How to Design Chatbots that Deliver Good Customer Experiences (Video)

Pasquale DeMaio, General Manager, Amazon Connect, AWS demos Amazon Connect's Contact Flow Engine in this clip from his keynote at CRM evolution 2018.

Pasquale DeMaio: The difference between having an experience that's good with a bot, and one that's a bad with a bot, is all about the design of the bot and the experience. It was something that was very hard to do, I think, even a couple years ago, but now I think it's going to be table stakes. And customers can actually enjoy this experience as opposed to dreading it. As Vikram mentioned, "Let me talk to a representative. Let me talk to a representative." You never want your customers to experience that.

I'm going to give you a little example here. A call comes in. The very first thing you do is look at your backend systems. Check out what your CRM has to say. Look at some data about the customer.

Chatbot: I see your flight was canceled today. How can I help you?

Customer: Can you please rebook me for the same flight tomorrow?

Chatbot: Okay. You are now booked for a 9:00 a.m. departure tomorrow out of San Francisco, arriving in Seattle at 11:45 a.m.

Customer: Great. Thank you.

Pasquale DeMaio: The difference between this experience and the one people associate with an automated experience, or an IVR, is substantial. But the reason why it's substantial isn't because magic happened. All this stuff is information you already have, in most cases. You know a lot about your customers, and instead of showing them something that's asking them something that you already know, jump ahead and help them understand what they're doing, and then give them the power to respond to that really quickly.

In this case, it's a great example. How many times to do you think someone calls in where the answer is obvious in your business? I know for our case, we often know that a customer placed an order. It's a good chance that's what they're calling about. Or we know a customer, a shipment was delayed because of a snowstorm. It's a good chance that's what the customer is calling about.

Take these things and make them fluid and fast, and it goes from something that's painful and hurtful for the customer, into something that's delightful. You really have that opportunity to change that experience. And before you know it, you'll have customers saying that that automated experience was better than an agent-driven experience.

Of course, you still may want to talk to an agent afterwards. This person may want to do something that's unusual, or something that isn't planned for, or may just want some level of confirmation that what they said happened, and all of that is great. We don't see that going away. But taking care of these straightforward things, and making that a really enjoyable experience for the customer is something everyone in this room should feel empowered, and be empowered to do.

Jumping back to the key parts of that that we look at is, first off, it's got to be dynamic. It's got to change based on the customer, making it personal, and it's got to be super-natural. And we talked a bunch about the natural aspects of this, and having you guys in control of how you make it natural while being able to change the things the customer can say, responding to things instantly.

One note we didn't talk much about is Lex. Lex actually will show you all the common things people are asking you, and the things that it didn't know what it was being said to it. So, you can then approach that from a very analytical standpoint and make those changes based on what your customers are actually saying to you.

Pasquale DeMaio:            The difference between having an experience that's good with a bot, and one that's a bad with a bot, is all about the design of the bot and the experience. It was something that was very hard to do, I think, even a couple years ago, but now I think it's going to be table stakes. And customers can actually enjoy this experience as opposed to dreading it. As Vikram mentioned, "Let me talk to a representative. Let me talk to a representative." You never want your customers to experience that.

 

I'm going to give you a little example here. A call comes in. The very first thing you do is look at your backend systems. Check out what your CRM has to say. Look at some data about the customer.

Chatbot:              I see your flight was canceled today. How can I help you?

Customer:           Can you please rebook me for the same flight tomorrow?

Chatbot:              Okay. You are now booked for a 9:00 a.m. departure tomorrow out of San Francisco, arriving in Seattle at 11:45 a.m.

Customer:           Great. Thank you.

Pasquale DeMaio:            The difference between this experience and the one people associate with an automated experience, or an IVR, is substantial. But the reason why it's substantial isn't because magic happened. All this stuff is information you already have, in most cases. You know a lot about your customers, and instead of showing them something that's asking them something that you already know, jump ahead and help them understand what they're doing, and then give them the power to respond to that really quickly.

 

In this case, it's a great example. How many times to do you think someone calls in where the answer is obvious in your business? I know for our case, we often know that a customer placed an order. It's a good chance that's what they're calling about. Or we know a customer, a shipment was delayed because of a snowstorm. It's a good chance that's what the customer is calling about.

 

Take these things and make them fluid and fast, and it goes from something that's painful and hurtful for the customer, into something that's delightful. You really have that opportunity to change that experience. And before you know it, you'll have customers saying that that automated experience was better than an agent-driven experience.

 

Of course, you still may want to talk to an agent afterwards. This person may want to do something that's unusual, or something that isn't planned for, or may just want some level of confirmation that what they said happened, and all of that is great. We don't see that going away. But taking care of these straightforward things, and making that a really enjoyable experience for the customer is something everyone in this room should feel empowered, and be empowered to do.

 

Jumping back to the key parts of that that we look at is, first off, it's got to be dynamic. It's got to change based on the customer, making it personal, and it's got to be super-natural. And we talked a bunch about the natural aspects of this, and having you guys in control of how you make it natural while being able to change the things the customer can say, responding to things instantly.

 

One note we didn't talk much about is Lex. Lex actually will show you all the common things people are asking you, and the things that it didn't know what it was being said to it. So, you can then approach that from a very analytical standpoint and make those changes based on what your customers are actually saying to you.

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