Conversational AI can be an important asset to your social media presence. 64% of people these days say they’d rather text than call a business. If you’re active on social media and talking to customers on your social channels, this statistic applies to you too.
Every month, more than 1 billion messages are exchanged between people and businesses on Facebook Messenger alone. With all these questions and too many people to deal with them, a chatbot or virtual assistant can be a lifesaver. Conversational AI technology can increase your team’s productivity and allow more customers to get the help they need faster.
Read on to learn how your business can leverage a conversational AI tool for social customer service and social commerce.
What is speech artificial intelligence?
The term Conversational Artificial Intelligence (artificial intelligence) refers to technologies that can “talk” to humans (e.g. answer questions), such as virtual assistants or chatbots.
Conversational AI tools work thanks to processes like machine learning, automated responses, and natural language processing. The aim is to recognize and imitate language and communication and to create the experience of human interaction.
Conversational AI applications are often used in customer service. They can be found on websites, online stores, and social media channels. AI technology can effectively speed up and streamline customer inquiries and referrals.
How does speech AI work?
Conversational AI works primarily thanks to two functions. Firstly machine learning. Simply put, machine learning means that technology “learns” and improves as it is used. It gathers information from its own interactions. He then uses this knowledge to improve himself as time goes on.
The result is a system that will work better six months after you add it to your page, or even a year from now.
the second is called natural language processingor NLP for short. This is the process by which artificial intelligence understands language. Once he learns to recognize words and phrases, he can move on. natural language generation. This is the process by which he chats with your customers.
Natural language generation basically means that AI simulates speech. For example, if a customer sends you a message on social media asking for information about when an order will be shipped, the AI chatbot knows how to respond. It will do this based on previous experience answering similar questions and understand which phrases tend to work best in response to shipping questions.
The theory may sound tiresome, but conversational AI chatbots provide a very seamless customer experience. Here is an example of how you can expect it to appear in action:
Benefits of using conversational AI tools
Saving on time
In an ideal world, each of your customers would experience a comprehensive customer service experience. But the truth is, some customers will come to you with much simpler questions than others. A chatbot or virtual assistant is a great way to ensure everyone’s needs are met without putting too much pressure on yourself and your team.
AI chatbots can tackle simple customer service issues and allow you and your team to deal with more complex issues. It also reduces wait times at both ends. Our very own chatbot, Heyday by Moyens I/O, helps businesses automate 80% of all customer service conversations!
Conversational AI can simultaneously process multiple requests that you and your team cannot. It provides a much more efficient customer service system.
Increased accessibility
You cannot be reachable to your customers at all hours of the day, seven days a week. Equipping your social media platform with Conversational AI solves this problem. If a customer needs assistance outside of normal business hours, a chatbot can take care of their issues. It solves a logistical problem and shows how chatbots can save time, but there’s more to it than that.
Conversational AI can make your customers feel more cared and comfortable given how they increase your accessibility. The truth is, midnight may be the only free time someone needs to answer their question or deal with their problem. With an AI tool like Heyday, getting a response to a post query is a matter of seconds:
While not every problem can be solved through a virtual assistant, speech-based artificial intelligence means such customers can get the help they need.
Help your customers make purchasing decisions
Conversational AI can help resolve customer support tickets, sure. However, it can also help with making sales and switching.
One of the benefits of machine learning is the ability to create a personalized experience for your customers. This means that the Conversational AI platform can offer customers product or add-on recommendations that they may not have seen or considered.
Here is an example of what these suggestions look like:
Conversational AI solutions like Heyday make these recommendations based on what’s in the customer’s cart and purchase queries (e.g., the category they’re interested in).
Conclusion? More sales without the need to lift a finger.
sell out of hours
Speaking of helping customers make purchasing decisions, another benefit of Conversational AI comes back to the accessibility it offers. One of the best things about running an online business is that sales can happen at any time. The only thing that can interfere with this is shipping, sales or product inquiries that customers may have when the appropriate representatives are not available.
A chatbot or virtual assistant will easily fix this. It’s available around the clock, so it can help anyone who is waiting for an answer to a question before completing the checkout process. This means sales happen faster and you don’t risk losing interest before customers complete their purchase.
With Heyday, you can set up your chatbot to include “Add to cart” calls to action and seamlessly direct your customers to checkout.
No more language barrier
One aspect of Speech-based AI that is underrated is that it breaks down language barriers. Most chatbots and virtual assistants come with language translation software. This allows them to deftly perceive, interpret, and compose almost any language.
As a result, no customer service interaction is hindered by linguistic differences. It makes your business more inviting and accessible to a wider range of customers.
Conversational AI best practices
Know when to involve (human) customer service representatives
An AI tool is great for solving simple problems. But it’s good to know your limits. Not every customer will have a problem that speech AI can handle. Chatbots are the assistants to your customer service team – not a substitute for them. Make sure you have agents on standby ready to step in when a more complex investigation arrives.
Optimize for social commerce
You want to get the most out of your speech AI. You also want to make sure that your customers have access to as much of the help they need as possible. The best way to achieve both is to choose a conversational AI tool that is optimized for social trading.
Heyday is a tool design that considers the specific needs of retailers. It integrates with e-commerce, shipping and marketing tools, seamlessly connecting the backend of your business with your customers and helping you create the best possible customer experience.
Some of Heyday’s integrations include:
- Shopify
- magento
- PrestaShop
- Panier Blue
- HANDLE
- speed of light
- More than 780 shipping providers
With Heyday, you can connect speech AI to all of your customer’s favorite communication channels, including:
- reporter
- What’s up
- Google Business Messages
- Cocoa Talk
- Web and mobile chats
… and manage all these interactions from one platform.
When optimized for social commerce, conversational AI is much more than a customer service tool – it can also help you automate sales.
Examples of conversational AI
Here’s how brands big and small are using AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants on social media.
Amazon
They may not be a social media platform, but taking notes from the world’s largest online retailer is never a bad idea.
Amazon uses a virtual assistant as its first line of customer service. The Amazon experience is largely driven by the questions asked, as in the example above. It also includes data on recent orders to get information about what customers might be interested in.
DAVIDsTEA
DAVIDsTEA uses Heyday for their social customer service. This Canadian specialty tea company takes a more language-focused approach. Chatbots use common conversational patterns to provide customers with the answers and information they need.
Clocks and Colors
Jewelry brand Clocks and Colors uses a chatbot on its Facebook Page. When someone reaches out, the brand’s virtual assistant is triggered. Like Amazon’s bot, this one serves the brand’s customers through quick querying and light language generation.
Clocks and Colors’ bot is integrated with the brand’s traditional customer service channels. When a user indicates that they want to chat with a representative, the AI will alert a customer service representative. If no one is available, a special “away” message is sent and the query is added to the customer service team’s queue.
Engage shoppers on their preferred channels and turn customer conversations into sales with Heyday, our exclusive AI tools for retailers. Deliver 5-star customer experiences at scale.
