Tel-Aviv, January 31th 2018 - Chatbot 4 Dummies
Last week we attended the third international Chatbot Summit in Tel-Aviv. Only six months after returning from the second Summit at Berlin, we thought that not much had changed when it comes to Chatbots. We were blown away, because a lot has changed.
We gladly share our 5 key takeaways from this last Summit with you.
We know… probably already 60% of you reading this article will give-up at this point. And we understand, because reading further, even if it is interesting, takes time and is not conversational. For those people, just jump to our chatbot and experience how it SHOULD be, and get to know our 5 takeaways in the chatbot way!
Go here or scan the code?
Those holding on: enjoy the read (and the chatbot afterwards ;-) )!
First takeaway: we’re past the hype
Yoav Barel was totally right in his opening keynote, we are past the hype. Six months ago, the hype was at its peak promising a lot with Artificial Intelligence. The expectations were to high: chatbots would answer everything for everybody. Today we know that your chatbot needs to be narrowed down to a specific problem.
For chatbots to survive the dip and work towards a steady grow, conversation is key. This is our first takeaway.
Second takeaway: The conversational user interface will dominate the digital transformation…
… and not (yet) the AI, as we believed six months ago. We need smart conversation designers. Because people don’t want AI-bots, they want CHAT-bots. Hence make your conversation engaging, fun and simple. We all like chatting, and in most of the times messaging is a more time efficient way of communicating. Conversational interfaces are best for guiding someone through your process. Whether this is a sales, procedure, or administrative process.
If you can narrow the context; you don't need AI to create good conversational guidance is takeaway number two.
Third takeaway: be more ambitious: build, be less ambitious: narrow!
This might sound like a paradox. We encountered a lot of chatbot-companies, and when messaging their Facebook page, we expected a (funny) chatbot to welcome us. However… nothing happened… No “hi” or funny story back. Were we at the right summit?
Giveaway number three: Stop talking about chatbots, start building them. Narrow it down and make them chat!
Fourth takeaway: investors are not looking for chatbot service companies
Investors are not looking for service companies, they want to invest in companies that are capable to solve problems for businesses or customers. Don’t get trapped by putting your focus on service and become the pickaxe company rather than digging for gold. The war for the platform is not the battle to win. We need to cut the weak cards out of the deck because agencies will be eaten by product businesses.
Takeaway number four: It’s not about the chatbot, it’s what the chatbot could possibly solve for you!
Fifth takeaway: build, measure, learn.
Data is what makes a chatbot valuable. And that is what a chatbot must do; collecting data in a seamless way and provide information to take your product, service or process to a higher level. The challenge is to build an engaging chatbot that collects mass amount of user data, with minimal effort from the users. Then do not sit back, but analyse it, learn from it, and start to develop an ever better (chatbot) product.
The struggle for chatbotdata is on! (6 million Swelly users can’t be wrong!) concludes our fifth giveway.
For us it was surprising to see most of the companies put the focus on technology and AI and forgot all about the conversation and thus, chatbots… . Which made us learn more form a student attending the conference for a final paper about CHATbots, then an AI tech company (without a chatbot ;-) ).
Ps.: scan the messenger code below and experience this article in a conversational way, and let us know the difference! And maybe you might find our 6th key take away... even more impressive than the Tesla of Elon in space...:-)
