Chatbots And Their Role In Marketing.docx

CHATBOTS AND THEIR ROLE IN MARKETING A brief view of chatbot-powered marketing used by organization to optimize use of their data.

Deepanjan Lamture Roll No - 95

INTRODUCTION Marketing in the 2000s was dominated by Search Engine Marketing and Optimization (SEM and SEO). The early 2010s saw the rise of Facebook and social media marketing. Most recently we’ve seen mobile marketing rise and fall to stagnation from the reduced amount of app installs. Today, it’s all about personalisation and what others tell each other about your brand. A new marketing channel is an interesting opportunity for companies to experiment with their ROI. The rise of a new marketing channel comes with potential risks for lower ROI with factors such as fewer users whereas comes with potential returns on ROI with factors such as less competitors. It’s a fine line and companies who can balance on this line will become the victors. Chatbots are computer programs that carry out conversations with people using simple or complex built in rules depending on the task needed. Chatbots converse in natural language with users (text or voice) rather than a pop- up bubble. Think of chatbot conversations as messaging your friend. Organizations like, Amazon, HDFC Bank, Zomato, Facebook are creating chatbots so that it can talk directly to users. In some instances, chatbots have been refined to such an extent that it’s nearly impossible for consumers to tell whether they are communicating with a live representative or a customer-service robot. There’s been a lot of debate about the effectiveness and appeal of chatbots, but if this technology is properly implemented, it can pay off in spades as a marketing strategy.

HOW CHATBOTS CAME INTO PICTURE? According to Venture Beat, “Artificial intelligence, by definition, is intelligence exhibited by machines to display them as rational agents that can perceive their surroundings and make decisions. A rational agent defined by humans would be a computer that can realistically simulate human communication.” The quest to create a computer that converses naturally with humans has captivated the human imagination for centuries. Talking bronze statues made appearances in the works of ancient Greeks, and the term “robot,” comes from a 100-year-old Czech play about a factory that makes artificial humans. In the 1960s, Alan Turing decided that the ultimate test of a computer’s intelligence was not whether the machine could perform complex tasks, but whether the machine could intelligently participate in a human conversation. In 1966, the first artificial intelligence system designed to converse with humans, Eliza, matched user prompts to scripted responses. Unfortunately, her 2016 counterpart, Tay, created by Microsoft to mimic the speech pattern of a teenage girl, quickly lapsed into paranoia, began spouting racial slurs, and lasted just 16 hours. Of course, we’ve also seen the rise of incredibly useful A.I., like Cortana and Alexa that act as personal assistants. Chatbots have captivated our imagination much longer than they’ve existed, or even been called chatbots, but it’s only until recently that they’ve become a real part of our lives and still more recently that they’ve become a part of our marketing strategies. It was the smartphone that launched the chatbot from the realm of possibility into the practice of everyday use. Launched as a personal assistant app in 2010, Siri quickly became a major selling point of the iPhone. Until Siri, developers thought smartphone users wanted individual apps for every aspect of their mobile experience. Turns out, they wanted less apps and more interaction. A voice-controlled assistant that could connect with hundreds of different services and functions to deliver quick, easy, and best of all, voice- controlled solutions was what the general public didn’t know they really wanted. And of course, from there, we’ve got Alexa, Cortana, and a whole host of other voice-operated assistants at our beck and call. But the revolution doesn’t stop with virtual assistants. Chatbots, which are simpler than virtual assistants and rely on keywords for responses, are the customer service option many of us have been waiting for, and chatbot marketing, while still in its infancy, it the wave of the future. Chatbots offer support that never needs sleep, never leaves a customer waiting, and never gets cranky, meaning that artificial intelligence could, oddly enough, lead to more personal relationships with customers.

The excitement, of course, is the fact that Bots have the potential of driving a real-time, one-to-one interaction that is highly intelligent and conversational. Thus, this messaging channel has the potential to lead to a new form of “conversational commerce”, where brands can elevate their ability to engage with consumers on a more personal level. In order to successfully execute on this, Bots will need to have intelligence on the person they’re conversing with as well as sufficient capabilities to assist that person with the task they need to complete – otherwise Bots will quickly turn into the next version of the hated Voice Response systems that are blockers to customer service at many companies. Messaging applications are becoming a significant strategy for brands simply because it's how consumers are communicating today. According to an article in The Economist, over 2.5 billion people have installed at least one messaging app on their smartphone, and messaging has replaced phone calls as the communication medium of choice for millennials. Because of the penetration into consumers’ daily lives, these platforms now provide an outstanding medium through which brands can reach their customers.

TRANSFORMING THE BRAND

The purpose of the Bot is to have a unique conversation with each customer. And since the Bot is essentially representing your brand, you must determine how you want to be perceived by the customer. Personality and capability is key here. Will your Bot be very technical (consumer electronics discussion), or perhaps filled with outdoor wittiness (travel and vacation discussion)? Marketers should be prepared to design the right interaction into their Bot to enhance the personality so that it represents the brand accordingly. Marketers and Customer Service professionals are now paying a lot of attention to Chatbots. Whereas the web, mobile marketing and smartphone apps were at one point the “next big thing”, Chatbots are now becoming a pervasive part of a brand’s digital toolkit. Branding is a major goal of most businesses and is often a long process that requires a rigid adherence to distributing content that communicates your company’s core values. Chatbots can help your branding efforts by infusing humour and personality into your interactions with consumers. Creating a personality-driven chatbot can help build your company’s brand and generate positive word of mouth. But your chatbot must incorporate your company’s core values and meet the needs of your customers while also being entertaining and fun. In traditional online advertising, we call a click of an ad or play of a video “engagement”. Engagement with a chatbot, on the other hand, is an active conversation with a user. Disney created the Officer Judy Hopps bot on Facebook Messenger to tease their audience and drum up excitement prior to the movie’s release. Instead of passively watching a movie trailer, users joined Judy on a detective hunt and experienced her interactive story first-hand. Conversation and rapport building is significantly more effective than a simple ad or video view. The interaction leaves users with an entertaining experience, a better understanding of the brand, and a positive emotional feeling — takeaways traditionally achieved with only the best ads. (Everyone remembers a few ads that are still stuck in their brains even to this day.) Ads have become more targeted over time. Brands are always seeking ways to appeal to users personally, whether through programmatic display ads, retargeting, or direct mail. With chatbots, brands can personalize a conversation to the individual. You know exactly who you are talking to and with the right questions, you can recommend your customers — or potential customers — with an incredibly tailored solution to just their needs. Brand identity is usually pushed to users in a single direction — banner ad, videos, billboards, etc. A branded chatbot on the other hand, becomes a “live entity” that can infuse personality into conversations. Before the rise of chatbots, if companies wanted to give their brand character they would have to run expensive ads with real people. Nowadays they can code character into their chatbot and off they go.

It's important for brands to understand the components of driving successful engagement via messaging. Successful efforts will be optimized for the channel – which for messaging applications, means mobile first. This means designing a messagingspecific experience as opposed to simply shrinking down the web or taking your RSSnews feed and sizing it to fit on a smartphone device. Think of your design strategy for use of pictures, navigation, conversation (typing and swiping) and access to other aspects of the brand's mobile content. Additionally, the entire experience should be able to be successfully completed within the messaging application. Many early Bots are delivering part of the experience in messaging, and then linking off to a store page to finalize the transaction – however it much more engaging experience allows the customer to complete all steps as part of the conversation. This may require an initial setup process (e.g. storing a card on file, entering shipping address, etc), but the long term benefit is a delightful customer experience. Consider the Domino’s pizza ordering experience – just tweet a pizza slice to @Dominos, and in 30 minutes get your default pizza delivered to your door.

THE ROAD AHEAD FOR CHATBOTS Due to the compliance restrictions, most Bot engagement will begin with the customer initiating contact. Because of this, marketers need to have a strategy in place to turn that initial reactive contact into a positive experience that extracts permission for ongoing pushed interaction. Marketers must learn to predict how these interactions take shape and focus on serving the customer's needs first, as opposed to the brand's needs,

otherwise, consumers will quickly opt out of the program. This means that the conversation strategy should be up front with consumers on what they can expect from the bot – be that advertising, customer service, or information delivery. No matter which path the Bot takes, a successful conversation will enhance the relationship with the brand, ultimately leading to increased engagement. While Bots hold amazing potential, this interaction channel remains in its infancy. Companies considering the development of Bots don’t yet know the true ramifications and response from consumers who may be weary of talking to a “computer” on an individual level. The big question is how to cut through the hype to ensure that the Bots developed for your brand exceed the expectations of your customers to provide an experience that surprises and delights them. Messaging platforms, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Assistants (all of which are critical components to a successful Bot play) have been widely discussed, particularly at the recent Google conference. What’s more, Facebook announced that they are opening up their platform to commercial messaging (via bots) and provided numerous tools to enable brands to develop their own entries. The larger context here is that by adding context and enabling direct and timely action, “messaging” becomes the evolution of brand-consumer engagement in the persona of Bots. Customer data compiled from other channels should be used to help establish a successful interaction. However, this data must be used appropriately in the conversation. As an example, if you already have data on location and shopping habits, don't ask a customer to type in that information during the welcome part of the conversation, which can be perceived as annoying. Customers know that brands have data about them, and they expect them to use it. Compliance in a messaging environment is critical, and failure to follow best practices can lead to penalties, fines, or loss of customers who are dissatisfied with your approach. This can make or break your brand in many cases.