Nextwave Software Unveils Conversant.im for Facebook Messenger
Nextwave Software today launched Conversant.im, a platform that aims to help customer-facing teams work together alongside chatbots to manage their support interactions on Facebook Messenger.
Conversant.im is designed with the notion that humans must follow up on the conversations that are initially handled by artificial intelligence (AI) tools to keep up with customers' high expectations. The technology is packaged and presented in a format that aims to simplify a user's access to past customer activity via a practical visual layout, which allows her to navigate conversations held in Facebook’s Messenger environment and figure out how to proceed with the client in an appropriate manner.
The user interface can surface a historical view of a customer's messages with a virtual assistant, with the goal of enabling agents to visually refer back to important activities, including transactions and requests. Within the program, agents can toggle between chat windows as well as assign and manage each of their conversations in progress.
In a statement, Nextwave pointed to research house Gartner’s predictions for 2016, which indicated that one of the top customer engagement priorities for enterprises would be to address customer service on Facebook.
Christopher Boothroyd, Nextwave’s CEO, noted in a statement that the release comes in the midst of a "figure-it-out stage" during which businesses are beginning to implement automated chat tools to handle commerce:
"The social messaging space is exploding, there are more bots launched every day and CRM is straining to adapt. Innovative businesses need a platform to come into this space and provide a way to harness the opportunity. Conversant is the platform for businesses to leverage Messenger to deliver on the ultimate goal in customer convenience: sales, service and support are only a send button away."
Conversant.im is now available to select customers and partners as a private beta program; the vendor plans to announce the general avialability of a preview version early next year. According to the company's website, the vendor is working on expanding its reach beyond Messenger, to "work across every major messaging platform possible."
In his statement, Boothroyd noted that the release could replace the "old private chat room metaphor":
"This new messaging land rush requires a new UI/UX approach and Conversant perfectly embodies our concept of an agent + bot team creating a perfect circle of service around the customer. By upgrading and replacing the old private chat room metaphor completely, we have opened up new possibilities for messaging and AI applications. With Conversant now in private beta and customer traction in hand, our new approach has been validated and we see Messenger becoming a highly profitable place for our customers."
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