Opus Research has long-stated that customers are indifferent to how and when they interact with brands and enterprises. Customers want frictionless customer service experiences and an option to “escalate” as they see fit.

Implementing an engagement platform that seamlessly incorporates both digital communication channels and well-supported voice interactions will lead to the greatest customer satisfaction. With appropriate conversational context and knowledge management tools— including conversional AI and intelligent assistance technologies — brands have opportunities to learn from each customer conversation and provide exceptional customer experience.

To that end, Helpshift has introduced a goal to build “Connected Customer Conversations” through its intelligent digital-first platform by directing customers towards the channel of their choice at the time that they need it. Helpshift’s platform includes a comprehensive suite of technology resources for customer self-service, including messaging solutions, bots and AI for customer engagement and backend workflow processes, and social media through third-party channels like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.

Helpshift for Phone introduces a frictionless option as a channel for customer escalation. As demonstrated at a launch event last week in San Francisco, the platform includes a single agent view of both digital and phone conversations as part of an asynchronous experience, with options to handoff between bots (intelligent assistants) and agents to provide personalized interactions.

Longtime Helpshift customer Vivino, the world’s largest online wine marketplace and most downloaded wine app, has launched customer support for wine suggestions. While there are automated conversational experiences for customer support — including check order status, change address, etc. — Vivino now includes an option to seamlessly transfer from an automated messaging conversation to speak with a trained “sommelier” for wine suggestions and recommendations.

In an interview, Chad Boonsupa, vice president of customer experience at Vivino, emphasized while bots are good for many frontend customer interactions, it’s important to blend with the human element. “Vivino needs to be everywhere customers are. That means being present and introducing the right resources at the right time to make wine-buying easy and convenient,” said Boonsupa. While Vivino is developing a “sensible approach to introducing AI,” the company still has a goal of automating 80% of contact center customer operations.

Categories: Conversational Intelligence, Intelligent Assistants, Articles