Between digital and multichannel, another paradigm is nowadays emerging: the customer experience is conversational.
Brand-customer relationship is experiencing a continuous and quick evolution: it must be empathic, customized and engaging. The recent shift to digital channels is, therefore, not the only challenge that companies have to face. It is also necessary for them to listen and answer customers' requests with understanding, offering innovative and easily available products and services.
In this context, the concept of conversation assumes a fundamental role in the experience to be provided to customers.
In IT, this is defined as conversational:
the operating mode of a processing system, characterized by a high level of interaction with the user and among its components. This method allows to establish a dialogue, between the machine and the man, consisting of messages alternatively sent in both directions, in a quite similar way to that of a conversation between two people.
So, is it enough to adopt a system that handles dialogues in a bidirectional way?
Of course not! To create a conversational experience, you first need to identify a proper digital strategy and, secondly, employ a technology that leverages the potential of artificial intelligence.
Digital and conversational strategy: companies among channels, touchpoints and technologies
Companies have understood the importance of leveraging different channels, to engage consumers, who are increasingly "digital", creating purchasing paths, different from those of a few years ago, when the only means of contact were traditional ones (such as the store).
According to 2020 Multichannel Observatory data, in Italy, for example, multichannel consumers currently represent the 88% of the population, with an increase of 6%, compared to 2019. Contemporary consumers often decide to buy a product, only after crossing different contact points (website, company catalog and store, for example). This is why companies aim to provide customers with different channels of interaction, to intercept and engage them, in the different stages of customer journey.
Interacting with consumers, according to multichannel approach, involves using a set of touchpoints (ranging from the website, to social pages, from messaging platforms, to chatbots, from emails, to apps, up to the store), thus allowing to choose the preferred one.
By connecting customers to various digital or traditional touchpoints, you can gain a greater understanding of consumer needs. By knowing your customers, you can properly respond to their needs and establish a proactive dialogue.
The second step, then, is to create quick, easy, always-available interactions with your customers. Creating a conversational experience means identifying new digital strategies to adopt, in order to make the dialogue with the customer exhaustive, interactive and meaningful.
What are customers' expectations for a conversational experience?
Brands need to take a digital-first attitude: as digital engagement grows, customers expect companies to digitize operations to have high-impact multichannel interactions.
Instead, today we still often see a lack of information sharing, among sales, customer service and marketing. This is a problem that must be overcome if you want to be truly competitive in your services.
A recent survey shows that 88% of world's customers use dialogue with companies, to solve any problem, arising during purchase process. This is when the conversational experience plays a key role, in brand reputation and customer satisfaction.
Creating a conversational experience with CX Studio
Concretely, how do you create a conversational experience?
As anticipated, you definitely need to identify a proper digital strategy and, subsequently, resort to a technology that leverages the potential of artificial intelligence.
CX Studio, Pat's multichannel interaction framework, is a powerful workspace, where it is possible to design interaction processes, organize automated responses and choose the channel to be used for providing services.
This is why it is called a framework, exactly because it allows you to centrally manage the dialogue with customers, in the contact channel they prefer, 24/7 and in multilingual.
With CX Studio, it is possible to create a real conversational experience, supporting help desk operators with virtual assistants, which can provide an initial support to the online customer.