handle every aspect of their existing customer relationship management.
A chatbot’s real talents lie in smoothing, simplifying and enhancing a specific element of customer service; one usually being handled by a different channel. The most effective bots are those designed to operate in specific situations.
Yet, even with a focused approach, it can be easy to get it wrong. “It is a lot easier to make an appointment by selecting a date and a time using a dedicated interface than via a series of questions and answers,” explains Moreau. “If your bot is focused totally on conversatio-nal excellence and doesn’t take into account situations such as multiple choice questions or the interface within a chat window, that bot will fail.”
Therefore, don’t build a bot that tries to do too much. The best chatbot does one thing and it does it better than any other interface.
THE CUSTOMER RELATIONS BENEFITS OF CHATBOTS
From optimal use of time, enhanced user service and customer knowledge, to instant chat, each of a chat-bot’s strengths can be deployed in customer care support. Juniper Research estimates that by 2023, chatbots will be saving 27 billion customer service hours, annually.
Bots’ round-the-clock availability eases the burden on contact centre agents. They in turn are freed up to focus on handling high-value interactions where empathy and emotion are crucial to delivering a differentiated customer experience. And as all chat-
bot conversations are logged, the organisation conti-nues to gain valuable insights into customer beha-viour and expectations.
Likewise, a chatbot can prequalify and stream cus-tomers. It answers initial questions before connec-ting a customer to a contact centre agent who will already have all the relevant information to answer a question or solve a problem thanks to the chatbot conversation logs.
A chatbot’s real talents lie in smoothing, simplifying and enhancing a specific element of customer service“ ”
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THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS: THE ENHANCED HUMAN
Chatbots’ understanding of complex queries will continue to improve in line with advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP) to the point where a bot could one day be capable of conducting a 100% human conversation.
Today that future reality is still some distance away. NPL does add an extra layer of engagement and cus-tomer experience. However, to deliver, a bot that uses NPL needs to operate within a clearly targeted range of vocabulary, and where there is a narrow path along which to guide a user in terms of question range.
One of TSC’s major convictions is that the chatbot is a step towards the enhanced customer care advisor who is free to focus on delivering high-value interac-tions. A person has the emotional intelligence and the understanding of feelings needed to address complex issues. A bot has the ability to constantly and consistently execute simple, repetitive tasks.
Even in an increasingly digital world, it is impossible to imagine customer service without human empathy and understanding at its heart. It will be down to the market to learn how to best integrate the human touch with automation.
The rush to market in 2016 saw a lot of players and even more experimentation in the field of chatbots. Two years later this frantic activity has settled, resul-ting in a clearer view of the platforms and professionals capable of helping deliver the right solution.
Nevertheless, the quality of a chatbot is only as good as the auditing and vetting process in terms of resources and solutions that precedes it.
Two years ago, chatbots were unable to live up to the hype or to meet brands’ expectations. Today with the right expertise in place, they are ready to deliver.
A person has the emotional intelligence and the understanding of feelings needed to address complex issues. A bot has the ability to constantly and consistently execute simple, repetitive tasks
“”
Happy customersBetter branding.
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HOW TO DESIGN AND ENHANCE YOUR CHATBOT2.1
JOSSELIN MOREAU
A CHATBOT ADAPTED TO EACH SITUATION
When building a chatbot, never forget that what users want above all is simple, effective interac-tion. Never cut-and-paste content from another channel, but always think through all potential problems in the pre-design phase.
Chatbot design should be based on customer need and informed by the type of experience a brand is seeking to deliver. For these reasons, as well as poten-tial benefits, each potential risk the project presents needs to be clearly identified and mitigated at the inception stage – before design begins in earnest.
A chatbot will not exist in isolation and therefore it cannot be designed in isolation. That’s why a brand must consider the customer journey as a whole and
understand clearly where conversation and automa-tion will be situated within it.
The technology needs to reflect what the business is aiming to achieve. How will it integrate into the organisation’s existing ecosystem? Does the choice of chatbot type reflect intended goals? For example, if the ultimate aim is to automate a repetitive task, a chat-bot capable of conducting a meaningful conversation could complicate the project unnecessarily.
The next key consideration is the hosting platform. Will the chatbot be delivered via one of the messaging apps already installed on the majority of consumers’ smartphones; or will it be hosted via a proprietary solution such as the brand’s own app or website?
CHOICE OF PLATFORM
Facebook Messenger may be able to boast 300,000 chatbots on its platform, but that doesn’t mean it is ne-cessarily adapted to the goals of all brands. For a B2B or HR chatbot, a messaging app could be a turn off. Not everyone is comfortable with using the same channel for personal and professional communication, and this could mean getting user buy-in is a challenge.
In such cases, it would be better to develop a chatbot around a website, proprietary app or a B2B messaging service. But a messaging app doesn’t always tick every box for B2C use either. There could be interface or se-curity shortfalls depending on the type of experience the brand is looking to achieve.
From Messenger and WeChat, to Twitter, Business Chat and Slack, there has never been so much choice for a brand looking for a platform to sup-port its chatbot.
Facebook’s latest innovation is a new plugin called Customer Chat. It enables an organisation to integrate Messenger into its own website with the same features and conversation threads as the smartphone app. But Facebook isn’t the only entity innovating in this space. Each of the major players offers tools and features that make it easier for any brand serious about building a chatbot to meet its objectives.
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CONVERSATIONAL CUSTOMER CARE
When conversing with a bot, customers need to feel like they’re talking naturally to your brand. A clear defi-nition of the chatbot’s identity – one in phase with the brand’s values and reflective of customer experience across its other channels – should be incorporated at the design phase.
How will it sound? Will it use a formal or colloquial English? Will it have a sense of humour? Is it going to have a masculine, feminine or robotic persona? A brand needs to answer each one of these questions, and decide if the bot will have a visual representation, in order to deliver the desired experience.
Every organisation needs to adapt the tone and vocabulary to its own brand universe and the image it wishes to project. A conversation is a direct and engaging interaction for both business and customer alike and its impact can be major in terms of brand perception. It can create further points of contact and foster greater loyalty. And it starts with a feeling.
An exchange needs to generate positive emotions. Therefore, a brand should focus carefully on the substance and form of the customer’s experience with the chatbot.
A conversation is a direct and engaging interaction for both business and customer alike and its impact can be major in terms of brand perception
“ ”
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With over 1.5 billion active users and counting, plus a daily message count of 65 billion, the business appeal of WhatsApp is clear to see.
After an initial 12-month pilot that saw 3 mil-lion small-to-medium-sized enterprises join the platform via a dedicated app, WhatsApp has officially launched its communications solution for larger organisations. It’s called the WhatsApp Business API and it rolled out in August 2018. Organisations can use it to send what WhatsApp defines as quality interactions – notifications, delivery times, payment receipts and information related to purchases. But they can only use it if the customer in question has already shared his or her phone number.
The idea is that unlike an automated SMS; each of these messages is more than just an alert. It’s an opportunity for a conversation as the customer can respond.
However, businesses cannot use this paid-for service to push purely promotional content.
Nor can they use it to continually attempt to engage customers in conversation. There is a 24-hour window in which businesses can respond to a customer question or maintain an existing conversation thread. Beyond that timeframe, an organisation has to pay an extra charge to keep talking.
“This business model puts a premium on quality interaction,” explains Josselin Moreau. “It forces brands to be efficient, proactive and to focus squarely on their customer care.”
Whether it’s WhatsApp Business App for smaller firms or Business API for enterprise use, brands now have the possibility of rea-ching a projected 2 billion consumers by the end of 2018.
WhatsApp is the app for meaningful conver-sation with people that mean something to the user. Now by opening the platform to business, it could become the app for mea-ningful conversations with brands that mean something to the user, too.
WHAT’S UP WITH WHATSAPP?
Happy customersBetter trust.
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FOCUS ON CHATBOT ROLL-OUT2.2
There can never be enough testing. Even if your brand is more than familiar with your customers’ mindsets, there will still be surprises, therefore the aim should be for a chatbot capable of adapting to these often improbable situations
“”
GEOFFREY BOULAKIA
THE IMPORTANCE OF CONVERSATIONAL ARCHITECTURE
In 2018, a chatbot needs to be able to maintain a conversation with a user and add value to the cus-tomer experience.
To do this a bot has to be solid, reliable, adaptable and crucially, ‘educated’. To be truly effective a bot needs to be taught by dedicated ‘bot trainers’.
Planning the bot’s conversational architecture forcesabrandtoconsidereverydifferentscenarioit could potentially handle.
From FAQ analysis to web and archival research, it means collecting and collating all the data needed to construct conversational paths and to understand the reasons why a customer contacts your customer service.
These findings will enable you to build the detailed dialogue and storyboards needed and to do so within the context of the overall customer journey.
Once the bot and its back office have been developed they need to be integrated into the existing IT environ-ment. Then, if it’s an intelligent chatbot using NLP, it needs to be trained.
Each phase – architectural design, development, testing and roll-out – must comply with specific pro-duction processes to ensure success.
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A TESTING TIME
Initial in-house testing is undertaken to ensure the chatbot’s stability and to enhance its linguistic skills.
Each conversation scenario is tested, one after the other. The bot must understand intentions and words thatmay have differentmeanings depen-ding on context. And it must be able to leverage its own conversational history to prompt or steer a user. An additional testing phase with users will then further refine performance.
There can never be enough testing. Even if your brand is more than familiar with your customers’ mindsets, there will still be surprises. Therefore, the aim should be for a chatbot capable of adapting to these often im-probable situations.
The greater the use of NLP, the greater the scope for conversation and the greater the need for testing and training. Hence it’s crucial to set performance expectation levels right at the beginning of the pro-cess. The analysis of initial conversations initiated with an NLP-powered bot will serve as the benchmark for
evaluating performance thresholds and for setting the next set of benchmarks as well as planning how to achieve them.
When it comes to education, bots can be trained by IT developers or project leaders. But the best teachers are those people who have the greatest familiarity with a company’s brand, its customers, their contact drivers and their expectations – i.e. customer advisors.
TSC and Sitel Group are convinced this expertise should be harnessed and industrialised for chatbot training and have created a “Bot Trainer” interface. It enables advisors to train and calibrate chatbots to bet-ter understand and respond to customer questions.
But no matter how intelligent your chatbot, its per-formance should be measured in terms of how useful customers find it. Developing a chatbot is one thing, training and fine-tuning it so that it meets or surpasses user expectations is another entirely.
NEW ROLES
Far from removing humans from customer relations, chatbots are actually creating new roles in design and training.
CHATBOT DESIGNER Anticipates conversations in or-der to design the related cus-tomer paths and imagine what users might do.
CHATBOT COPYWRITER Writes dialogue and gives life to the chatbot’s conversational identity.
BOT TRAINER ‘Educates’ the chatbot by teaching it how to understand customer Q&As formulated in natural lan-guage. This training usually conti-nues beyond the roll-out phase.
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REVISITING CHATBOT FAMILIES3.1
Whether hosted on Facebook Messenger, WeChat, Viber, or on a brand’s on website, bots can be deployed for a huge variety of different reasons, yet they can all be categorised by a small number of use cases.
At TSC, we have identified five broad families of chatbots based around their primary uses:
• the service chatbot which provides the user with a specific service;• the commerce chatbot which performs a commercial transaction;• the experiential chatbot which delivers an experience;• the entertainment chatbot; and• the HR chatbot: The latest thing
Many companies are beginning to realise the benefits of deploying virtual HR assistants. They are always available to answer generic employee questions relating to subjects such as training or holiday entitlement. They also free up time for HR managers to focus on business critical activities. HR chatbots reflect a growing trend of perceiving and treating employees as internal customers and therefore delivering them a quality customer service. This now extends to potential employees with chatbots being used to converse with job applicants and for presenting the company to new hires.
SERVICE CHATBOT
COMMERCE CHATBOT
EXPERIENTIAL CHATBOT
ENTERTAINMENT CHATBOT
HR CHATBOT
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THE EXPERIENTIAL CHATBOTFondation Ramsay: helping the nation’s health
THE CHALLENGE
In June 2017 with the launch of a dedicated Facebook page, French healthcare specialist Fondation Ramsay started a long-term public information initiative focused on health and prevention. It shared useful advice aimed at people of all ages on topics such as co-ping with heatwaves, exam stress, cancer treatments and allergies.
To strengthen its position in the prevention sector fur-ther, the Foundation decided to follow up with a chat-bot. It could be proactive in providing help and advice on the healthcare subjects about which the French pu-blic were most concerned.
THE SOLUTION
Encouraged by the effectiveness of an earlier quit smoking chatbot designed by TSC in 2016, the Foundation turned again to the agency to launch a healthcare support companion.
To identify the health and prevention subjects that needed to take precedent, TSC developed an inno-vative protocol. It conducted a social listening cam-paign that collected and collated two years’ worth of data from social networks, plus health and prevention forums.
The agency then engaged in social listening on the three most popular healthcare topics identified to properly understand how they preoccupied the pu-blic and the types of questions being asked. “The idea was to analyse the main conversations and subjects by theme,” explains TSC senior digital consultant, Ahmed Hadjar. “We managed to identify the major concerns around three themes: stress, stopping smoking and a balanced diet.”
The information gathered was fed into the chat-bot while responses to questions were drafted and
validated by the members of Ramsay’s Scientific Committee, lending them the full weight of the brand’s authority.
The chatbot, which can be accessed on Ramsay’s Health and Prevention Facebook page or its website, allows users to freely ask questions. It uses NLP to pro-cess the request and propose an appropriate answer.
It also offers three routes – one per subject – to better potential health outcomes for users. After answering a series of questions about their current lifestyle, in-terests and hobbies, the chatbot provides users with a path to a goal, assigning them tasks and challenges along the way and featuring resources including web content, video and expert advice.
For instance, if a user wants to quit smoking for 30 days, the chatbot will send him or her daily advice, and will also provide weekly feedback to help maintain mo-tivation. If the user’s will power is beginning to falter, the chatbot can also sound the alarm and start propo-sing solutions to help turn things around.
A testimonies section allows people to share their experiences in relation to the different themes and to encourage users to stick with it. This is all precious earned content for the Foundation which it shares on its Facebook page. RESULTS
Officially launched on 1st November, the chatbot is in its initial phase, allowing users to access informa-tion and set goals around the three identified health themes. However, because it has been designed to be scalable from the outset, the chatbot’s capabilities will soon grow to offer advice and guidance on more health-related matters.
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THE COMMERCE CHATBOTGemo: giving customer service a new look
THE CHALLENGE
French prêt-à-porter label Gemo was formed in 1991 and today boasts 460 outlets across the country. It was looking to win new customers – especially millennials – and enhance its brand image in their eyes, by providing a unique and innovative service. At the same time it also wanted to create an impac-tful omnichannel experience that would drive future in-store traffic.
THE SOLUTION
In partnership with TSC, Gemo came up with Lookbot, a chatbot designed to provide customers with a personal shopping experience. Based on the answers to a few questions on the theme of "my holiday suit-case", Lookbot gives customers personal style advice and a selection of four or five suitable products avai-lable to order from the website. Consumers can then choose to answer more questions to align the selec-tions even further with their personal style.
As well as designing the chatbot’s conversational paths, Gemo and TSC worked together to define the identity and personality of Lookbot down to its tone of voice.
What’s more, Lookbot is complementary to existing channels. It allows users to speak directly to a sales adviser with access to all of the exchange history, at any time during the interaction.
RESULTS
During the chatbot’s campaign run, 70% of people attracted to this new way of shopping were new to the brand.
With Lookbot, Gemo was presented with a new way of listening to customers and understanding what they want in terms of styles, tastes, budget, and brand ex-pectation. Furthermore, three-in-four Lookbot users declared the experience satisfactory.
Lookbot is complementary to existing channels. It allows users to speak directly to a sales adviser at any time during the interaction who has access to all of the exchange history
“”
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THE COMMERCE CHATBOTLidl: the virtual wine waiter that always serves the right bottle
THE CHALLENGE
German supermarket chain Lidl has been hosting wine fairs in France for the past 15 years. It was looking to enhance its user experience by making it easier for customers to familiarise themselves with its range of over 140 products.
Therefore, the chatbot’s mission was perfectly clear: help customers find that perfect bottle, whatever the occasion. For Lidl, this was a way of taking shoppers on a voyage of discovery through the entire breadth of its wine cellar.
THE SOLUTION
Lidl turned to TSC to develop Balthus. He is a chatbot wine waiter who answers questions in a hearty, frien-dly tone reflecting the supermarket’s brand image of approachability and inclusiveness.
Accessible via Lidl’s Facebook page and on Facebook Messenger, Balthus asks users questions on topics such as price, grape variety, region and the type of occasion, to make the best wine recommendations.
If a suggestion hits the spot, the customer just needs to click once to find the closest Lidl store that has it in stock, or can choose to order the bottle online instead.
RESULTS
Balthus has clearly found the right tone with cus-tomers. During September 2017 he gave advice to 4,800 unique customers and clocked up 40,000 inte-ractions in the process. The company now intends to roll out its wine waiter chatbot for each of its future wine fairs and during the Christmas period.
The chatbot’s mission was perfectly clear: help customers find that perfect bottle, whatever the occasion“ ”
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THE SERVICE CHATBOTAgipito: the chatbot that makes complicated things simple
THE CHALLENGE
Agipi is mutual insurance company that offers pen-sions, life, and health insurance solutions to individuals and businesses.
As part of a campaign to attract new members, Agipi wanted a bot that could help people assess their own insurance needs and easily understand the company’s offerings.
THE SOLUTION
TSC helped the brand to develop a chatbot accessible on Facebook Messenger and on the Agipi website by using Facebook’s Customer Chat Plugin. It was built around a clear decision tree that set out each of the company’s offers tailored to prospective and existing customers.
To make certain of a seamless experience, TSC came up with a graphical style that would reflect Agipi’s strategy, brand image and existing visual assets. Then, to drive traffic to the chatbot, the agency also made a promotional video.
RESULTS
Agipi is using the specially adapted back office to track the click rate on individual pathways to understand which products and offerings most align with poten-tial and existing customers. It is using this information to calibrate promotional activities and to add new features to the chatbot.
The chatbot was developed around a decision tree setting out all of the different offers tailored to prospects and members“ ”
Happy customersBetter service.
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THE SERVICE CHATBOTDirect Energie: taking customer experience into account
THE CHALLENGE
Choosing an electricity or gas supplier is one of, if not the key moment in the utilities brand-customer rela-tionship. Every step of the process can be a source of stress for the customer and a strategic opportunity for the organisation.
Direct Energie wanted a solution that would signi-ficantlyenhance thecustomerexperienceduringthese critical moments. It would provide an addi-tional, personal round-the-clock customer relations communication channel, optimised for handling large numbers of enquiries.
THE SOLUTION
Direct Energie initially partnered with TSC to design a scripted chatbot that enables customers to follow each step to creating an account; from choosing a password and setting up their online dashboard andprofile,toknowingexactlywhentheiraccountwouldgoliveandtheyofficiallybecomecustomers.
By deploying a balanced push/pull strategy, the brand can also use the chatbot to send out useful further
information to users who are then free to respond if they wish.
RESULTS
This chatbot has more than 10,000 users, over half of whom completed the questionnaire at the end of the process, giving it a 95% satisfaction rating.
On the basis of its own satisfaction with TSC, Direct Energie is now developing a new chatbot – this time focused on customer care - that will leverage LUIS natural language processing and will launch in 2019. This conversational bot will initially help customers deal with their most common queries such as the date and amount of their next bill, but its scope could be expanded to cover contract amendments and transac-tions, too.
Direct Energie wants this to be a “trans-channel” chat-bot. It will launch on its mobile app, which already has its own conversation channel, before being rolled out to the website and to Facebook Messenger.
By deploying a balanced push/pull strategy, the brand can also use the chatbot to send out useful further information to users who are then free to respond if they wish
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THE ENTERTAINMENT AND HR CHATBOTVinci: Using a chatbot to activate job applicants
THE CHALLENGE
In March 2017, Vinci Group, the world’s largest construction company based on revenues, launched a corporate campaign called ‘You’ll be Glad You Chose Us’. It was aimed at raising its profile as an employer. The group wanted to attract the brightest and best new talent by aligning its values and qualities with those of potential employees. The campaign was built around five adjectives and five related challenges: audacious; curious; ambitious; generous; and creative. The idea being that anyone interested in working for Vinci could undertake one of the challenges, discove-ring more about themselves and about the Vinci brand in the process.
THE SOLUTION
TSC designed a multilingual conversational chat-bot accessible on Messenger to embody the cam-paignandofferpotentialemployeesanimmersivedigital brand experience via the challenges.
Once a user chooses to undertake a challenge, the bot reveals more about the campaign and then poses questions based around one of the five adjectives. Getting all of the questions right means being entered into a draw with a chance to win a prize.
Thechatbotusesgamificationtoprolong interac-tions. It memorises scores, tracks progress within a challenge and can prompt users to continue on their quest or to undertake another mission. It also enables participants to email Vinci directly if they have questions; or to click through to the company’s recruit-ment site to learn more about careers on offer.
RESULTS
ThechatbotsignificantlyraisedVinci’sbrandawar-eness and garnered mainstream media atten-tion in the process. But more importantly, it also enabled the brand to make a connection with and recruit people with qualities and values in line with the business. It was particularly effective at attracting engineers, sales people and those that put a premium on innovation.
The campaign ran for three weeks during which time the chatbot conducted 1,000 unique conversations. Over 75% of challenges set were completed, and the company saw a continued increase in the number of interactions it has with potential employees via Messenger.
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THE SERVICE AND ENTERTAINMENT CHATBOTAtonservix: the first AI-enhanced character in a theme park
THE CHALLENGE
Compagnie des Alpes owns 11 of the world’s largest ski resorts and 13 theme parks and tourist attractions throughout the French-speaking world. They welcome a combined 26 million+ visitors a year and as such, the company is always looking for ways to make its visitor experience more exciting, immersive and effortless.
As part of reinventing the customer experience at Parc Astérix, the Parisian theme park dedicated to the comic book character of the same name (whose adventures have been translated into 100 languages, sold in excess of 325 million copies and inspired 13 films), Compagnie des Alpes wanted a very specific customer experience solution. It had to deliver uniformity across channels so that customers always received the same quality of information; simplicity of use to remove friction or pain points; and personalisation in order to build stronger relationships.
The company was also clear that it wanted a solution that was able to help visitors before, during and after a visit; and that could just as easily be used by the theme park’s personnel to aid them in their work.
THE SOLUTION
Over nine months, TSC worked with Compagnie des Alpes to design Atonservix (“at your service” in Asterix’s language), an intelligent conversational chatbot to meet this challenge.
“This was a unique challenge. It meant imagining a real personality, in the brand’s image,” explains Geoffrey Boulakia. “But also taking an innovative tech-nological approach, so users receive an immersive experience but above all, a real service.”
To achieve this, a full analysis of data from the park’s contact centre, website and Facebook page was required. This was supplemented with qualitative
interviews with personnel to understand exactly what sorts of questions visitors have or potential problems they encounter.
At the same time, TSC performed an ecosystem audit. This was to understand the theme park’s existing systems and to ensure that during benchmarking of available Natural Language Processing (NLP) engines, the solution that best fit the brief and the existing infrastructure was chosen.
“The client wanted to deploy the solution quickly with the idea of evolving the bot over time and replicating it at other sites,” says Boulakia. “This meant that a lot of forethought and planning was necessary in the pre-development phase to ensure we built a solution in support of those future goals.”
The client also wanted the chatbot to homogenise, not replace existing channels. So while Atonservix brings a welcome self-care dimension and is capable of han-dling large volumes of enquiries, it can also seamlessly hand a user over to an agent at any time during an interaction.
RESULTS
Within two weeks of its soft launch in June, Atonservix was helping 2,000 users via 35,000 interactions, and had answered 6,400 questions. Compagnie des Alpes expects the chatbot to interact with 200,000 visitors in 2019 and to be able to answer a minimum of 220 different intentions. Even now it is capable of tailoring its responses based on the user’s profile and specific needs – whether visiting alone, with friends or small children for example. It can also leverage geo-positional and sensor data to give live updates on queuing times at certain rides or help visitors find the fastest route around the park to their attraction of choice.
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MEET ATONSERVIX!
The user’s first experience of ATONSERVIX is a welcome message from the helpful and engaging character who wants to be their theme park companion.
PREPARING THE VISIT
Before the visit begins, ATONSERVIX gives the park’s opening hours and suggests different itineraries based on different modes of transport.
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PERSONALISED ADVICE
Users receive personalised information so that they make the most of their visit. If they’re coming with children, for example, ATONSERVIX can highlight age-appropriate rides and direct them to shows and restaurants.
WAITING TIMES
Waiting times are a big factor when choosing rides and ATONSERVIX provides them in real time.
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GPS
Lost in the park? Don’t panic! ATONSERVIX can also guide users to a ride or a show or simply to the toilets.
ADAPTED RESPONSES BASED ON NLP
He is never short of ideas and can handle a host of queries directly, such as if you can picnic in the park or what you need to know about the Pass Rapidus bus pass.
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OTHER CHATBOTS WE LIKE3.2
There’s nothing more frustrating than having to reply to dozens of questions on personality, tastes and passions, when we are looking for a partner.
That’s why Meetic is betting on its chatbot Lara, the first online dating assistant,to make customers’ lives easier and convert more prospects into users.
The robot collects simple data about customers through a discussion that culminates in recommended profiles for potential dates. The user describes their ideal person and Lara links the criteria to existing profiles in the database through selections made using a decision tree.
The chatbot uses an open question and answer dialogue so as not to limit users’ search criteria. This means it required a
long design and development process that needed a major user testing phase to ensure a minimal failure rate and to boost the bot’s intelligence.
Also, by developing a more human tone, and ensuring that Lara responds a litt-le less quickly (so it appears as if she’s thinking), Meetic boosted the bot’s perfor-mance by 10%.
Lara interacts with 400,000 users a mon-th in 10 different languages. She can be accessed via Meetic’s website and Messenger account and interaction with Lara is 30% more efficient than filling out a standard online form.
So, instead of a whirlwind romance, Meetic is counting on a long-term relationship.
THE FIRST ONLINE DATING ASSISTANT
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Since 2015, French start-up Jam has been deploying one of the country’s busiest conversational chatbots. Available on Facebook Messenger and aimed mostly at Millennials, it provides round-the-clock ideas on what to do in the French capital from exhibitions to the best bars.
It has grown into a lifestyle assistant that can now give recipe suggestions, tell jokes, and even act as a motivational speaker sending users phrases that reflect the brand’s philosophy of “two minutes a day for a sharper view of the world”.
Jam was quick to spot the potential of Messenger for growing its business given younger people’s penchant for instant messaging and now intends to make its chatbot its main distribution channel.
As a testimony to its success, Jam was one of three French companies chosen by Facebook to have their bot deployed on Chat Extensions. This feature allows the start-up’s conversational agent to be used directly in user group discussions on Messenger.
The company has now launched a B2B offering based on automated conversa-tional surveys. The chatbot can quiz Millennials and brands can use the findingstogettoknowthisgenerationbetter. With 450,000 users – 100,000 of whom are daily users – Jam sends 2 million messages a week.
THE CHATBOT THAT MOTIVATES MILLENNIALS
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CONCLUSION
FROM CHATBOTS TO VOICEBOTS
Chatbots are far from a fad. They’re becoming a vital, omnipresent solution for brands and consumers looking for constantly enhanced experiences. They mark the beginning of the conversational business era, a new chapter in the relationship between humans and machines where the act of conversa-tion becomes a value-added business asset.
Since 2016, the chatbot ecosystem has matured qui-ckly and in doing so pulled into sharp focus their true potential and their potential uses. This image is only going to get sharper still as the technology develops further and more global players move into the market.
The future of conversational agents looks bright. There is a chatbot for any business need or strategy and it can be adapted to any customer situation or profile. They are now delivering on their early promise - giving customers the growing levels of responsiveness, personalisation and simplicity they increasingly crave. As such chatbots will continue to drive change in the customer-brand relationship.
From being on the periphery to occupying centre stage, all of the major obstacles related to platforms and channels that may have prevented a chatbot from taking a starring role in your customer relations, have now been overcome.
We can design chatbots for each of the major plat-forms – from Messenger, Telegram, or Skype to Workplace and Slack – as well as for other conversatio-nal channels such as a brand’s own website or app. The unifying technology means that regardless of channel or platform, it’s now possible to simplify the vetting of customer requests while ensuring an improvement in customer experience.
Likewise, these platform capabilities are set for enhan-cement with the launch of new formats such as Apple Business Chat and Google’s RCS. Both can add fur-ther value to content displayed as text on smartphone screens, be it interactive maps or visual representa-tions of boarding cards or cinema tickets. Therefore they’re yet another opportunity for brands to enrich the customer relationship.
But even without leveraging Google’s latest innova-tion, brands need to think about how they leverage conversational business technology. What was once the pinnacle of customer experience is now the norm. Chatbots represent a crucial technological tool for any business serious about keeping customers satisfied any hour of the day.
Messaging apps are fast becoming the preferred way for consumers of all ages to communicate with brands and research shows that on average, a person is not prepared to wait more than 12 minutes for a response to a question sent by social channels.
And while chatbots currently have the leading role in conversational business, they’re not the only actors. The surging popularity of smart speaker systems from Amazon Echo and Google Home Assistant to Apple HomePod mean that voicebots are now waiting in the wings. And while voicebot design has its own unique features (see the TSC White Paper on Voice for further information), like chatbots, they use a conversational interface and make life easier for users, which in turn creates added value and even more opportunities for brands to build a closer relationship.
GEOFFREY BOULAKIA
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With 75,000 employees – including 25,000 in Europe – across 150 sites in 27 countries, Sitel Group contact centres are populated by multilingual teams that strive daily for operational excellence. Our global presence, combined with our local knowledge and flexibility, plus our 48 working languages, allow us to respond quickly to business needs and market changes across industry sectors – whenever and wherever they occur.
A Digital CX agency incubated within the Sitel Group, TSC specialises in Customer Relations Innovation. From conversational business expertise and chatbots, to social networking and managing communities, our team of 50 digital experts, data analysts, designers and creative IT experts is dedicated to building trust-based customer ecosystems and has the flexibility and daring needed to turn your projects into real-world solutions .
PHASES IN A CONVERSATIONAL PROJECT
General conversational architecture
IT Audit
Content
Dialogue and storyboards
Identity
FRAMEWORK
Development
Integration
Education
Testing and revision
Creating connections between the channels
Launch campaigns
Ongoing development
PRODUCTION HELLO, WORLD
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Earlsdon Park,53-55 Butts Rd,Coventry CV1 3BHUnited Kingdom
Sales contact UKI+44 (0) 800 444 [email protected]://tsc.digital
CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS WHITE PAPER:
TSC IS A COMPANY OF
Deputy General Manager EMEA of TSC
Head of Strategic Planning at TSC
President and Founder of Sitel Group
LAURENT UBERTI GEOFFREY BOULAKIA JOSSELIN MOREAU
A graduate of Skema Business School, Laurent is President and Founder of Sitel Group, a company formed when his Acticall Group acquired Sitel in 2015.
Since the acquisition Uberti has suc-cessfully merged both companies’ DNA and, with an entrepreneurial mindset and digital vision, now leads a 75,000-employee-strong group cur-rently ranked in the top three in the world for BPO and customer care.
Uberti is heavily involved in promo-ting the Customer Care sector and was President of SP2C (French call centre professionals trade associa-tion) for nearly 10 years. He has also served as Vice-President of AFRC (French Customer Relations Associa-tion) and Vice-President of the French Association for the promotion and development of a Social Responsibility Label.
A graduate of EM Lyon business school, Geoffrey has been involved in relational marketing within digital agencies for over 10 years with a close focus on creative, social and technical innovation.
With the firm conviction that customer marketing was set to become one of the pillars of the user experience, he joined TSC in 2015 to be part of the agency’s rapid development. A true specialist in digital marketing and in integrating new forms of interaction within brands’ ecosystems, Geoffrey is passionate about communicating and promoting the agency’s team and its capabilities.
A graduate of Paris IX Dauphine University and CELSA, Josselin has over 10 years’ experience working in strate-gic planning with digital communica-tion agencies and has also co-founded an “Innovation Lab”.
A pioneer in adapting and applying new models of interaction to create cus-tomer experiences that add value, he joined TSC in 2017.
In his current role, Josselin is instru-mental in assisting brands that have a desire to innovate, to foster conversa-tion with their customers, and to tailor their marketing goals to customer expectations.
