Humanize Your Conversational Bot

If you manage to get your way around the paywall, this is a really fascinating report from Forrester. We contributed along with the brilliant folks at R/GA on one of our favorite topics. We believe pretty staunchly that bots shouldn’t try to trick a user into thinking they’re something they’re not (human), however that doesn’t mean it should be devoid of personality. In fact, personality is key to winning a user’s trust in a conversational interface.

Chatbot Market 2017: Stats, Trends, Size & Ecosystem Research

Anyone calling foul of the chatbot “hype,” read this. Great look at the hard evidence and numbers that chatbots are here to stay, and the future is conversational. The stats are great--like that “45% of end users prefer chatbots as the primary mode of communication for customer service inquiries,” however their graphic needs to be updated. C’mon BI! 

Tipping Point: Customer Service Remains a Conundrum for Too Many Companies

So interesting to see how the biggest challenges facing businesses with their customer service can be solved with a chatbot! Like better understanding your customer so as to provide context in a conversation based on that customer’s entire interaction with your company to date, that is a chatbot’s (at least ours) bread and butter. Truly, if you’re looking to turn to convert customer service from a cost center into a valuable step in the customer journey, 1 word: Chatbots.

The New Bank: How New Tech is Making Financial Services More Human

“Millennials trust technology more than they trust people.” Bold but true words. Clearly banking is in desperate need of a millennial makeover--and it’s clearly underway with FinTech startups like Qapital, etc., but do Chatbots have a dog in this fight? We generally think no--users would prefer a native app experience. Sure, they can be embedded, but then what’s the point? There goes half the value prop of a frictionless, no new download chatbot experience. What do you think about bots in banking?