Relationships on a human level
Nurturing relationships is critical to the survivability and sustainability of businesses. Connecting with customers on a human level enables brands to create meaningful relationships and build loyalty, trust and advocacy.
No longer are customers willing to be treated as a transaction. They expect brand interactions and communication to be fully on their terms: immediate, personalised, and at a time that suits them.
Chatbots are a brilliant digital tool that enable brands to engage with customers 24×7, providing them with the immediacy and convenience they want. Technological advancements in AI have elevated chatbots to greater levels of cognitive ability, to a point where interacting with them is virtually indistinguishable from a human-to-human engagement.
Reports and surveys often indicate that people prefer to speak with a human, and this will continue to be the case. However, the intelligence of today’s chatbots and their ability to be ‘human-like’ in their interactions shifts the dial to more widespread acceptance and use, and importantly to a much better customer experience.
Human comfort and confidence
There are several reasons why people prefer speaking with a human to get resolution to a query or answers to questions:
- A human will understand them on a human level, and be more sympathetic.
- They will be able to reason with a person but not a machine and therefore less likely to be given scripted, generic or irrelevant replies.
- The emotion/s they are feeling, whether it is distress, annoyance, anger or just neutral, will be acknowledged and factored into how the interaction is conducted and the outcome.
- The context of their issue will be understood.
Human interactions = human understanding
Understanding is at the heart of great communication. Over the past few years, technology has advanced at a rapid pace and in many instances when we are interacting online, it is hard to distinguish what is ‘machine’ and what is ‘human’.
AI, specifically cognitive conversational AI, is enabling businesses to have human-like interactions with customers that make them feel valued, listened to, and satisfied that their query and/or question has been resolved.
Chatbot intelligence
Today’s chatbots are so much more than pre-programmed fancy FAQs, presented in a different format than a word document.
- They are no longer robotic; they are highly dynamic, fluid and literate.
- They no longer have limited knowledge; they are constantly learning from past interactions and remember and adapt their behaviour over time.
- They are not restricted by language; they can understand and interpret both written and spoken human communication.
- They do not interpret in a vacuum or linearly; they understand context enabling the consideration of numerous factors and providing personalised, nuanced interactions.
Deeper understanding of human language
Modern conversational AI platforms, like Creative Virtual’s V-Studio platform, give brands the ability to deploy intelligent chatbots, powered by cognitive conversational AI systems. With a chatbot that learns, reasons, understands and interacts in a human-like manner, brands can deliver great customer experiences.
Creative Virtual’s V-Person chatbots, for example, are enabling organisations across many sectors – financial services, travel, retail, educational, insurance, government, charity to name a few – to engage with their customers which run into the millions, in a commercially and operationally viable way, maintaining a consistently high customer experience, and delivering the expected personalisation across every interaction no matter the channel.
V-Person chatbots, powered by the V-Studio platform can immediately address customer requirements, because they understand the context of conversations, eliminating the need for a ping-pong of communication with customer, elevates the interactions, ensures speedy resolution, and demonstrates the customer is known and valued.
Using the V-Studio platform, brands can engage with customers at any time, on the customer’s device and communication channel of choice, and without them having to wait ‘to be connected’. Brands and customers can be confident that the information they are given is accurate, and if using a retail chatbot, for example, complete a transaction in the knowledge it is completely safe and secure to do so.
