LivePerson Introduces The Conversational Cloud
LivePerson, a provider of conversational artificial intelligence, today launched the Conversational Cloud, where companies can build and run AI-powered automations over popular messaging channels such as SMS, WhatsApp, Apple Business Chat, Facebook Messenger, Google RCS, LINE, WeChat, and native messaging on websites and mobile apps.
The Conversational Cloud lets companies instantly respond to messages, answer questions, resolve customer intents, and route to human experts as needed. Conversational AI, which communicates like a human by recognizing speech, text, and intent, is at the heart of the Conversational Cloud
The Conversational Cloud's Intent Manager, a real-time intent recognition and classification engine, analyzes consumer intentions at every turn of the conversation. Intent Manager is powered by LivePerson's natural language understanding (NLU) capabilities and machine learning algorithms.
Intent Manager is currently being used by Chipotle Mexican Grill to gain real-time insights and take action to improve customer service, marketing, and sales automation.
"Everything we have done on this end-to-end transformation journey has been about delivering exceptional digital experiences to our customers and our crews," said Nicole West, vice president of digital strategy and product at Chipotle, in a statement. "We're using the Conversational Cloud to curate convenient, frictionless, engaging experiences that are aligned with our purpose to cultivate a better world."
Key benefits of Intent Manager include the following:
- Automatically understands about half of consumer intents with preconfigured, out-of-the-box intent models customized for telco, financial services, retail, airlines, and other industries;
- Enables users to fine-tune or configure custom intents;
- Routes conversations to the agent or bot best equipped to resolve them.
The Conversational Cloud also includes LivePerson's Conversation Builder, which empowers companies to build automated conversation flows with a point-and-click interface. For example, Chipotle's ew concierge bot Pepper handles customer intents to take orders for delivery and pickup, share order status updates, and provide customer service as needed.
With Conversation Builder, a single automated conversation flow can be configured to run on any messaging channel. If the automation needs an assist, human agents are automatically tapped to seamlessly join the conversation.
The Conversational Cloud contains more than 40 application programming interfaces and software development kits that allow users to integrate third-party applications, build new AI-powered applications and automations, create workflows, and read/write data to any system.
"We kept developers top of mind as we built the Conversational Cloud because we knew they'd be the key to unlocking its true power," said Jennifer Kline Shernoff, vice president of product management at LivePerson, in a statement. "Integrating with CRM, billing, and other back-end systems means developers can now easily automate how brands handle common intents like 'What's my order status?,' 'Pay my bill,' or 'Schedule an appointment.'"
LivePerson Functions inside the Conversational Cloud helps userscreate custom workflows that can be triggered by a variety of conversational events. For example, by integrating with external systems, customers with VIP status can be routed to dedicated experts before the conversation even starts.
And because the Conversational Cloud is based in the cloud, it is ideal for distributed workforces.
When David's Bridal was forced by the COVID-19 pandemic to temporarily shut down retail stores, the company transformed from a 90 percent in-store business to a 100 percent digital business in two weeks, leading to a 7.5 times increase in messaging volume and 700 percent increase in sales via messaging.
"We honestly don't know how we would have survived the last couple of months without the option to message. It truly saved our business," said Holly Carroll, vice president of customer service and contact center operations at David's Bridal, in a statement. "With the Conversational Cloud, we sped up our vision for Zoey, our conversational bridal concierge, and put our customers into the best hands."
New iOS and Android mobile apps for the Conversational Cloud are also available.
The Conversational Cloud works across all channels, from messaging channels to mobile apps, websites, social media, and email. Companies can also use features like LivePerson Voice to Messaging and Apple's Chat Suggest to shift consumers who call on the phone directly into messaging conversations.
The Conversational Cloud also includes Conversation Analytics, a performance dashboard that captures conversational metrics, from sales-focused metrics like overall volume and average order value to customer care, operational efficiency, and consumer experience metrics. Companies can compare their performance to industry benchmarks and take actions recommended by LivePerson's AI to improve over time.
Early users of the Conversational Cloud have already seen the following results :
- Higher qualified leads that are 2.5 times more likely to convert to sales;
- Up to 20 percent increases in average order value and online sales conversions;
- Labor costs reduced by 50 percent;
- Customer satisfaction scores increased by up to 20 percent;
- 50 percent decreases in agent attrition.
"AI-powered messaging is a win-win-win for customers, employees, and brands," said Alex Spinelli, chief technology officer at LivePerson, in a statement. "Consumers and agents benefit from the incredible convenience and efficiency of messaging, while brands benefit from developing direct, high-value relationships with their customers, which they own forever right in the same conversation thread where they first connected."