Who still remembers Eliza, the very first conversational assistant that was created in 1966 in the United States? Not very talkative, she was nevertheless clever enough to rephrase everything she heard! Then appeared, in the form of avatars, the robots that filled out non-personalized contact forms and delivered very simple information. The conversational assistants have now invaded customer services: they inform, converse, adopt styles, detect the emotions of their interlocutors and adapt! All these conversational assistants becoming increasingly intelligent are dizzying, and, of course, raise questions about the destiny of Humans within customer services... Don't panic, they still have their usefulness! Here's why...
Why has the conversational assistant become indispensable?
With globalization and the increase in online commerce, customer relationship cycles have literally accelerated! To keep up, customer services have increasingly resorted to conversational assistants. Initially, they answered the most common questions. Thanks to Artificial Intelligence (AI), they are now able to understand a request expressed in natural language, analyze it, interpret it... And respond appropriately! Open and complex conversations are now possible thanks to the automatic categorization of keywords processed by natural language processing (NLP) algorithms. Machine learning and deep learning (neural networks) also allow for the categorization of very large volumes of questions and understanding the hidden intentions. Thus, 24/7, the ever more connected consumer receives immediate, smooth, and high-quality feedback. Thanks to conversational assistants, the customer relationship never sleeps!
Why does the Human remain indispensable?
The conversational assistant is an amazing tool that relieves customer service departments and provides contextualized answers to the consumer... But is it capable of handling a very complex request or, intelligent as it may be, calming a customer on the verge of a nervous breakdown? Well, no! Despite the rapid advances of AI—and fortunately—there is a good chance this will never happen... That's precisely why the conversational assistant is so well designed: it has been taught to "step aside" when it "feels helpless" and redirect the customer to a human operator. It is then that the latter restores the relevance and friendliness required in the dialogue, thus preserving the quality level of the operation and customer satisfaction. In conclusion... No, the conversational assistant is not ready to replace the customer advisor. The latter advantageously focuses on missions with a very high added value (such as knowing how to retain a customer, for example) by providing empathetic support, while the conversational assistant resolves routine matters and filters the most important requests. The conversational assistant and the Human truly represent the winning tandem of customer relationships!
For your challenges around conversational AI in customer service, discover ViaSpeech, a comprehensive solution for automating the customer journey in natural language with tools enabling the creation of voicebots, callbots, and assistants that can be integrated into your voice servers.
Our experts are available to support you at every stage of your projects!
Article updated: November 22, 2021
