What Features and Functions Should Voicebot Have?
A voicebot equipped with intuitive features can play a pivotal role in customer support to improve customer engagement and boost customer satisfaction.
To achieve this, it’s essential to consider implementing advanced functions such as natural language understanding, personalized recommendations, and context awareness. By leveraging these capabilities, businesses can create interactions that mimic human conversation, fostering positive customer experience and ultimately driving loyalty and sales.
What is Voicebot Tech and Why It’s Popular in Customer Service?
Voicebot technology, also known as voice assistant or virtual assistant technology based on artificial intelligence (AI) , enables users to interact with computer systems or devices using spoken commands or natural language.
These systems utilize various technologies such as speech and voice recognition, natural language processing (NLP), and machine learning to understand human language and respond to user queries or commands.
Voicebot technology has become a popular solution for customer service due to several key reasons:
Accessibility
Voicebot technology caters to a wide range of users, including those with impairments or individuals who may have difficulty using traditional interfaces such as keyboards or touchscreens. This accessibility makes voicebots inclusive and user-friendly. Moreover, voicebots can communicate in multiple languages, making customer support accessible to broader customer base.
24/7 availability
Voicebots can answer customer calls around the clock, providing support and assistance to users at any time of day or night without human intervention. This continuous availability ensures that users can access information or assistance whenever they need it, without being limited by business hours of customer support team.
Natural Interaction
Voicebots work on voice recognition technology and are designed to mimic human agents through interactive voice response, providing a more natural and intuitive user experience. Users can engage in conversations with voicebots using natural language, making interactions feel more conversational and less transactional.
1. Speech Recognition
Speech recognition is a core component of voicebot technology, playing a pivotal role in enabling seamless communication between users and the system. This technology allows voicebots to accurately interpret and transcribe spoken words into text format, which forms the basis for understanding user commands and queries.
By accurately transcribing spoken words into text, voicebots can better understand the intent behind user commands and queries. This understanding is crucial for providing relevant and meaningful responses that address the user’s needs effectively.
Accurate speech recognition serves as the foundation for natural language processing (NLP), which enables voicebots to analyze and interpret the meaning of user input. NLP algorithms rely on accurate transcriptions to identify keywords, extract relevant information, and generate appropriate responses in a conversational manner which, combined with other features, can lead to creating a more pleasant customer experience.
2. Naturalness: NLU Capabilities
A very important feature of good voicebots is also the naturalness of the dialogue. By using Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology, voicebots can carry on a conversation in a natural way, adapting their language to the context and style of the customer’s conversation through intent analysis. The bot should be able to understand abbreviated and complex queries in natural language, even if they are vaguely or unclearly worded.
At the same time, the bot should express itself in a way that the user can understand, without unnecessarily complicated terms or very long messages.
3. Multi-Platform Integration
Multi-platform integration refers to the capability of voicebot technology to seamlessly integrate with a variety of platforms and devices, enabling users to access voicebot functionality across different channels. This integration extends beyond traditional devices like smartphones and includes smart speakers, IoT devices, and even web-based interfaces, meeting various customer preferences.
Multi-platform integration facilitates cross-channel communication, allowing users to start interactions on one device and continue seamlessly on another. For example, a user could initiate a conversation with a voicebot on their smartphone and then seamlessly transition to a smart speaker to continue the interaction without interruption.
Integrating voicebot technology across multiple platforms ensures scalability and futureproofing for businesses. As new devices and platforms emerge, businesses can easily extend voicebot functionality to these channels without having to rebuild or reconfigure the entire system.
4. Security
Let’s also not forget to securely protect the data from customer interaction that also strongly impacts customer experience. Not every conversation requires data collection, but in processes where it is necessary, any information collected by the bot should be well protected and properly passed on for further handling.
Artificial intelligence voicebots should enforce strict access control mechanisms to restrict access to customer data only to authorized personnel or processes. Role-based access control (RBAC) ensures that only users with the necessary permissions can access specific data or perform certain actions within the voicebot system.
Any data collected by the conversational AI tool should be securely stored, processed, and transmitted according to industry best practices and security standards. Implementing secure data handling procedures ensures that user data is protected at all stages of the data lifecycle.
5. Adaptability
Another important feature of a good voicebot is non-defeatability and adaptability. Voicebots in contact center should be resilient in the face of errors or unexpected inputs from users.
Rather than being easily defeated by misunderstandings or mistakes, an adaptable voicebot can gracefully recover from errors and continue the conversation in a meaningful way. This enhances the user experience by minimizing frustration and maintaining engagement.
To remain adaptable, voicebots should undergo continuous monitoring and refinement. This involves analyzing user interactions, identifying patterns or trends, and updating the bot’s knowledge base or conversational abilities accordingly. By continuously learning and evolving, the voicebot can better adapt to changing user preferences, language nuances, or industry-specific terminology.
6. Accessibility
Accessibility features play a crucial role in ensuring that voicebot technology is inclusive and usable for all individuals, regardless of their abilities or linguistic background. For users with mobility impairments or those who prefer hands-free interaction, voice commands for navigation offer a convenient way to navigate through the voicebot interface.
By providing intuitive voice commands for menu navigation, options selection, and task execution, voicebots enable users to interact with the system efficiently without relying on physical input devices.
Text-to-speech (TTS) functionality converts written text into spoken words, making content accessible to users with visual impairments or reading difficulties. Voicebots can utilize TTS technology to read out messages, notifications, or information displayed on the screen, ensuring that all users can access and comprehend the content regardless of their ability to read text.
Accessibility features may also include customizable user interfaces that allow users to adjust settings, preferences, or display options according to their individual needs or preferences. For example, users may have the option to adjust font size, contrast levels, or color schemes to enhance readability and usability based on their visual preferences or requirements.
Voicebots can integrate with assistive technologies such as screen readers, Braille displays, or voice input devices to further enhance accessibility of customer services. By supporting interoperability with these assistive technologies, voicebots ensure that users with diverse needs can access and interact with the system using their preferred assistive devices.
Use a Conversational AI Solution to Automate Repetitive Tasks in Contact Centers
The mentioned above voicebot features and functions enable automation, personalized interactions, which can lead to better customer engagement and customer experience. Voicebots can take over repetitive tasks from human agents, quickly resolving customer queries to boost customer satisfactions. Voicebots can take care of tasks of customer support, among others, providing updates on product delivery or availability, scheduling appointments, gathering user feedback, which can lead to increase efficiency in contact center.
Author: Katarzyna Skrzypiec, Bot Trainer / Project Coordinator