Best Practices for Promoting Conversational Assistants
Launching a new conversational assistant can be a challenging task for businesses. On the one hand, they want to provide their customers with the highest level of service, but on the other hand, they also want to achieve ROI by deflecting more contacts and improving process efficiencies. Therefore, businesses need to adopt some best practices to promote their conversational assistant and ensure its success.
First, businesses should identify where their customers currently engage with them and the journeys, they take to get support or information. This includes identifying the touchpoints where customers interact with their business, such as the website, email, voice channels, and live calls. Once they have identified these touchpoints, businesses can determine where they can promote the conversational assistant as an additional communication channel.
One of the most important touchpoints is the website, where customers often look for information and support. Placing the conversational assistant on the pages that customers most frequently visit, such as product pages or FAQs, can provide a more convenient way for customers to interact with the business. Many businesses also choose to locate their conversational assistant on the ‘Support’ or ‘Contact Us’ pages, as this directly links to the use case the solution is supporting and is very effective at providing an immediate resolution point for customers.
When businesses add a conversational assistant to their website, they often obscure their telephone number from the main ‘Contact Us’ page. This practice can work well in terms of promoting the usage of the assistant and helping customers to self-serve in the first instance. However, it is important to note that the telephone number is provided within the conversational assistant in certain scenarios where it is required for the process, the customer just wants to speak with someone, or it cannot resolve their issue.
Businesses may also choose to announce the conversational assistant as an alternative contact channel to their customers via newsletters or alternative marketing communication. This can help to raise awareness of the channel and further reiterate to customers how they are supporting them, increasing positive brand perception. When communicating the new channel to customers, it is important to reassure them that other channels are still available should they not want to use the conversational assistant. While most customers will in the first instance choose to self-serve via a conversational assistant, providing options is key to catering to different customer requirements.
Some businesses also choose to promote their conversational assistant within email footers, which helps to raise awareness of the channel to customers who regularly email support teams. Including a mention of the conversational assistant within any pre-recorded welcome messages on voice channels can also be effective. For example, “Did you know that we are offering an online chat service where you may be able to resolve your query if you don’t wish to hold for an operator?”
The conversational assistant can also be promoted by contact centre agents and support teams at the end of a call with a customer. When the customer is calling to complete a process, such as checking for an update, this can work effectively to educate the caller that they could find this information out much quicker and conveniently – further improving their experience and instilling a self-serve behaviour.
In conclusion, promoting a conversational assistant can be a challenging task, but following these best practices can help businesses to achieve success with the technology.
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