From Conversational AI to Botsourcing: The Rush to Enhance CX

The dislocation experienced by digital workforces suddenly thrown into the Work-from-Home model has opened the door for rapid adoption of conversational AI across business environments. Companies looking to upgrade their customer acquisition process and boost customer experience are looking towards conversational AI, considered the next step in chatbot development. The global conversational AI industry is expected to grow from $4.8 billion in 2020 to $13.9 billion by 2025, though in countries like Brazil growth may be slowed by a lack of AI talent.

This growth forecast is spurred by the technological advantages the tech has over traditional chatbots. According to boost.ai, a software company specialized in conversational AI, the technology is “the synthetic brainpower that makes machines capable of understanding, processing and responding to human language,” allowing conversational AI bots to deliver interactions closer to natural human exchange and offer a more valuable, less frustrating experience for company customers.

by 2022 around 70 percent of white-collar workers will be interacting with conversational platforms on a daily basis

Many organizations have been investing in the development of chatbots in the last few years. This move has been partially driven by the consumer power of millennials.

The digitization of many sectors including banking, finance, health and wellness has given rise to higher expectations from customers. The requirement on businesses to maintain 24-hour response has carved out a perfect niche for chatbots to fill. Meanwhile, trailblazing tech giants like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Slack have been striving to enhance their customer operations with support from conversational AI technologies.

But it isn’t only customer-facing areas of a business that gain benefits. A 2019 Gartner survey of CIOs predicted that by 2022 around 70 percent of white-collar workers will be interacting with conversational platforms on a daily basis. The same survey also pointed towards the prominence of chatbots among the main AI-based applications utilized in the business environment, suggesting that conversational AI offers a helping hand to companies looking to enhance the communication between workers, stakeholders and customers.

A Question of Adaptation

Founder and Director of Avaali Solutions Srividya Kannan, told Nearshore Americas that botsourcing is the latest trend where conversational AI platforms have shown their worth to companies seeking new ways to accelerate cycle time to process completion and deliver superior customer service.

“Several processes in this space, from new customer acquisition, customer service and support to helpdesk support, could be tackled by intelligent bots that recognize stakeholder intent, integrate with back-end and contact-center applications and provide a relevant response, significantly reducing the need for human intervention. When executed well, this could bring in consistency in stakeholder experiences while bringing down the cost of execution,” Kannan explained.

What About Productivity?

The business world now deals with massive amounts of customer data and high levels of collaboration are required to keep this data up-to-date and reliable. The exchange of data with customers via chatbots can be cumbersome but conversational AI helps simplify the process. Users receive personalized responses to their queries and the automated reports that are generated from conversations are therefore productive. Conversational AI’s smart keyword response alongside its greater sensitivity to context produces a more seamless experience for users.

Srinivas Chitturi, Co-Founder and CEO of MTAP Technologies is a firm believer in the productivity gains conversational AI can deliver. These gains translate to money, as companies can reduce their expenditure on manpower and outsourcing.

“Conversational AI will improve the productivity in enterprises by making the required information available through simple chat interfaces and push notifications for any important subscriptions,” he says. “That way, human intervention is required only in exceptional cases.” Chitturi’s organization is currently using chatbots to manage their incoming website traffic and customer support requests within the platform.

Making Tasks Easier

Sound data is essential to logistics operations and conversational AI delivers benefits here too. The increased visibility that real-time product updates offer users in direct communication with chatbots helps reduce the incidence of incorrect data entry. By cutting out errors in delivery, companies satisfy customers and help reduce unnecessary additional costs. Organizations can leverage conversational AI for end-to-end inventory management and to help strengthen administrational abilities during periods of high demand.

The hope is that conversational AI will continue to evolve to the point whereby customers feel as though they are communicating directly with a human, and enjoying all the subtleties and abilities that brings.

“With the research going into Artificial General Intelligence, also known as Strong AI, the autonomy of the human brain will be fully replicated to perform any task without any human intervention,” Chitturi concludes.