Is chat support helpful or annoying? 

To me, it’s both. 

It’s helpful because it’s the way I prefer to be helped. It’s asynchronous, it allows for multitasking, and it can be done anywhere. 

But, it’s also annoying. It sucks when you type something in and your customer service agent or bot has no idea what you’re talking about. 

LivePerson is trying to make customer interactions smarter.

Joe Bradley is Chief Scientist at LivePerson, and his mission is to define and anticipate customer needs and intent, via each and every single customer-to-brand interaction. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Joe explains the difference between creating conversational A.I. that not only can hold meaningful conversations with the user, but also understands the intent of the customer. He also gives a look into the future of how A.I.  will empower brands to create better customer experiences. Enjoy.
 

Main Takeaway

• What’s the Intent: The future of conversational technologies is going to rely heavily on A.I. and machine learning to not only be able to process the question the consumer is asking, but to be able to understand the intent of what the customer is asking. 
• Importance of the Hand-off: Conversational intelligence can coherently communicate with the customer on its own, but perhaps more importantly is able to store that information in a centralized location so that when a customer service representative gets to the case, the hand-off is clear and there is no breakdown in the conversation from the consumer’s perspective.
• How to Manage Your Data: When developing A.I. solutions, it's important to think of ways to creatively encourage your customers to engage with the platform so that you can collect useful first party data. By asking leading questions that get to the root cause of the customer’s issue, you can design a platform that is not only consistently learning from your customers, but also building trust.

IT Visionaries is brought to you by the Salesforce Platform - the #1 cloud platform for digital transformation of every experience. Build connected experiences, empower every employee, and deliver continuous innovation - with the customer at the center of everything you do. Learn more at salesforce.com/platform