What is Conversational AI: The 2023 Guide You’ll Actually Use

Conversational AI can be an important asset to your social media presence. Customers ask questions about products and services through Instagram, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and just about any other social media platform.

Are you here to answer these customer questions? For most businesses, it can be difficult to keep track of what’s happening on social media around the clock. This is where conversational AI can help!

With all these requests, and with a limited number of people able to fulfill them, a conversational chatbot or virtual assistant can be a lifesaver.

Conversational AI technology can make your team more efficient and allow more customers to get the help they need faster.

Keep reading to find out how your business can benefit from using a conversational AI tool for social customer service and social commerce.

What is Conversational AI?

The term “conversational AI”(artificial intelligence) refers to technologies such as virtual assistants or chatbots that can “talk”to people (for example, answer questions).

Conversational AI applications are often used in the customer service industry. They can be found on websites, online stores and social networks. Artificial intelligence technology can effectively speed up and simplify customer responses and routing.

How does conversational AI work?

Conversational AI mainly works due to two functions. First, it is machine learning. Simply put, machine learning means that technology “learns”and improves as it is used. It collects information from its own interactions. He then uses this information to improve himself over time.

As a result, the system will perform better six months after you add it to your page, and even better than a year later.

The second is called Natural Language Processing, or NLP for short. It is the process by which artificial intelligence understands language. Once he learns to recognize words and phrases, he can move on to natural language generation. This is the process by which he communicates with your customers.

Natural language generation basically means that the AI ​​simulates the conversation. For example, if a customer sends you a message on social media asking for information about when the order will ship, the AI ​​chatbot will know how to respond. He will do this based on previous experience with similar questions and because he understands what phrases work best in answering questions about delivery.

The theory may seem exhausting, but conversational chatbots with artificial intelligence provide a very smooth interaction with customers. Here’s an example of what you might expect it to look like in action:

Conversational AI stats

• The global conversational AI market is projected to reach $32.62 billion by 2030.
• The volume of interactions handled by conversational agents has increased by 250% across industries since the pandemic.
• The proportion of marketers using AI for digital marketing worldwide has skyrocketed from 29% in 2018 to 84% in 2020.
• Almost all adult voice assistant users use conversational AI technology on a smartphone (91.0% this year).
• Among U.S. voice assistant users surveyed by CouponFollow in April 2021, browsing and searching for products were the top purchases they made using the technology.
• Virtual assistants are most often used for customer service. Among tech professionals worldwide who have virtual assistants for clients, nearly 80% said they use them for this purpose.
• Online chat, video chat, chatbots or social media will be the most used customer service channel in three years, according to 73% of North American customer service decision makers surveyed in May 2021.
• Among U.S. executives, 86% agreed that AI will become a “core technology”in their company in 2021.
• As of February 2022, 53% of US adults have interacted with an artificial intelligence chatbot for customer service in the past year.
• In 2022, 3.5 billion chatbot applications were launched worldwide.
• The top three reasons US consumers use a chatbot are business hours (18%), product information (17%), and customer service requests (16%).

Top 5 Benefits of Using Conversational AI Tools

1.Save time

In an ideal world, each of your customers would receive thorough customer service. But the reality is that some clients will come to you with much simpler requests than others. A chatbot or virtual assistant is a great way to ensure everyone’s needs are met without overwhelming yourself and your team.

AI chatbots can solve simple customer service questions and allow you and your team to solve more complex ones. It also reduces latency at both ends. Our very own Heyday chatbot from Hootsuite helps businesses automate up to 80% of all customer service conversations!

Conversational AI can process multiple tickets at the same time, something you and your team can’t. This creates a more efficient customer service system.

2.Increased availability

You cannot be available to your customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Equipping your social media platform with conversational AI solves this problem. If a client needs help after hours, a chatbot can solve their problems. This solves a logistical problem and shows how chatbots can save time, but that’s not all.

Conversational AI can help your customers feel more caring and at ease, given how they increase your availability. The reality is that midnight may be the only free time someone has to get an answer to their question or solve a problem. With an artificial intelligence tool like Heyday, getting a response to a delivery request takes a matter of seconds:

While not all problems can be solved with a virtual assistant, conversational AI means these clients can get the help they need.

3.Help your customers make purchasing decisions

Of course, conversational AI can help solve customer support issues. But it can also help in creating and changing sales.

One of the benefits of machine learning is its ability to create personalized experiences for your customers. This means that a conversational AI platform can make recommendations to customers about products or add-ons that they may not have seen or considered.

Here is an example of what these recommendations look like in action:

Conversational AI solutions like Heyday make these recommendations based on what’s in a customer’s shopping cart and their purchase requests (such as the category they’re interested in).

Result? More sales without your participation.

4.Sell ​​after business hours

Speaking of helping customers make purchasing decisions, another benefit of conversational AI is the accessibility it offers. One of the great benefits of doing business online is the fact that sales can take place at any time. The only thing that can prevent this is the types of delivery, sales, or customer requests that may arise when there are no representatives available.

A chatbot or virtual assistant can easily fix this. Since it is available at any time, it can help anyone who is waiting for an answer to a question before completing their checkout. This means those sales happen faster and you don’t run the risk of customers losing interest in their purchase before it’s completed.

With Heyday, you can even set up your chatbot to include “Add to Cart”calls to action and seamlessly guide your customers to checkout.

5. No more language barriers

An underestimated aspect of conversational AI is that it removes language barriers. Most chatbots and virtual assistants come with language translation software. This allows them to detect, interpret and generate almost any language.

As a result, no customer interaction is constrained by language differences. This makes your business more attractive and accessible to a wider range of customers.

Conversational AI Best Practices

Know When to Engage (Human) Customer Service Agents

The artificial intelligence tool is great for solving simple problems. But it’s good to know their limits. Not every customer will have a problem that conversational AI can handle. Chatbots are assistants to your customer support, not a replacement. Make sure you have agents on standby ready to step in when a more complex request arrives.

Social Commerce Optimization

You want to get the most out of your conversational AI. You also want your clients to have as much access as possible to the help they need. The best way to accomplish both of these tasks is to choose a conversational AI tool optimized for social commerce.

Heyday is a tool tailored to the specific needs of retailers. It integrates with e-commerce, shipping, and marketing tools, seamlessly connecting your business backend with your customers and helping you create the best user experience.

Some of Heyday’s integrations include:

• Shopify
• Magento
• PrestaShop
• Pannier Blue
• GLANDERS
• speed of light
• 780+ delivery service providers

With Heyday, you can connect conversational AI to all of your customers’ favorite communication channels, including:

• Messenger
• Instagram
• whatsapp
• Google Business Messages
• Cocoa Talk
• Web and mobile chats
• Email address

…and handle all those interactions from one platform.

When conversational AI is optimized for social commerce, it’s much more than a customer service tool – it can also help you automate sales.

Examples of Conversational AI

Here’s how brands large and small are using conversational chatbots and AI-powered virtual assistants on social media.

Amazon

They may not be a social media platform, but it’s always a good idea to take notes from the largest online retailer in the world.

Amazon uses a virtual assistant as its first line of customer service. The Amazon experience relies heavily on leading questions, as in the example above. It also includes recent order data to provide information on what customers might be interested in.

DAVIDSTEA

DAVIDSTEA uses Heyday for social customer service. This Canadian tea company takes a more linguistic approach. Their chatbot uses common speech patterns to provide customers with the answers and information they need.

Watches and colors

Jewelry brand Clocks and Colors uses a chatbot on its Facebook page. When someone reaches out, the brand’s virtual assistant is triggered. Like the Amazon bot, this bot also serves the brand’s customers with hints and easy language.

The Clocks and Colors bot is integrated with the brand’s traditional customer service channels. When the user indicates they want to chat with the agent, the AI ​​will alert the helpdesk representative. If there is no one, a special absence message is sent and the request is added to the customer service queue.