The overwhelming majority of customers (89%) would prefer to engage with AI-driven virtual assistants to speed up finding information from companies, according to new research.
The findings, from Nuance, come a week after Facebook announced its new branded chatbots store, letting brands created automated assistants to engage Whats App adn Messenger conversations.
The study, carried out by Opus Research and Nuance Communications, indicate that consumers expect a conversational interaction when it comes to customer service, with 87% reporting that a positive interaction with a company will determine whether that consumer continues their relationship with the company.
Key findings:
· 89% of consumers want to engage in conversation with virtual assistants to quickly find information instead of searching through Web pages or a mobile app on their own. This is the same for the phone channel, where the majority of consumers indicated they prefer to engage with a system that lets them speak naturally when calling in to a business.
· 73% of consumers want their conversation with customer service to be personalised.
· 64% of consumers want their customer service to be proactive in nature, with suggestions and reminders.
· Consumers want a conversational, personalised and proactive interaction throughout the entire service experience, including authentication, with 83% of respondents seeking an alternative to passwords and PINs and the majority eager to use voice biometrics as the method to identify themselves.
This week, Nuance will be participating in the Opus Research IA Conference, where executives from Nuance, Swedbank, USAA and others will take the stage to share their experiences and vision on how intelligent assistants, artificial intelligence (AI), and voice biometrics specifically can improve the customer experience.
Watch this video from Facebook’s recent F8 conference (where they make their major announcements). At the 7:30 mark, David Marcus, the Vice President of Messaging Products at Facebook, explains what it looks like to buy shoes in a Facebook Messenger bot.
Methodology
Source: The Conversational Interface Preferences survey findings included in this press release were fielded by independent panel research firm, AYTM, and commissioned by Nuance Communications, Inc. Responses were generated from a survey among 425 consumers worldwide. All respondents were over the age of 18. The margin of error for the survey is +/-4%.