Chatbots and virtual assistants that don't provide the right answers to customer queries can result in a frustrating digital experiences for customers – particularly those chatbots programmed without deep learning capabilities.
Deep learning is essential for automated chatbots to understand natural language questions and to provide the right answers, which is something that AI-powered search firm Lucidworks has taken on board. The company recently launched Smart Answers for chatbots and virtual assistants – a solution the company says will help to avoid frustrating digital support experiences and long customer support wait times.
According to Lucidworks, companies rely on digital portals to provide information to users, whether digital commerce customers looking for product information before purchase, employees hunting for an HR document, or someone looking for an airline's updated cancellation policies. Information is often scattered across disparate silos and is impossible for a user to locate using natural language questions.
Smart Answers on Lucidworks Fusion aims to help employees and customers resolve issues via chatbots or virtual assistants without the need for additional support or 'irrelevant' search results.
Lucidworks CEO Will Hayes explains that customers expect more conversational interactions with a chatbot or virtual assistant that understands natural language questions, and is quickly provides the correct answers.
"In the current environment, it's important to meet customers where they are, especially if they're moving from a real life experience to digital," he says.
"Our work over the years with Fusion has been focused on understanding a user's intent. Digging for answers wears their patience, wastes their time, and can even motivate them to seek out a competitor. Being able to understand what your users are asking for in their own words and returning the best answer instantly, allows companies to provide a natural conversational experience digitally. With Smart Answers, we're cutting down time-to-resolution, increasing customer retention, and powering conversational experiences for users.
The company cites Red Hat as one of its customers.
"We conducted an A/B test where we introduced a self-solve based homepage to some customers. There was an increase in traffic that confirmed that customers are really motivated to self-solve and we saw a seven per cent decrease in support case creation for customers who were given the self-solve homepage," comments Red Hat principal software engineer Manikandan Sivanesan.
Lucidworks states that Smart Answers on Lucidworks Fusion enhances conversational applications to help users help themselves by delivering immediate and contextual responses that drive engagement and satisfaction.
