Gartner analyst Van Baker recently stated that there has been a 160% increase in interest around implementing chatbots and associated technologies over the last year. This growing demand and interest in technologies such as Conversational AI has been driven by both end-user preferences for digital on-demand communications but is also the result of the COVID-19 pandemic increasing online and remote service usage.
As increasing numbers of organisations explore Conversational AI to meet this demand, it is important that business leaders understand the potential applications of the technology to support their customers, employees, and suppliers.
What is a Conversational Assistant?
Conversational AI enables organisations to provide an on-demand support resource for customers, suppliers, and employees. The technology’s utilisation of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning means that the technology can understand the meaning and intent of user queries in a much more personalised and sophisticated manner than chatbots.
This means that organisations can provide significantly enhanced experiences and improves customer and employee satisfaction leading to greater retention and elevated brand reputation. Additionally, Conversational AI Assistants deliver time savings and efficiencies to internal teams such as HR and Customer Service through streamlining the handling of requests, freeing them up to focus on more strategic and higher-value tasks.
From a technology perspective, Conversational AI offers many advantages over traditional chatbots, through the platforms ability to learn as a natural consequence of
processing but also through automated training and ingestion of documents to create user journeys.
Platforms such as Humley’s Conversational Assistant require no coding or technical knowledge to set up, putting the power in subject matter experts’ hands rather than IT teams, leading to rapid deployment and realisation of ROI.
How are Conversational AI Assistants different from chatbots?
Over the last five years, rapid advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML) combined with access to affordable computer processing have seen Conversational AI solutions emerge as the successor to the unsuccessful early attempts at automating repetitive tasks. User experiences delivered today are unrecognisable from the early chatbots with many interactions now indistinguishable from that of a human.
Crucially, these solutions can handle an ever-growing number of more complex tasks and requests. Furthermore, some Conversational AI Assistant solutions are now able to seamlessly integrate with enterprise applications, gathering data and information and presenting personalised responses back to the individual requestee. All the while respecting security parameters and data sensitivity
Where to deploy a Conversational Assistant to transform performance:
1. Human Resources
30% time saving delivered to HR Teams
A Conversational Assistant within HR eliminates the need for employees and managers to navigate complex HR, Payroll, and Business systems and reduces the pressure on HR Teams through automating all of the common HR requests and associated tasks. Delivering improved compliance, awareness, productivity, and employee engagement leading to increased retention and satisfaction.
2. Contact Centres
Average 80% positive customer feedback achieved
Conversational Assistants help to reduce the pressure on contact centres by providing agents with a single point of reference for all customer information as well as enabling customers to self-serve through resolving their own queries. Reducing waiting times, increasing first-time case resolution rates, and improving customer experiences.
3. IT
Improved case resolution
Reduce the pressure on IT Teams by enabling users to resolve their own tech issues and queries quickly and seamlessly. Conversational Assistants enable users to ask general IT questions, submit tickets, and even set up new devices and system access.
4. Finance
Improved data accuracy and visibility
Managing an organisation’s finance functions carries a high level of responsibility, however, can be incredibly time-consuming, complex, and manually intensive to perform. Humley’s Conversational Assistants can support a broad range of finance processes and information requests both internally and for external customers and suppliers.
Enable users to ask questions about their upcoming invoices, employees to update their payroll information, and even securely gather supplier information for invoicing and perform additional tax code checks.
All of this reduces the amount of manual labour needed to action key finance tasks, improving productivity and the sales cycles, reducing errors, and improving visibility and accuracy of the information for compliance and audit.
5. Patient Care
Improved patient experiences
With government housing initiatives, increasing local populations, even greater strains are being placed on healthcare services. This combined with often paper-based and legacy systems mean that medical professionals and administration staff are overwhelmed.
Conversational AI streamlines these processes, by providing a single point of contact for patient and employee information and requests.
Humley’s Conversational Assistant integrates with existing systems to provide natural and personalised conversations with users across online, mobile, and voice channels, significantly reducing the number of queries needing to be handled by reception staff, reducing call waiting times, and improving the patient experience.
In conclusion, with Conversational AI Assistants, organisations can be truly transformative and deliver both efficiencies and improved experiences, ensuring enhanced performance and long-term success.
To find out more about how Conversational AI Assistants could transform your business and user experiences, get in touch today.