Digital Engagement Blog

Every time a customer engages in a web chat you have an opportunity to make a sale.  If you’re a retailer with a web site, I bet you watch your web chat conversion rate like a hawk.  Improve the conversations you’re having with customers, and you can convert more chats to revenue. 

So what happens when customers get distracted or interrupted and leave the conversation?  Many retailers struggle with web chat abandon rates in double digits.  By focusing on the conversations you’re having instead of those that have been abandoned, you may be overlooking a treasure trove of revenue opportunity.  To find that hidden treasure, you’ve got to think like a parrot instead of a hawk.  Arrrrrrrrrrrr.

Square, PayPal, Google, Visa and Facebook Share Insights

As we wrap up 2016 and prepare for the New Year, banks and insurance companies should consider several of the key takeaways from the recent Money20/20 conference.  This event is billed as the preeminent global payments show with more than 11,000 attendees from 4,500 companies in the banking, payments, retail and loyalty industries.

This year’s keynote speeches from industry leaders such as Square, PayPal, Google, Visa and Facebook highlighted trends to keep in mind to address the changing landscape for businesses and consumers in the future. Here are our five takeaways:

Don't you wish Curly had it right?  You know, the cowboy from City Slickers who said the secret of life is just one thing.  All you have to do is figure out what that one thing is for you, right? 

If Curly were around to help us figure out the secret of digital engagement, it wouldn't be pretty.  He'd have to take off his dusty old cowboy boots to count all the secrets that are important to digital customer experience.   

Today we have more channels, more technologies, more silos of data, and more distractions competing for the digital consumer's ever-decreasing span of attention.  How do you come up with a digital engagement strategy in a world swirling with chatbots, intelligent assistance, and new messaging channels?  

In search of answers, the explorer in me set off on a fascinating journey. 

So in today’s digital world, which is your customers’ preferred way to interact with your company?
Is it…

• A mobile app?
• Web self-service?
• Social media?
• Email?

Give up?

It’s none of the above.

All generations of consumers prefer interacting with brands via the phone or in-person in a store over any other channel.

Surprised?

We were, too.  But there's a lot more to the story. 

We live in the future.

What seemed like science fiction just a few years ago? 

It’s coming.

It’s happening.

It’s REAL.

The thing is, your customers already have the future right in their pockets. You do too. We all do.

Heck…you might even be reading this blog post on it.

It’s on your mobile device. In it, really…and also across the connected universe of devices and networks and servers everywhere.

Though you (and all your customers) may think it is, the device in your pocket is no longer your phone. It is a whole lot more. Especially as both Apple and Google have announced extended use of messaging tools on the device, the device formerly known as your phone is now your virtual assistant.

Why?

Industry analysts (Gartner, Forrester, et al) sometimes look over the horizon and alert us to new things we don't yet see.

We recently spoke with several industry analysts who had surprising observations and forecasts that, if true, are creating problems and risks for us right now.

Here are a few highlights about where analysts think customer engagement is headed and why our problem may be about to get worse.

Download this new Forrester Report:  The Future of Messaging Apps

I recently downloaded two apps onto my Samsung 6S phone: Google Allo and TalkType.  Allo is an intelligent agent (Google Assistant) that resides in the Google messaging app (Allo).  TalkType is a voice interface that allows you to use voice as the primary interface and input (the keyboard becomes secondary) for “typing” a message in any app.

A recent report from BI Intelligence suggests that significant savings can be achieved in customer service when Chatbots (and other tech) are deployed.

“Chatbots also have the potential to help businesses significantly cut labor costs. While complete automation of the customer service workforce is not feasible, automating customer management and sales positions in the US where possible through Chatbots and other automation technologies would result in considerable savings.”  (The Chatbot Explainer, BI Intelligence, July 2016)

In this post we're going to take a closer look at this POV and see if we can peel back a layer or two of that onion.

It looks like “everyone” is getting on the Chatbot boat.  They are hyped and hot and… I’ve gotta have one.  Or maybe not.

Motivations to get on the Chatbot boat vary.  Some will use this technology to automate simple tasks not critical to the business. These simple bots might have a WOW factor but don’t provide much business value.  For example, here is a list of 51 corporate chatbots across industries.

But others, like many readers of this blog, might have higher standards stemming from the demands of running large scale contact centers and customer engagement programs.

So is it time for you to invest in Chatbots?

Here are four recommended Chatbot investment criteria to consider before you jump on the Chatbot boat:

What are your communication options when you need to engage mobile prospects and customers?  Given that a good old fashioned phone call doesn't even crack the top five most used apps on a smartphone, it's a safe bet to consider that your best engagement options are going to involve tapping instead of talking.  

In this blog post we compare three options:  Texting (SMS), Mobile Messaging and Online Chat. While these terms often get used interchangeably, they are in fact three very different options, each with their own characteristics to consider.