Category: Chat

What could surpass the bliss of welcoming new customers every day? A repeat customer.

Investing in your products or services is undoubtedly a thing with a hundred new customers marching toward your business. But studies show that about 13% of unhappy customers will share the word about their poor experience with over 20 people.

So, retaining existing customers and making sound efforts to turn them into return customers is the key.

That’s why businesses are all the rage about customer retention software. These are tool that helps them accentuate customer loyalty and establish a long-lasting relationship.

Let’s understand what this means and explore the top customer retention software.

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What is Customer Retention Software, and Why Is It Important?

Customer retention is an approach to turning existing customers into repeat or return buyers. This term implies the practices and tactics businesses use to retain their customers. Studies show that 5% increase in customer retention transforms into 25% — 95% higher profits.

Customer retention software is a tool that offers a tray of features, data, and useful insights that help you mold decision-making and taking actions to keep the customers on the page and prevent them from turning to your competitors.

A customer retention software can be beneficial for your business in the following ways:

• Increase in the number of purchases from existing customers
• Reduced customer churn
• Insights on customer engagement, behavioral patterns, and spending habits that guide your decisions in the right direction
• Boost in referrals
• Happy customers equal repeat customers

Businesses employ different customer retention strategies to attract customers and establish a lifetime of relationships with them. It is imperative to note that customer retention is different from lead generation.

The former is all about the approach dedicated to existing customers. It does that by collecting from every touchpoint and using it for profiling and segmenting customers, understanding their behavior, and various other aspects.

1. Kommunicate — Chatbot + Live chat

About 89% of companies treat customer service as a key to customer retention. One of the most deciding factors in customer retention is fleet-footed communication.

When a customer drops a query and receives a response within a blink, it makes for an ultimate ‘good’ impression. You might want to use an AI chatbot, and that’s why you should try Kommunicate.

Kommunicate is a customer service automation platform that makes an excellent option to create your own AI chatbot. You can schedule meetings, convert leads and provide 24/7 customer service using a chatbot.

The most incredible thing about this tool is that it allows for a human + chatbot hybrid option, making it easy to address and even reduce customer queries based on complexity. This platform establishes customer relationships and promises loyalty.

What we love about Kommunicate

• Option to create your own AI chatbot to boost automation and ensure 24/7 customer support
• Human + Chatbot hybrid model for managing customers efficiently
• Integrations with a broad range of platforms
• Reports and analytics help fetch insights on the effectiveness of chatbot, team performance, etc.

Free Trial for 30 Days

2. Mixpanel — Data Analysis

Mixpanel helps you keep every byte of customer-oriented data well-organized. You can collect, segment, refine and read the data of various types, including the number of new registrations. The software lets you check how well customers welcome the latest updates/ features you’ve introduced to your platform.

You can also see when customers have visited your platform or new customers have signed up the most. Moreover, you can use this customer engagement software to determine the time it has taken to retain a customer. On top of that, the software helps you check whether your customers are visiting your platform through paid ads or if it is organic traffic.

What we love about Mixpanel

• Collect, refine and analyze various types of data
• Organize retention data period-wise
• Determine the marketing move that works best for you
• Make more informed and more thoughtful decisions based on the valuable insights within the tool.

3. Optimove — Self Optimized Campaigns

Optimove allows you to enhance your customer retention journey with self-optimized campaigns. It lets you measure the data of each of your customer interactions within the tool. It makes a fantastic tool enabling omnichannel visibility and predictive modeling that boosts customer support.

One of the exciting things about Optimove is that it features cross-channel campaign management. Moreover, it also makes streamlining things more accessible with a calendar-based task tracking option.

You can also have a detailed view of each customer interacting with your business using the single customer view option.

What we love about Optimove

• Predictive analytics that helps discover trends.
• Identify target customers using advanced options.
• Schedule and organize various tasks with calendar-based management
• Automate marketing campaigns
• Smarter decision-making

4. LoyaltyGator — Enhanced Loyalty Programs

LoyaltyGator unlocks the opportunity to retain customers by leveraging loyalty programs. This easy-to-use and flexible web-based tool brings loyalty program solutions that allow you to customize your rewards programs for customers.

You can integrate your loyalty program with the system you are using or make LoyaltyGator’s stand-alone platform work for you.

This tool offers reports of customers and transactions, which help you obtain crucial insights into customers’ choices and spending habits.

It lets you group your customers based on their habits and preferences and customize your service accordingly.

What we love about LoyaltyGator

• Integrate customer loyalty programs to boost engagement
• LoyaltyGator stand-alone loyalty program solution
• An employee incentive program to a boost motivation
• Data analytics for insights on customer preferences and spending habits

5. Zendesk — Personalized Customer Interactions

Zendesk is one of the top customer retention software that allows you to have uninterrupted communication with your customers. You can leverage Zendesk to personalize your interaction with the customer.

The platform enables you to use the actions and preferences of customers to tailor your conversation. It paves the way for personalized alerts and notifications that customers can send. This automated functionality makes it easier for you to be proactive with your interactions and boosts employee productivity.

What we love about Zendesk

• Tailored communication with the customers
• Integration with various platforms
• Training sessions on the use of software
• Increased agent productivity

6. Kissmetrics — User Behaviour Tracking

If you’re looking for a tool that accelerates user behavior tracking and fetches insights on your customer’s journeys, then you might want to try Kissmetrics.

This customer retention management software helps ensure that your business attracts the right customers.

Kissmetrics is backed by many analysis and interpretation functionalities that allow you to discover the must-know checkpoints for a wonderful user experience.

The tool makes it quite effortless to interpret your website’s performance and see how a specific page is doing. These functions give you the window to remove obstacles and improve various areas.

What we love about Kissmetrics

• Track customer behavior in real-time and profile target audience
• Dashboard for an overview of various metrics
• Unleash useful features based on customer activity and preferences
• Identify churn rate

7. Qualaroo — Enhance Customer Experience

This comprehensive cloud-based software is perfect for you to up the game of customer experience with surveys. Qualaroo lets you create various surveys, enabling a steadfast collection of feedback and essential data.

The feedback obtained using these surveys is relatively straightforward and gives you a clear insight into how your customers react. So, it becomes notably seamless for you to identify and work on the areas that need a revamp.

What we love about Qualaroo

• Create different types of surveys with stunning templates in over 100 languages
• Find the most relevant data related to your customers and understand why they are signing up or exiting.
• Use built-in customization options and themes
• Integration with CRM and marketing tools

8. PEGA — Pre-built Customer Retention Campaigns

PEGA is yet another customer retention management software that helps minimize one-time retention costs and reduce customer churn. T

he tool offers big data analytics that helps you determine the budget for retaining each customer based on business value. The predictive analytics feature in PEGA lets you comprehend the needs and preferences of your customers.

The tool lets your customers tailor their packages with the dynamic building feature. It simplifies the process to better customer experience with pre-built customer retention campaigns.

Additionally, the software also has omni-channel functionality that allows your customers to choose the desired channel they want to interact with.

What we love about PEGA

• Seamless integrations with various systems, including PEGA’s order management application
• Personalized customer interactions
• Omni-channel communication
• Budget management

9. Qualtrics- Customer Behavior Forecasts

Qualtrics lets you utilize operational and user experience data to create customer behavior forecasts. It helps you decide and commence necessary actions to retain customers effectively.

The software comes with a customer support tool that allows you to discover the reasons behind customer churn. Other incredible features like multi-channel customer support and a ticketing system help you reap customer feedback.

Overall, it is a strong suite of features that speed up the errands related to customer retention management.

What we love about Qualtrics

• Compose different types of surveys using attractive graphics and randomization
• Choose from an array of built-in temples and over 85 types of questions
• Translations are available in over 48 languages
• Real-time communication with teams

10. Zoho CRM — Enhanced Customer Engagement

Zoho CRM is one of the most popular customer retention software out there. It lets you effectively get in touch with your existing and potential customers.

This tool makes an excellent platform for customer engagement across a slew of channels which boosts the scope for retention.

The software works on integrations with a number of Zoho tools, and that notably amps up the workflow.

One fantastic thing to note about Zoho CRM is that it has an option to turn routine sales work into contests which is a pretty interesting way to engage your team.

What we love about Zoho CRM

• Customer engagement using multiple channels such as social media, live chats, and email.
• Team collaboration in real-time
• Option to personalize messages
• Easy access to social media campaign activities with data centralization
• Seamless forecasting and allocation of targets
• Integration with Zoho tools for an unbothered experience

Get the Best Customer Retention Software for Your Business

Customer retention systems aim to manage the flow of customers and strengthen their trust in the brand effectively. Investing in customer retention software can attract years and years of faith and consistent show-up by many of your customers.

Each software mentioned on the list has something to benefit your workflow, teams, and overall customer service management.

This software’s most vital feature is reports and analytics that can turn the tables for you. And essential features like chatbot spruce up your customer service game in no time, which is a powerful way to turn your existing customers into happy customers. Isn’t it?

Try For Free

Originally Published at https://www.kommunicate.io/ on 20th August 2022

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10 Best Customer Retention Software You Must Try (2022) was originally published in Chatbots Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The goal for innovative and enterprising businesses is to be able to fully participate in the metaverse in order to have immersive interaction with their clients.. To this end industries like health, banking, event planning, retail, gaming and education are all looking for, and investing into artificial intelligence (AI) solutions so they can interact with customers in the metaverse.

As the open-source chatbot and AI platform for the metaverse, we at Bot Libre have created AI solutions that allows our bots to navigate the metaverse. We have developed the OMNI deep learning model for metaverse-ready chatbots by combining vision deep learning models with NLP deep learning models to provide multiple senses, integrated learning , awareness and navigation in the Metaverse.

This will allow businesses to be functional and fully engaged with users in the Metaverse .

With these models, users can explore a variety of different locations to chat with Bot Libre’s chatbots and bots can walk around different 3D spaces following or guiding users through the space. With Bot Libre’s AI algorithms, the chatbot’s avatars can avoid obstacles and find the shortest path to locations and objects.

Bot Libre’s OMNI model enables bots to associate objects or location in the 3D scene with the user’s speech or chat messages. The bot can identify what the user is talking about in relation to the context of the 3D scene.

Some cool things you can do is say to the bot, “Go to the bar” and it will find an object in the scene that looks like a bar and navigate to it, or “sit down in the chair”, it will scan its surrounding for an object that looks like a chair and sit down. But wait, it gets better. The algorithm is only vision and NLP based, so not only will it work with any scene in the metaverse, but if you connected it to a robot, it could also work in the real world, or in augmented reality.

Key Features of Bot Libre Metaverse:

• integrated chatbots, 3D avatars, and scenes
• large library of avatars, clothing, morphs, and scenes
• over 6 different avatar autonomous exploration and navigation modes
• optimized path navigation algorithms
• AI, deep learning based vision and NLP models
• chatbot commands to navigate and interact in the metaverse
• support for web, Android, iOS, Quest VR, 3D/VR/AR

Bot Libre is developing 3D and VR apps and SDKs to integrate the Bot Libre platform with the evolving Metaverse. If you are interested in using one of our solutions for your business, contact us at sales@botlibre.biz .

Two Developers Are Better Than One — Join Us

Bot Libre is looking for businesses, organizations, and developers that are interested in being early adopters of Metaverse technologies through our Beta Program. If you are interested in getting early access to innovative ideas and tech experts, apply now by contacting sales@botlibre.biz .

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Combining Vision and NLP AI to Navigate the Metaverse was originally published in Chatbots Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Using the bot to identify and mark fake or secret information: UA Antispam Bot Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has signed a law forbidding the recording of all Ukrainian military, sites of shelling (including street names, transport stops, shops, factories) as well as any other civilian and military facilities. Still, a large number of social media groups and channels disregard this information.

To prevent this and help online moderators, the Master of Code team designed and developed an AI anti-spam bot to identify any prohibited messages or comments that spread military information under Social Media channels to prevent it`s dissemination. UA Anti Spam bot can be easily installed by the moderator of an online group. All reported messages are marked as spam and are hidden from the audience until moderation.

Over just an 8 week period, the UA Antispam bot has been downloaded to more than 700 active chats and been used by upwards of 39500 active users.

Business Use Case: AI anti spam bot for Social Media

According to Statista research, in the fourth quarter of 2021, Facebook took action upon 1.2 billion pieces of spam content, increasing from 777 million pieces of spam in the previous year’s quarter. To make the process of removing spam messages more centralized, production of similar AI antispam bots are helping moderators check and approve disputed messages.

Using expertise in Conversational AI, anti-spam tools can be created to clean comments under corporate Social Media and allow SMM departments to concentrate their attention on the more high-level tasks. Furthermore, removing spam just in time minimizes the risk of receiving a ban report from the Social Media platform.

Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine recommended our UA Antispam Bot for channel administrators as a reliable source within the informational war.

Finding new job opportunities for refugees: Employer AI Chatbot

According to the United Nations, more than 7.1 million are estimated to have been internally displaced by Russia’s war in Ukraine. Having fled their homes but remaining in the country, there’s a demand of displaced families looking for both temporary and full time work. To help Ukrainians, we have launched an Employer AI chatbot, as a centerpiece to easily post a job opportunity for the company and find it for refugees in their current location.

2 channels were launched at the end of the development process, one is an AI chatbot for employers to post vacancies, and the second is a channel for refugees to find a relevant work position by listing themselves. Thanks to a combination of social media and hr process automation, more than 30% of vacancies were successfully closed. Based on the high rate of closing vacancies, our AI employer chatbot has expanded to more cities.

Business Use Case: employment process automation via Conversational AI chatbot

There are multiple use cases for employment and HR that can be automated by Conversational AI experience. One of the biggest challenges that enterprises have always struggled with is getting enough relevant replies on vacancies and closing them on time. Alongside that, Talent Source Specialists spend a substantial amount of time finding each candidate, reviewing CV’s, and communicating with potential hires.

With business process automation via modern Conversational AI solutions, companies can be more confident in job applicant relevance and reduce the chances of human error during CV checking. Even more, hiring workflow automation and HR function automation can positively impact the hiring process and increase employer loyalty to the brand in general.

Download Guide to Business Process Automation. Did you know that 60% of companies have at least 30% of their activities automated?

Multi language resource library via Conversational AI Chatbot: Aid for Ukraine

During wartime, 4.9 million people have fled Ukraine, and all of them need to find accommodation, medical help, and a job to cover all their basic needs. Many businesses are now working on solutions in their field of expertise to Stand with Ukraine. One of the businesses is LivePerson, who launched a Conversational AI solution for refugees to solve the search for needs listed. AI chatbot, called “Aid for Ukraine”, became a centerpiece to easily access all the necessary resources for both refugees and volunteers who want to help. To ease their communication, three languages are available via AI chatbot: English, Ukrainian, and Polish.

Since Master of Code is a certified delivery partner of LivePerson, we collaborated to finalize the solution in both development and content optimization including the solving of language barriers.

Business Use Case: FAQ page automatization via AI Chatbot The traditional approach to FAQ page design doesn’t fit the expectation level of the customer’s experience. Instead of searching for the right answer to your question through the webpage, AI-powered FAQ chatbot will lead you directly to the correct response, by specifying your request within clarification questions. In case of unpredictable questions, the chatbot can connect the user to live agent support, this approach covers call center automation use cases with the help of Conversational AI solution.

IT hackathon from Master of Code

Master of Code has launched a hackathon to encourage unique ideas and develop AI solutions for solving of problems which appeared with the war. During the event, 5 teams with Master of Code`s mentors brainstormed new ideas and started the development process. Here’s what teams have developed so far:

Logistics AI Chatbots for volunteers

As volunteering has expanded, the transportation problem has dramatically increased. Most drivers have available space in their car, but since they are not aware of other items needed to be transfered, the car can be left half empty and not in full use. AI chatbots for drivers can prevent such situations. Each driver, who is ready to become a volunteer, should register under the transportation chatbot with information about himself and car details. In the administrators panel, volunteers can check this information, choose the driver, and pack items. In this case, AI chatbot is a platform for communication between drivers and volunteers, which automates processes, optimizes transportation space and organization.

Transportation AI Chatbot

This AI Chatbot is a platform to connect Ukrainians with drivers that can help transport their own items. After authorization, the user can choose his intent and connect with the driver in need.

Business Use Case: Logistics and Transportation Chatbots

Automation of user requests and their immediate response provides a better customer experience and reduces support ticket maintenance. Logistics and transportation AI chatbot can be responsible for placing an order, real-time delivery status and tracking, and 24/7 user support within one platform. With that in mind, an AI chatbot can be a replacement for a mobile application with the same functionality.

Read Also: Rise of the Chatbots for Customer Experience

Volunteer`s Call Center Automation AI chatbot

Local volunteers stand at the center of the humanitarian response — they are doing their best to find housing, transportation, provide medical care, food and clothes for refugees. Track and response on each people`s request is a must, but volunteer`s call centers are overloaded with people`s requests. In order to structure all of them and automate manual tasks, AI chatbots collect all queries from people, structure them and provide a constructed report to volunteers of who, where, and what is needed.

Business Use Case: Call Center Automation AI chatbot

Similarly with volunteer`s case, every call center has requests that are repetitive and therefore can be easily automated. The call center chatbot can be easily integrated in a call center workflow to save time and efforts of live agents. All of the users’ requests will be structured and specified during the conversation within a chatbot. The result of this automation is a 24/7 call center availability with the live agents, who can respond on unique and high-level requests.

Mobile application to search for missing relatives “AFamily”

Over 900 Ukrainian communities were without power at the beginning of the war, which caused problems communicating with relatives. To find information about them, people post relatives’ photos on social media with the latest location or request information from volunteers. With the help of “AFamily” mobile application, notices with information about relatives who the family has lost contact with can all be pooled into a dedicated platform for reconnecting with family. The user uploads photos and detailed information for their case (name, latest location, age, all is posted into the database). Anyone who knows any details about the person from the database can login and update the person’s status.

Booking AI chatbot for queue optimization

Each refugee is needed to register in his new location to get help from the government and volunteer organizations. To not waste time in the long queue, the team developed an AI chatbot for pre-entry.

Business Use Case: AI chatbot for booking

One of the examples of AI in business is booking the appropriate timeslot, based on the information from the database. Brands can use it to automate an appointment with specialists. For instance, doctors, demo sessions for the sales department, booking a free apartment at a hotel or reservation at a restaurant table. The booking chatbot will request all needed information from the user, send the notification to the service or specialist and also receive the payment if needed. Take the first step in leveling up your Conversational AI experience

Ready to start your Conversational AI project? We’ll be happy to help you get it off the ground.

Get in touch

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Using a Conversational AI chatbot expertise to #StandwithUkraine was originally published in Chatbots Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Because your Google Home smart speaker is constantly receiving innovative features and tricks, it’s important to take advantage of the latest with the latest software.

Fortunately, every Google speaker should automatically receive updates.

If your Google Home or a Nest Mini, Home Max, Nest Audio, or Google Nest Hub smart display is connected to Wi-Fi, it should automatically scan for updates and begin downloading them.

Make sure your speaker has the most up-to-date software.

If you’re not sure if your Google Home system software is up to date, go to:

1. Launch the Google Home application.

2. Decide which Google Home speaker you’d like to use.

3. Select Device Settings from the drop-down menu.

4. Go to the base of the page and scroll down. The present system firmware is displayed here.

You can also see if that’s the most recent Google Home firmware version on Google’s official website.

The first rule of waiting for an update for your Google Assistant smart speaker is to be patient. Keep in mind that new features do not reach every territory at the same moment. There are a variety of reasons why your speaker may take longer than expected, but the important thing is to persevere. If your home is acting up and won’t download the update, and you’ve exhausted all other options, it might be time for a reset.

How do I know if Google Home is up to date?

Depending on which Google Home speaker you have, it will notify you in various ways that it is upgrading.

If it’s a usual Google Home, the top of the speaker will have a twirling semi-circle of white lights. A line of white lights will move from left to right if it’s the Google Nest Mini.

If you have a Google Nest Hub or Nest Hub Max, it will notify you whenever an update is released on the screen. It should take no more than 10 minutes to perform an upgrade. You may have to restart the speaker if it appears to be taking much longer than that and you’re not gaining any response from it — or if the lights have stopped spinning. Simply disconnect it from the source of power, hang on for a minute, and then reconnect it. After that, the update must begin again.

Don’t forget to give us your 👏 !

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How to keep your Google Home, Nest Mini, Nest Audio, Home Max, or Google Nest Hub fully updated was originally published in Chatbots Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

WhatsApp has come far from its usual avatar of being an instant messenger. From mom-and-pop businesses to large-scale enterprises, almost everyone has started integrating WhatsApp chatbots into their customer service channels. However, WhatsApp does offer capabilities that can serve in lead generation as well.

Why use WhatsApp chatbots for lead-gen?

There are four traits that make WhatsApp ideal for lead generation:

1. Familiarity — The world knows WhatsApp is the primary tool for real-time messaging. With five billion+ downloads, it is one of the most downloaded and widely used apps in the world. WhatsApp needs no introduction and hence is an excellent platform for lead generation.
2. Friendliness — You don’t need special training or introduction to become familiar with the WhatsApp chat interface. The intent of the design is to make real-time instant messaging easier and simpler for all kinds of users. This also leads to higher adoption.
3. Mass accessibility — WhatsApp enjoys 2 Billion Monthly Active Users and is still growing at an active rate. Its mass accessibility ensures that businesses have enough ground to source leads from.
4. Built for business — WhatsApp for business makes it easy to attract, interact with, and qualify leads. It offers a built-in catalog to showcase products, canned responses to quickly respond to queries, and also sort chats using labels.

61% of marketers rank lead generation as their number one challenge (HubSpot). To add to their woes, only a fraction of leads generated convert into sales. As a result, there is always ongoing pressure to maximize lead generation.

Compared to traditional lead-generation channels and tactics, WhatsApp offers a novel way to reach, attract, and interact with leads. Here are some such features:

1. Real-time lead qualification

Almost every business faces the challenge of junk leads. Junk leads are those leads that do not fit into the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) that the business has created for itself. Or, the leads carry incomplete information, which makes it difficult or even impossible for the business development executive to pursue. Also, junk leads come in large volumes, which further makes it difficult to find warm leads that have a high potential of becoming a customer.

With WhatsApp chatbots, you can mitigate that challenge to a large extent. It aids in real-time lead qualification by segmenting customers based on their queries.

For example, customers who ask for preliminary information about the business or its products are early-stage prospects. Customers requesting pricing information are warm leads with a high potential for conversion.

Further, WhatsApp for business allows labeling conversations based on labels. You can tag new customers/leads using a label to ensure that they are not lost amidst other conversations.

2. Marketing using status/stories updates

WhatsApp rolled out its ‘status’ feature in December 2020. It was an attempt to mimic the Snapchat stories that had by then become a social media rage. However, statuses in WhatsApp have a larger use case than social sharing.

In business, you can actively use it for marketing purposes. Imagine sharing your product images, explainer videos, or even customer testimonials as WhatsApp stories or status updates? They enjoy a high level of engagement and can also invoke immediate responses from customers. Based on their queries, it is easy to segment them as leads or prospects who have chances of conversion in the near future.

3. Multilingual customer service

Does the language you use for customer communication have a say in your lead gen or even sales? Turns out, yes. Stanford scholars found in their research that using specific words in product descriptions can predict sales. Also, if the product descriptions or business communication is in a language that is native to the prospect, it invokes a culture or authority that helps products sell.

In other words, multi-lingual selling is necessary for your business if it is operating at a global level. However, employing sales reps who are polyglots could be a strain on the budget. With WhatsApp chatbots, such a problem does not arise. You can easily integrate language apps into a WhatsApp chatbot and enable it to converse with the customer in the language of their choice.

4. Sets the stage for consultative selling

Under the hood, selling is a personal relationship-based transaction. If a sales development executive is able to nurture a positive relationship with the customer, the chances of seeing the transaction to completion are higher. Consultative selling is the term used to describe the sales approach where relationships and open dialogue with the customer to understand their problems and wants are prioritized.

Until recently, phone calls, emails, and surveys formed the foundation of consultative selling. The obvious downsides of these channels were that they were slow and did not always collect accurate information. WhatsApp chatbots ensure that there is real-time communication, a natural conversation where the sales rep can easily gather from the prospect what they are expecting from the business. Setting the right stage for consultative selling WhatsApp aids in lead-gen and ultimately in boosting sales.

5. Share engaging content

Millennial customers want to be engaged, and content provides the right context for that. Content that is engaging, educational, and informative can enable a customer to make an informed decision. As a result, they also feel positive about the business, thus leading to a long-term relationship.

How can WhatsApp chatbots aid in engagement? WhatsApp allows sharing of multimedia content instantly without any hassle. In fact, WhatsApp for business allows businesses to upload product catalogs, videos, and such collateral that can engage the customer and also enable them to make an informed decision. It also forms the basis for active engagement, which leads to more product awareness and brand recall.

How to use WhatsApp chatbots for lead generation

Although WhatsApp chatbots set the perfect stage for lead-gen, don’t expect leads to flow in without some effort from your side. Here are some tactics that will help you turn WhatsApp chatbot into a lead magnet.

1. Use WhatsApp chatbot links in email signatures and social media

If your sales team is sending cold emails to prospects, their email signatures offer splendid real estate to pace WhatsApp chatbots. Email signatures are not just the tail end of your emails. They are used as email footers that can provide more information about your business, its offerings, and even upcoming events or ongoing offers.

Email signatures are traditionally used to insert the contact details of the sales rep and the business at large. They are also the perfect location to place your WhatsApp chatbot link and label it as an all-in-one communication channel to find any information about the business. Customers will find the WhatsApp link easy to use hence leading to lead generation.

2. Use chatbot links in paid ads

Google text search ads and display ads. Facebook ads, Twitter ads, Instagram ads. There are countless paid channels through which you can run marketing campaigns. The common practice is to ask users to share their contact information through a pop-up form or lead sign-up page.

Naturally, this is a long process since you need to share the lead information with the sales rep. They have to qualify it and then initiate a conversation. However, if a WhatsApp chatbot link is provided instead of a form, you can eliminate unnecessary steps in the conversion journey. You can instantly initiate the conversation with the prospect and qualify them as a warm or cold lead.

3. Share WhatsApp QR codes

Dropshipping and doorstep delivery has taken away the personal interaction with customers. Or have they? It is still possible to create a WhatsApp channel through which customers can engage with your business. Your existing customers or new prospects can always reach out to find information about your other offerings or make repeat purchases.

Compared to other channels of customer communication like email, social media, telephone, etc., which take longer to complete, WhatsApp can provide instant communication, thereby helping with the lead-gen cause. WhatsApp links are easy to share through email or social media handles. However, when you want to make it easily accessible offline, too, it is wise to use QR codes. You can place WhatsApp QR codes on your store, product packaging, or even on product labels for lead-gen.

Getting leads is easier with WhatsApp chatbots

With 2 billion users, it is definitely a popular channel that prospects will not think twice about using WhatsApp for communicating with a business. If your business is struggling with lead generation or finding it difficult to segment leads based on conversations, WhatsApp chatbots offer a feasible solution. They are, perhaps, the most intuitive and user-friendly conversational interface you can find for lead generation.

The fact that WhatsApp is popular globally and does not have any friction in adoption makes it perfect for lead generation.

So, how is your business going to use WhatsApp for lead generation?

Originally Published at https://www.kommunicate.io/ on 14th July 2022

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WhatsApp Lead Generation: Use Chatbots to Generate Lead was originally published in Chatbots Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Virtual assistants or chatbots hosted on channels such as Apple Messages for Business (AMB), Google Business Messages (GBM) and WhatsApp for Business (WA) meet users in apps they have already adopted. Adding virtual assistants in these channels leverages interfaces that users are familiar with, but that can also lead to user assumptions on how chatbots can function in each of these channels.

For example, when using one of these channels for a human-to-human conversation, if a user sends an attachment such as a file, image, video or voice recording, their messaging partner will be able to view, play or otherwise open the attachment.

To further complicate user expectations, Apple Messages for Business, Google Business Messages and WhatsApp chatbots are all capable of sending images to a user as part of a bot flow.

From the user perspective, it’s easy to follow the thought process: if a virtual assistant can send an image, I should be able to send an image back.

However, depending on the conversational AI platform and its complexity, your virtual assistant may be unable to recognize attachments. This often happens when the bot is in its infancy and has limited initial use cases and feature sets. This can easily create user frustration, with a high frequency of utterances like:

The Challenge

Often, the user is reaching out to customer support due to a negative experience, and emotions like frustration or stress may influence user behavior. When a user has an issue, they may expect that providing an attachment using the chat is the fastest or most direct way to get connected to customer service. Users also often send attachments so they don’t have to type detailed messages or select multiple menu options. Sharing a photo/video is often faster than typing out a message. Additionally, users may not know the correct words when referring to specialized products or parts, and rely on the visual component. The user may also be anticipating the need to provide “proof”, which is common in replacement or refund customer support cases.

Common industries that experience this behavior include retail and food service. Other cross-industry use cases include sending attachments related to billing or product/technical support.

Chatbot files recognition option: Did you see what I sent?

As a Conversational AI company, Master of Code has conducted our own analysis. We are seeing a growing amount of users expecting the chatbot to be able to parse an intent from the image or attachment they have sent. These users expect the virtual assistant to be able to take action based on the attachment provided, such as detecting a damaged item and triggering a refund flow.

Additionally, even if your chatbot clearly introduces itself as a virtual assistant, sometimes the user gets confused and thinks they are already speaking to an agent: “Did you see what I sent?”

If a user sends an attachment and receives a normal fallback message, they often get frustrated and abandon the conversation. This results in negative containment and negative survey scores for CSAT and NPS.

Your general fallback is therefore not a ‘one prompt fits all use cases’ message. Instead, Master of Code recommends adding in specialized fallback handling.

Our Solution: virtual assistant parse attachments option or conversation flow improvements

As a first step, we recommend investigating if your bot platform has the ability to parse attachments and add to your roadmap.

How to Choose Conversational AI Platform. Get the checklist

However, even if your virtual assistant is currently unable to parse attachments, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do to improve the user experience. The bot can still recognize a user is attempting to send attachments. By capturing when and where users are attempting to send images, you will also be able to determine opportunities for improvement, including creating or optimizing self-service flows.

To alleviate user frustration and improve user experience, your assistant should have a customized fallback response, so the user feels heard. Users are more forgiving if they learn the bot cannot process the attachment, and that’s why they’re hitting the fallback.

If your chatbot cannot parse any type of attachment, work with your technical team to update the bot to detect when users are sending attachments. The bot should provide a contextual response of what it can and can’t do:

This assures the user that once they are escalated, the agent will be able to view the attachment.

Further mitigate user friction by providing options. Allow the user to decide if they want to escalate immediately, or return to the flow and continue to follow the prompts: “Would you like to chat with an agent, or return to the previous step?”

An experienced conversation designer can help customize these fallback messages to best suit your persona and tone.

Additional conversation design considerations

Work with both your technical and operations teams to verify if agents can view attachments from their agent dashboards, and if the ability is the same across all channels the bot is available on.

If agents cannot view attachments, then we recommend modifying the message to: Thanks for sending an image or attachment, however we are unable to view it. In a few words, how can I assist you today? The bot can then compare the user’s input to your NLU model.

Also read: Three Secrets Behind Impactful Troubleshooting Chatbot Conversation Flows

It’s also important to review at what points within the conversation flow that users are sending attachments. Is it their first message? If so, we recommend presenting the customized fallback and then presenting the main menu. Once the user understands that they have to use menus, they are less likely to loop or abandon the conversation.

Download a Conversational Flow Chart Diagram with the scenario of building dialogues for your chatbot

If your bot can parse some types of attachments but not others, then you should make that explicit: Thanks for sending a video. I can’t view videos, but I can view images. If you’d like to resend as an image, we can try again. If not, we can continue and I’ll pass the video along to the agent.

One of the keys of the Conversation Design process is to be transparent about the virtual assistant’s limitations. Instead of apologizing with a generic “I’m sorry I don’t understand” style prompt, the bot continues to move the conversation forward.

Results

Since Master of Code has started applying this strategy to relevant projects, we’ve seen significant increases in CSAT and containment.

Recognizing that attachments are being sent and creating a transparent fallback about your virtual assistant’s capabilities is a quick win. It’s a small change but has a big impact on the user’s overall experience.

You will be able to measure the chatbot improvement via:

• Higher CSAT / NPS scores
• Increase in containment
• Decrease in users hitting the normal fallback
• Decrease in looping

Remember, it’s always more important to provide a prescription to the user, even if it means sharing technical limitations of a conversational solution.

Need assistance with designing Conversational AI strategy for your customers? We can help!

GET IN TOUCH WITH US

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Attachment Detection Strategies for Virtual Assistants was originally published in Chatbots Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How can OCR help with RPA and Document Processing? — Techashton

OCR or Optical Character Recognition is a fun way to read and understand documents. But why does it even make sense? Let’s find out. But before we proceed, we need to wrap our head around a less common machine learning term: RPA (Robotic Process Automation).

For the unversed, RPA is Robotic Process Automation, which is instrumental in helping businesses eliminate repetitive tasks. Document processing happens to be one such task- where the focus is often on invoices and handwritten tasks. Simply put, OCR can help with this aspect of document processing- the one involving tons of error-prone identification.

So let’s dive right in and understand the process better:

What is OCR in RPA?

Trust us; we wouldn’t overcomplicate things. OCR or Optical Character Recognition is a machine learning tool capable of capturing printed text and handwritten notes. Once captured, OCR is also responsive for converting these unstructured data chunks into decipherable data that machines can read.

How OCR achieves all of that is a different question altogether? Here is a bird’s eye view of the same:

• Working alongside different light patterns
• Pre-processing images, if any, by de-skewing letters and even smoothing.
• Detect discernable lines, which are characters and words
• Producing machine-readable elements

Every OCR trait can be put to use by RPA bots, depending on the short- and long-term requirements.

What are the use cases of OCR in RPA?

Now that we have touched upon a more oversimplified version of OCR, let us take a closer look at the RPA relevant use-cases:

Human Resources, across organizations, can make good use of Optical Character Recognition for resume screening (for specific keywords that match job description), document management, expense management and reimbursement, and more.

As per estimates, sifting through massive new data chunks (close to 2.3 exabytes each year) is one of the top physician burnout reasons. And that is where OCR can help by assisting specific RPA initiatives, including patient registration, trial matching, and even creating EHR snippets for identifying patient progress.

Did you know that nearly 42% of financial processes can be automated? Paired with RPA initiatives, OCR can help achieve the same, especially when it comes to tracking invoices and relevant data, receipts, insurance documents, and even credit scoring.

Benefits of Intelligent OCR and RPA Integration

In a nutshell, every bit of data captured by OCR-driven RPA can be used as standalone assets or as usable machine learning information in the form of an OCR dataset or categorized training data.

Didn’t we just talk about the use-cases? We did, but there is still some scope to discuss the benefits. In brief, OCR integrated with RPA lets you digitize and decrypt any document. Here are the more targeted benefits of the approach:

An OCR-backed RPA application can make extracting data more accurate than ever. Robots meant to scan through and scrap data work more accurately with OCR functionality embedded within.

Well, this benefit requires no validation. Anything automated is always faster.

OCR integration makes RPA resources read emails, images, and even PDFs better.

And most importantly, OCR implementation helps you save a lot of effort and also money in the process.

Wrap-Up

Author Bio

The world is changing. And so are the processes defining it. As we move further and further away from grunt processes, document processing often needs to be the first roadblock to cross- due to the sheer size and volume of organizational data. At this point, shifting focus to RPA applications and tools powered by nifty artificial intelligence technologies like OCR is advisable. From robots scanning text to setting up a visual automation process, optical character recognition can be the game changer for several global verticals, as mentioned descriptively in the sections mentioned above.

Vatsal Ghiya is a serial entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience in healthcare AI software and services. He is the CEO and co-founder of Shaip.com, which enables the on-demand scaling of our platform, processes, and people for companies with the most demanding machine learning and artificial intelligence initiatives.

Originally published at https://techashton.com on July 28, 2022.

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How can OCR help with RPA and Document Processing? — Techashton was originally published in Chatbots Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Macroeconomic issues such as supply chain disruption, input cost inflation, and employee shortages continue to dominate headlines. Amidst the uncertainty, organizations are turning to technology to solve their “heart of the business” challenges. Here at Master of Code, we continue to see a significant uptick in technology investment in automation and Conversational AI to streamline internal workflows and scale customer communications.

Conversational AI scope withing the company activities

A major theme we continue to see evolve is cross-team technology adoption. Conversational AI, with its battle-tested business case in a customer support setting, is spreading throughout the organization. For instance, organizations want an integrated approach to engaging with a customer across the customer journey through Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, and Customer Support teams. In the past, these teams typically made technology investments in isolation. As these silos break down, technology investments need to consider the unique needs of each team and how they are interrelated in an increasingly matrixed organization.

In uncertain times, planning often takes a backseat to urgency and action. Over the past year, we’ve helped our clients invest in Conversational AI innovation and increased 7.67x weekly bookings or conversion rate 3x higher since chatbot was launched, while avoiding several common mistakes during the planning and scoping phase.

Top mistakes during Conversational AI implementation planning

Validate Conversational AI Use Case First

In our experience, teams that experiment with low-risk projects focused on use case validation typically introduce more innovation over the long term. We also find that many organizations underutilize their existing technology investments. We encourage teams to use technology that already contains Conversational AI capabilities built into the platform. Typically, it’s much quicker to develop and validate a proof of concept than to evaluate and implement new technology. For instance, using common enterprise software, we can build a virtual agent in less than one sprint cycle using tools including but not limited to:

• Digital Transformation in the Cloud (Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, AWS)
• Workflow Automation (ServiceNow, UiPath)
• Call Center Automation Software (Genesys)
• CRM (Salesforce Einstein)
• Customer & Agent Support (LivePerson, Zendesk, Hubspot)

Measure Twice Cut Once

Urgency and excitement can lead teams to make sub-optimal technology decisions. Within the Conversational AI ecosystem, there are a significant number of platforms, software, and other vendors offering cutting-edge AI solutions. Changing technology platforms is a costly endeavor including the porting of Natural Language Understanding (NLU) models, existing chatbots and virtual agents, and building new integrations. A transition can set back a team 6–12 months of development time and spend. We work with clients to implement a Technology Evaluation Framework to ensure the best technology decisions are made. Choose the platform that addresses your unique use case, industry, organizational size, architecture, and administrative needs.

In the first quarter of 2022, Master of Code has helped a record number of clients navigate Conversational AI and Conversation Design solutions. What is your next opportunity to innovate?

Exploring technology platforms? Check out the Checklist available below.

How to Choose Conversational AI Platform. Get the checklist

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Removing Obstacles for Companies to Innovate with Conversational AI was originally published in Chatbots Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In the healthcare industry, every fraction of time weighs significance. People do not want to engage in waiting lines or sit by the phone looking out for a response from medical professionals. In this post-pandemic world, healthcare providers have to be more keen-eyed with their approach to customer service. Given the sense of fear and watchfulness the virus has evoked among people, it is vital for the healthcare industry to stay ahead of the game. This takes them to the implementation of healthcare chatbots.

The global chatbot market was valued at US $526 million in 2021. The research estimates that it will be US $3,619 million by 2030, at a CAGR of 23.9% during the forecast period. This technology trend has more rewards for healthcare service providers than you know. If you’re planning to implement a chatbot to boost your operations, there’s a lot you’d expect it to offer. Since that totally depends on how you design it, we’ve brought you the top 10 benefits of chatbots in the US healthcare industry that indicate how healthcare chatbots should work.

10 Benefits of Healthcare Chatbots You Cannot Miss

The medical industry is as vast as it gets. From guidance on prescriptions to health emergencies, people reach out to healthcare providers for several reasons. While a call or email may be a straightforward mode for interaction, it is not necessarily effective.

Chatbots in the medical sector are booming owing to many such reasons. The healthcare chatbots market stood at around US $184.60 Million in 2021 and is forecast to reach US $431.47 Million by 2028. Let’s take a look at the benefits of chatbots in the medical industry that are adding to their whopping success.

Enables Prompt Response

People expect medical professionals to provide a quick response to their queries. Delays in responsiveness can lead them to lose trust in the brand they’re seeking assistance from.

Chatbots give a hand in taking care of customers’ queries and issues anytime. They make instant responses and resolve the case on a chat. It eliminates the need for writing an email or making customers wait.

The medical concern is not something that can wait for the resolution to come their way after hours. It is rather a time-sensitive stance. Medical brands employ chatbots to reply to the standard queries, which wrap up various conversations without human intervention and save time.

Boosts Customer Service

One of the most effective ways to engage and retain customers is to be there for them. When the staff is communicating with customers via chat or a phone call, they can only go up to a certain number in a day.

In the case of chatbots, things are the opposite. Chatbots are not restricted to a specific number of customers to handle in a day or at the same time. They are devised to address unlimited queries simultaneously.

In manual customer service, the requirements for more live agents increase with the spike in the number of customers. The implementation of a chatbot enables US healthcare providers to maintain their customer service without losing consistency.

Medical Assistance on Time

Medical emergencies happen all the time. Whether someone wants to know how to deal with a situation or how to proceed with a prescription, people immediately call the healthcare providers for assistance.

However, a number of people seeking help can exhaust the calling service. So, people can now opt to chat with a healthcare chatbot and get medical advice on what and how to move ahead with a circumstance.

Options like a menu of general queries, links to relevant solutions, etc., make chatbots a primary way to address an inquiry. Healthcare chatbots, if devised well, can work wonders. The best part about them is that they are available 24/7 to assist people.

Assistance with Medications and Reminders

Doctors typically guide their patients about the medications they’ve been prescribed and how they must consume them. They may prescribe different medications to help patients treat various health conditions.

The challenge is making sure that patients are taking the prescription seriously and following the course as recommended. According to a study, about half of patients don’t follow their medication course routinely or simply forget to do that.

Healthcare chatbots act as an amazing resort to make sure this gap is bridged. First of all, they help patients with medical advice. They also send daily reminders to them. Many chatbots in the US healthcare industry work as personal health trackers and medication reminders for patients that use them.

Scheduling

Scheduling is one of the topmost benefits of healthcare chatbots. Making a phone call may be a common way to schedule an appointment but it can be time-consuming for both parties. In this process, a patient calls their local health care provider and waits while the agent checks what slots are available. It can result in a good waiting time and higher costs.

Today, many medical professionals in the US are using healthcare chatbots that provide patients with an option to book appointments with the right doctor. Patients can easily use the scheduling bot from a website. They can also use it on their mobile device no matter where they are.

Some healthcare chatbots are even designed to send reminders and let people know when they have an appointment coming up. Moreover, these reminders can also communicate the specific actions they must take.

Reduced Costs

Healthcare chatbots are capable of managing a myriad of healthcare inquiries, including medication assistance and appointments. So, healthcare providers can be assured of a timely resolution to their patients’ queries. Moreover, people can access options like reminders, scheduling, and informational content.

The extensive range of concerns these services cover boils down to reduced costs. Since healthcare chatbots eliminate a pretty good slice of manual effort, it boils down to reduced costs. It is one of the well-enjoyed advantages of chatbots in the US healthcare industry or any industry for that matter.

Chatbots can help healthcare businesses save a good deal of money and contribute to other crisis investments the entrepreneurs might want to make. By implementing a chatbot, a healthcare service provider can eradicate the costs spent on hiring additional customer support agents and providing training.

Easy Time Receiving Feedback

Every task a healthcare provider performs, and every goal they set is an effort to provide the best services to their patients. This is one of the reasons why medical assistants are not shying away from implementing a chatbot to ease their job. One of the greatest reasons they are using healthcare chatbots is to have an easy collection of feedback. Healthcare providers can leverage the feedback they receive to make smarter decisions and improve their practices.

Healthcare providers send out customer surveys to collect feedback. However, only a few of them return with a response. Customers do not want to invest time in filling out a feedback form, or they are simply not interested. Businesses have started resorting to chatbots to measure customer satisfaction. Patients can chat with the bot, reply to the instant questions that pop up and rate their overall experience.

This method of collecting feedback works more efficiently, given that chatbots make communication faster and quite straightforward. Collecting feedback is a great way to boost relationships with customers as it shows that you value your patients’ opinions. With an automated pinch and instant response, making it possible just becomes easier.

Seamless Invoicing

Invoicing and tracking every payment can be a costly deal. Not to mention, the manual process demands more time and effort. Healthcare chatbots are making the process of medical billing easier than ever.

The chatbot enables healthcare providers to receive the amount due for the treatment they offer to their patients. The automation capabilities of a chatbot help healthcare providers create invoices and receive compensation for the service. Ultimately, it minimizes the expenses incurred by administration practices.

Increased Employee Productivity

Yes, chatbots do act as a productivity booster in the organization. Generally, a bot is employed to host customer queries and resolve them effectively. However, healthcare companies can also leverage them to support collaboration among employees.

There are times when your employees want to confirm something or learn how a specific service works. When such cases occur, they can navigate to the website of the company and ask the chatbot for assistance. If you choose to build a custom healthcare chatbot for your company, you can devise it to link to various forms of content, including blogs and training videos.

More Value to Business Growth

Considering the top 9 benefits of healthcare chatbots we read, it is easy to surmise the role a chatbot plays in the growth of a healthcare company. Keeping in touch with patients 24/7 is beneficial in the long run. Moreover, a chatbot also improves brand visibility.

There are a multitude of factors that affect your website’s presence on online platforms. The time users spend on your website is one of the most powerful ones out there. The time your patients spend interacting with your chatbot adds value to your page. So, utilizing chatbots is an incredible way to boost customer engagement on the website.

Final Thoughts

Chatbots are growing exponentially in every industry. Healthcare companies can introduce them to their pages and make sure their customers are getting the best service. From on-time medical help to a quick reminder to take meds, a bot can be your patients’ support. It is imperative to do your research and define your goals before you build a healthcare chatbot. Being mindful with the planning and setting expectations will pose a beneficial factor for implementing this software.

Originally Published at https://www.kommunicate.io/on 29th July 2022

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10 Benefits that Chatbots Are Bringing To The US Healthcare Industry was originally published in Chatbots Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Reading, comprehending, and summarizing long documents won’t be that difficult from now because linguistic startup AI21 has unveiled a tool that will automatically summarize, comprehend and read any long document in just a few seconds. This new Wordtune Read will make managing important documents easier for any kind of commercial and enterprise use.

Word and Wordtune

The company is considering this Wordtune Read as an important tool to save a lot of time for enterprises as it automatically detects and analyzes texts from a link or a given pdf and then summarizes, highlights, and identifies important phrases. Also, there’s a new feature called Spotlight that will allow Wordtune Read to reexamine and summarize with a different emphasis.

This Wordtune read has been created by AI21 intending to make it a part of its larger developing language models.

“ Our mission at AI21 Labs is to fundamentally reimagine the way people write and read, so we thought it was high time to share our vision for the reading part of that equation. Underpinned by our sophisticated language models, Wordtune Read was specifically designed to help professionals across a range of industries and academia navigate the issue of information overload,” AI21 stated in a Blog Post.

Don’t forget to give us your 👏 !

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Startup company AI21 unveils Wordtune Read as a solution for “Too long, didn’t read” was originally published in Chatbots Life on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.