At this week’s first-ever Intelligent Assistants Conference, organized and produced by Opus Research, it became clear to me that enterprise intelligent assistants are ready to go mainstream. No longer a technology that needs to mature, intelligent assistants are currently adding meaningful business value to companies. The team at Opus Research assembled a group of diverse, real-life customers who have implemented intelligent assistants with compelling use cases.

While there’s no way to cover all the detail that each of the companies shared in their presentations at IAC San Francisco, I’m providing a recap here. [Note: Opus Research is planning on posting the conference presentations and full session videos in the near future, so be sure to check back for that.]

Dennis Maloney, vice president of multimedia marketing at Domino’s, demonstrated the pizza maker’s new intelligent assistant mobile ordering app. Maloney talked enthusiastically about the technology and shared with the audience that Domino’s considered itself to be a technology company. Yes, they sell pizzas, but they do so by providing their customers with a great overall experience and product. Being at the forefront of digital technologies enables them to stay ahead of the competition in meeting the needs of the consumer. Maloney shared that nearly half of all pizza orders now come in through digital channels. Getting these digital channels right is a matter of survival for Dominos. The Dom app, powered by Nuance technology, provides a new way to simplify the entire ordering process and keep pace with the changing digital habits of consumers.

Hyatt Hotels is laser-focused on providing great customer experiences. John Romano, director of operations, showed how Hyatt uses an intelligent assistant to automate parts of the reservation process. By having the assistant take care of more routine parts of the interaction, they’re able to maximize the value of their human agents to focus on premium calls. This strategy elevates the level at which human call agents work and improves their overall job satisfaction. As a result, the customer benefits. The automated reservation assistant, powered by technology from Interactions, works so well that customers who call in to Hyatt’s reservation system often don’t realize they’re talking to an intelligent assistant. Those who do genuinely enjoy the experience.

Coke Streamlines Customer Service
Coca-Cola leverages virtual assistants on their main website as well as on their MyCokeRewards site. Michael Bowers, Director of Consumer and Equipments Services at the Coca-Cola Company, talked convincingly about the great benefits that the technology has brought to the company and its customers. As a highly visible global brand, Coke gets inundated with incoming customer inquiries. This contact tends to spike after key events or announcements. Coke’s virtual assistant, powered by Nuance, is able to deftly field these questions day and night. Bowers is able to update the assistant’s knowledge base to prime it with answers to upcoming announcements. After Coke ran a controversial, diversity-focused TV ad during this year’s Super Bowl, the intelligent assistant was ready to respond to the deluge of questions and comments that followed. The technology not only deflects questions from human call agents, it also provides consumers with a rewarding self-service experience 24/7.

Megan McCluskey, channel marketing manager at Schlage, talked about how the company, renowned for its superior brand of locks and locking systems, uses intelligent assistant technologies to provide customers with a better web experience. Schlage uses technology from Inbenta to give customers an intuitive interface for getting answers to their top questions. While the customers don’t yet interact directly with a visible assistant, the underlying technology makes accessing the vast company knowledge store about lock systems simple to navigate.

Windstream Communications is a lean, mean telecommunications company providing its customers with great service while working to keep overhead costs at a minimum. Sarah Day, Windstream’s vice president of consumer marketing, described an ambitious and successful project to revamp the company’s website and add an intelligent assistant to handle a broad range of customer support topics. With just a four-person team, Windstream worked closely with Nuance to categorize incoming customer questions and then build out an extensive knowledge base for the assistant to work from. The initial rollout of the virtual assistant, “Wendy,” was somewhat low key. Wendy’s ability to quickly and effectively help customers with problems related to Internet connections, phone issues and the like, led Windstream to promoted Wendy to the top of the support webpage. Customer reaction has been overwhelming positive.

As these company success stories indicate, intelligent assistant technologies really work. The use cases are compelling, the costs shouldn’t be a roadblock, and the implementation effort may be substantial, but it’s manageable and well worth the effort. How do you go about determining what intelligent assistants can do to improve your business? When I asked this question to some of the panelists, the suggestion I got was to step back and document business area that drive the most cost. Or if you’re a retailer, what situations cause your clients to abandon their shopping carts? Intelligent assistants can help you and your customers in all of these areas.

Not quite ready to take the dive? Then at least consider doing an intelligent assistant pilot. The technology isn’t just for early adopters anymore and you don’t want your company, and your customers, to be left behind.

Categories: Conversational Intelligence, Intelligent Assistants, Articles

Tags: intelligent Assistants, Hyatt Hotels, Coca-Cola, customer care, Nuance, customer experience