November 30, 2011

Written by Mitch Posada

Conversation With Mobile Customers: Cloning your Best Sales Staff with Mobile, Virtual Agents

What if a retail environment could offer it’s customers a virtual assistant, like Apple’s new SIRI product – Except, it would reach all data enabled mobile devices and it would deliver mobile engagement specific to the Retailer’s voice and customer needs?

Are Retailers ready to buy into the promise of ‘clone your best customer service’ staff and make their knowledge available to all customers, around the clock, without adding or training more employees?

There is an increase in various forms of virtual assistants or agents in the online world and these surely will migrate to mobile.  They include viruoz.com, which can also integrate with LivePerson.com, a prime example of the known value of human powered virtual assistance that are widely adopted and proven to reduce costs and increase sales.

I think voice recognition will prevail in certain circumstances but I don’t think they will replace or get close to input based inquiries.

Imagine a world where everyone is asking questions out-loud to their mobile device at home, at their desk, in their car with others, in the coffee shop…basically anywhere there are other people…does it seem natural or plausible this will become pervasive?   I think actual usage will be driven by social conventions of being quiet, desire for privacy, and avoiding awkward moments including the ‘are you talking to me or why aren’t you talking to me’.   With both Target and Wal-Mart adding voice dictation to their apps more insights should emerge.

Moving from a search paradigm where the measure is relevant search results to an assistant paradigm is a significantly enhanced customer experience if the user experience is familiar and flows in a natural conversational manner.  Brick and Mortar and online retailers can more quickly help customers complete tasks (I need or I want to do) and answer these questions before, during, and even after a visit.

Benefits of conversational assistance via mobile:

1) User’s don’t need to learn any complex navigation or read through dense text, they simply type or speak their questions or statements into a mobile web page and receive the appropriate response within one-three seconds.

• Where is X item in the store?
• Is Y item on Sale?
• Can I get my Z item fixed?
• Can I see a video of how the product works?
• What time are you open?
• Do I need a receipt to make a return?
• Do you offer installation?
• Do I need an appointment?

2) Instead of hoping GPS, social network recommendations or other accumulated data can psychically determine what a customer is thinking – A conversational agent just asks them!  Customers are then delivered an offering tailored to their response.  In other words deliver customers a personally relevant mCoupon instead of a generic offering in order to drive in-store purchasing.

Caution – things to consider:

1) Unlike services like ChaCha.com or KGB, which rely on real people to answer questions, virtual agents rely on artificial intelligent virtual characters that can at a trigger point, switch to a real person.  It’s important to remember that these virtual agents are an accumulation of human knowledge – however, they respond to customers within seconds, around the clock.

So virtual assistants need to be intelligently programmed and thus your provider should be able to walk you through this thinking and set-up.  For example virtual agents can be infused with Retailer “goal-oriented” conversations to determine the customers interests and needs at that moment while they are in-store.  “Goal-oriented” conversations can range from delivering relevant mCoupons to encouraging a customer to take a specific action, i.e. register for a contest, join a loyalty program, or to alert them to time-sensitive specials.  Retailer goals and Customer goals should both be addressed. There are subtle differences but important distinctions and these should be defined as part of the user experience design process and considering the customer service philosophy of the Retailer.

2) Development costs, integration, and ongoing support.

From a development cost and integration perspective, a mobile virtual assistant or brand/retail agent can fulfill needs cost effectively without custom app development.   Look for a single build platform versus building separate apps for different OS’s or even separate apps for Tablets vs. smart phones.  Adaptive design allows developers to “build once,” and still be able to reach all devices (mobile web) and most major “native OS apps”.

From a usage cost, a mobile virtual assistant should be capable of responding to thousands of customers every hour.  And, if the delivery is over mobile web, there are no per message costs.  What’s important is the speed in building and releasing branded virtual characters with an ability to make configuration and content updates to them seamlessly.

3) Optimization and Customer Insights – it’s in the data.

You or your provider must have experience mining conversational analytics to improve the AI engine, responses, trigger points, content optimization, and to measure customers’ goal achievement and satisfaction getting there.

A closer look at the way data is collected in a virtual assistant model reveals some potential important benefits over current methods. Some marketers rely more on surveys to learn what customers’ want, what they experienced, and their satisfaction.  Mobile surveys for example can tell a business what customers are thinking based on fixed responses.  With “conversational analytics,” conversation can be parsed to get the unencumbered customer’s natural input.  In other words, what they are really thinking and saying.  Every engagement results in User Input that is valuable to brands and retailers to review.  Furthermore, because chat sessions are anonymous this encourages genuine and meaningful responses from customers.

Mitchell Posada a Digital Strategy Consultant 

Mitchell focuses on applying digital innovation to solve mission critical business objectives often through a unique blend of management consulting meets business development meets product marketing capabilities.  Mitchell is interim CMO for a mobile commerce for Airports startup in California. From 2010 to October 2011 Mitchell advised the Chicago Fire Soccer Club on how to leverage digital for revenue optimization and before that was VP of Interactive for Café Media LLC, the leader and award-winning lifestyle magazine targeting bi-cultural Latinos. Mitchell’s experience spans a wide range of companies and industries from start-ups, marketing agencies, and non-profits to Fortune 500 leaders including Hewlett Packard, Ernst & Young LLC, Nestle, Wells Fargo, IDT Telecom, Humana, Washington Mutual to startups including AdMob, CloudLink, Optimal Auctions, MarketTools, GBMobile, AccountNow, and several others.   Mitchell earned his MBA from U.C. Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.