Digital Themes

Conversational UI

What is conversational UI?

Conversational UI takes human language and translates it into computer language—allowing humans to communicate with computers using natural language understanding rather than syntax specific commands to improve user experience. Conversational user interfaces commonly support customer service applications such as AI chatbots and QuickSearch Bots, as well as voice-to-text based services and AI driven voice assistant applications including Alexa, Amazon echo, Siri and Google Home. Users have become increasingly comfortable with these computer interactions, whether they are asking voice assistants to play a song, book a reservation or schedule an appointment.

What is compelling to companies about a conversational interface is the ability to present as an intelligent interface, along with the prospect of integrating artificial intelligence into their business model. These interfaces move beyond text transcription not only to capture language but use natural language processing (NLP) to demonstrate an understanding of the intention behind that language. Looking to the future, language and reasoning frameworks are merging big data and machine learning to create conversational-based interfaces that quickly develop a deeper understanding of and response to customer needs and wants for a more authentic, personalized interaction.

One area companies have realized great success using conversation UI to grow their business is on Facebook Messenger via Facebook chatbot. This artificial intelligence program can converse with users, answer their questions and provide suggestions to accomplish a range of tasks, from ordering flowers to booking flights and finding reservations.

The business benefits of using conversational UI concepts in projects are:

  • Offer convenience. There has been a proliferation of user-friendly, conversational user interfaces in daily life, many of which are familiar, intuitive, easy to engage and use with a simple visual interface. With the help of voice assistants, for example, users can speak into their personal devices to get directions, dial a phone number or ask a question.

  • Improve engagement. Using conversational UI, such as live chat software, allows companies to maximize website conversions by engaging customers in some activity or activities, such as signing up for a newsletter or initiating a call back from a sales consultation, resulting in better engagement, more leads and increased revenue.

  • Extend reach. Conversational interfaces can reach across platforms to find customers, including Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, utilizing multiple devices, including televisions, smartphones, tablets, laptops and more, to create a multichannel presence that allows companies to be where their customers are.

  • Personalize customer experience. Adapting conversational interfaces allows business to target their customers with personalized experiences and establish a deeper connection to those customers, by delivering content that is more specific to any number of factors including gender, online habits or location.

 

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