Conversational interface: Future of business interactions?

By integrating a conversational interface as a new communication channel with the customers, businesses can enhance UX while automating their processes.

Vignesh Ram

Sales & Marketing

6 MIN READ | September 21, 2021

For a long time, conversations between businesses and customers have been transactional and robotic on the internet. A conversational interface could radically change it. What is it concretely? And why should businesses jump on it ASAP? Read more to find out!

What is a conversational interface?

The foundation of how people interact with computers has changed substantially over the past few decades. Having a conversation with a fellow human feels natural. Now, technology enables us to do the same with computers.

Conversational interfaces enable a user to talk to the computer as if it is a person. The conversation can be with texts or voice commands. These conversational designs emulate human-to-human conversations, which makes for more natural interaction. They can be implemented anywhere: speaker, website, messaging apps, and more. This could become the next big frontier after conventional means in customer relations. This is because businesses are looking for new ways to keep customers. I’ll be explaining the hows and whys further in this post. But before that, let’s delve into a tiny history session. Shall we?

History of conversation and interface

As we have seen already, businesses look for new means to improve customer relations. The goal? Keep as many customers as possible! To do this, businesses never shied away from adopting suitable new technologies. When telephones were invented, businesses started to service customer queries over a call. With the invention of the internet, commerce took the digital face. Businesses started curating websites, forms, and emails to better suit their needs.

Yet, these technologies couldn’t recreate the feel of personal communication. Conversation between two humans is still more personal. Inventors came up with an innovative solution called conversational interfaces to solve this. This is used to bridge the gap between technology and customer relations. Conversational interfaces allowed computers to simulate a conversation with customers. This allows businesses to have a personal and customized experience for each customer. This aids the businesses to reach the next phase of customer relations.

How can a business integrate a conversational Interface?

As discussed before, “Conversation” is an evolving process. It evolves along with the evolution of humankind. Businesses are made to adapt to this evolution to better serve the customers. This process helps the businesses along the way. As technology evolves into conversational interfaces, various tools are created along the way. Let us discuss a few below.

Voice Assistants

Anyone who owns a smartphone or a smart speaker knows or uses Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant. Voice assistants have become so advanced to a point where they can have funny conversations with us. When you ask Alexa: “What is the meaning of life?”, she can say: “The answer is 42, but the question is more complicated.” This is in reference to the novel/movie – Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Big-tech is betting BIG on voice. They think voice is the way people will interact with technology. In fact, more than 27% of all Google searches done on mobile every day are done through voice. This is a big win for conversational interfaces. Utilizing voice interfaces allow businesses to have natural conversations with customers.

Large enterprises can create an AI-powered voicebot. But, the costs involved restrict the small and medium businesses to jump onto this wagon.

Chatbots

Creating a dedicative voice assistant can be a costly venture for most businesses. These include the cost of development, constant upgrading, and maintenance costs. The next step in conversational user interfaces is to let people talk with computers using texts. That’s where a conversational chatbot comes in. Businesses can use both artificial intelligence and rule-based methodologies to make chatbots. Each has its own set of quirks that puts it suitable for various use-cases. Due to the difference in technologies, they come at different price ranges too.

What are conversational chatbots?

Technology has a long way to go in that aspect with regards to both voice and text processing. Businesses are throwing heaps of money into researching it. But, early signs show huge promise for businesses that use conversational interfaces. User Experiences (UX) have been revolutionized for businesses by implementing these. The best example of the most rudimentary conversational interface is a chatbot.

AI Chatbots can process user inputs and respond dynamically. But implementing an AI-Powered chatbot, like a voice bot is very difficult. It requires considerable effort for development and deployment. They also need intense maintenance throughout their lives. These shoot the price up, making it difficult for Small and Medium businesses. According to a World Bank report, SMBs represent about 90% of businesses around the world. The best alternative for these businesses is Creating rule-based chatbots.

Rule-Based chatbots

Rule-Based chatbots are the easiest and the most cost-efficient way for Small and Medium Businesses. This allows them to use a conversational interface in their customer relations. Businesses can predict Frequently Asked Questions by their customers. With these FAQs, they can pre-program responses. This process simulates a conversation for the customers. Rule-based chatbots cost only a fraction of their AI counterparts. Yet, they do not make any compromises in customer relationships. It also allows businesses to be flexible and cost-effective. Joonbot is a perfect example of such a chatbot. With a Joonbot, it is possible to simulate such conversations and aid businesses.

Chatbot vendors allow businesses to deploy the chatbots across platforms. They can be in any medium like an app or a website. Chatbot vendors also allow businesses to customize chatbots. This simulates a more personal conversation with customers. This also provides a variety of advantages for businesses.

Why is conversational interface important and why should companies implement it?

The future of computing is conversational. A conversational interface allows businesses to have more personal connections with their customers. They can also serve and handle various customers at the same time. A few years ago, businesses did customer care either through a web search or a phone call. But today, it is a chatbot away. The conversational interface took the place of its predecessors. It is providing better satisfaction than ever before. Analysts predict that the global market for NLP will increase to $26.4 Billion in 2024. This will rise furthermore in the following years. There are various use cases where businesses can install a conversational interface. Some of the most common ones are listed below.

Customer Support

Satisfying customer needs 24*7 has become more of a necessity these days. Implementing a chatbot could solve a range of issues for businesses. Research done by IBM shows that chatbots can answer 80% of standard questions. Chatbots can also handle many customers at the same time and allow businesses to stay on top of their game. This could be the advantage that the businesses were looking for.

We have many customers that are using Joonbot to create FAQ chatbots. One such chatbot is RunEvents’. RunEvent’s chatbot answers instantaneously to 88% of the runner’s questions with Joonbot.

Recruitment

Recruitment is one of the important operations of any business. How companies handle potential employees creates a lasting bond between both. Businesses can install a chatbot to handle the initial processes. This makes the process more personal and efficient. Recruitment chatbots also create an intimate relationship between the employees and employers. It can also be of great benefit for the recruitment process of the businesses as a whole.

Joonbot clients use Recruitment chatbots to attract more candidates to their company. They automate the initial processes in a more intimate way. This also helped them to improve their employer brand image. You can have a look at our recruitment chatbot case study to know more!

Product Recommendation

Conversational interfaces bridge the gap between the real and virtual worlds. Businesses can use product recommendation chatbots. These chatbots recommend new products based on the products that are in the customer’s checkout cart. They can also provide them with discounts and combo offers. Businesses can also use many other strategies that they perform in brick-and-mortar shops. This in turn attracts more customers to buy more products. As a result, these chatbots upsell various products at the same time.

As with any technology, the early adopters see a leg-up with the time to adopt them and reap their benefits. There are many companies that are already automating lead management and conversational marketing. As a result, they witness a 10% increase in revenue after a 6-9 month period. And this is only projected to grow further. Customers have started to expect “immediate” responses as an absolute necessity. In fact, over 82% expected so in a survey. Knowing all these, there is no better time to serve the customers more personally than now. This helps the businesses to make the process more interactive and improving the performance.

Key Takeaways

If you have a business and want to be at the forefront of customer relationships, integrating conversational interfaces like chatbots is the best thing to do to futureproof your customer relations. As we saw in this post, early adopters have already seen their businesses’ development getting a boost. Joonbot can help you to ride this wave with minimal effort. Why wait anymore? Create your first conversational interface with our no-code chatbot builder!