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RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS
Will chatbots take the lead in one-to-one
(personalized) conversations in the digital arena?
Prof. Dr. Peter Gentsch, a German management (900 million) are used, while in Asia WeChat (700
consultant and serial entrepreneur specialized in digital million) and Line (215 million) dominate.
management and data science, is dealing intensively
with the topics of personalization and bots in his Conversational Commerce as a new interaction
interesting article "Chatbots for personalized dialogues”, parameter
where he pointed out in many places that these topics
aren’t actually new. So far, customers who wanted to get in touch with a
company had to either fill in forms or call hotlines with
Joseph Weizenbaum, for instance, developed already often long waiting loop – both ways are generally
1966 a computer program called ELIZA that annoying for the customer. On the other hand,
demonstrated the possibilities of communication communication with friends, acquaintances and
between a human being and a computer through natural colleagues is increasingly taking place via messaging
language. When answering, the machine assumed the platforms such as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.
role of a psychotherapist, working based on a structured That’s why we now see the emergence of a new
dictionary and searching for key words in the input text. communications paradigm, where organizations use
Although the success of this bot model remained highly messaging platforms, chatbots, and algorithms both for
questionable, such bots of the first generation, with fixed customer interaction and internal communication.
dialogue and keyword-driven acting, continue to be
widely used. Conversational Commerce, on the other hand, provides
individual, bi-directional, real-time communication with
Even the personalization of websites, emails and the customer without the need for unrealistic amounts
newsletters has been part of successful digital marketing of staff. The conversation can take place using
for many years already, yet, due to the rapid chatbots that are either integrated into platforms such
development of platforms, communication devices, voice as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger or found alone
recognition and AI, the topics experience new meanings: on the company's website. In the chat conversations,
communication and interaction are increasingly product advice, sales process, purchase and customer
controlled and determined by algorithms and bots and care can take place, and thus facilitate the consumption
messaging systems are hotly debated. At first glance, it's for the customer. Since the customer interacts with the
all about new communication interfaces that bring company or the brand in the same way as with a friend,
efficiency and convenience benefits as the logical next this concept is also called "brand as a friend", making
evolutionary stage, but it is far more than just telling clear that companies benefit from their chatbots when
Alexa to order a pizza or changing the reservation for a they manage to conduct conversations that feel natural
flight. The fact is that the popularity of messaging and and human-like for the user.
bot systems is steadily increasing: since 2015, more
people are using apps for communication than social Nowadays, messaging and bot systems are
networks, which is almost three billion people a day increasingly used to simplify the interaction between
worldwide - in Europe and the US, mainly WhatsApp consumers and companies via voice and text-based
(around one billion people) and Facebook Messenger interfaces. This allows the entire customer journey to
8 April 2019 - Personalized & Customer-Centric Content Marketing