Tag: conversational ui

Facebook Messenger Sets 24-Hour Reply Window For Bots, Tests Subscription Messaging

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook has updated its Messenger platform policies to force chatbots to be more active and responsive. Chatbots on Messenger now only have 24 hours to respond to a message from a user. To sweeten the deal, Facebook is also allowing Messenger bots to send users promotional messages unprompted, but only within the 24-hour window of the last user interaction.

Moreover, Facebook is also testing a new Subscription messaging feature for specific use cases, including bots for news delivery, bots for productivity management, as well as bots that track fitness, health, and personal finance information. Subscription messaging must be opted in by a recipient and will have limited functionality. Unlike regular Messenger accounts, Subscription messaging allows brands to message users outside of the aforementioned 24-hour period, but promotional content is not allowed. These rules are very similar to WeChat’s business account rules.

What Brands Need To Do
As Facebook Messenger starts testing a similar model that divides Messenger accounts by use case, brands need to be aware of the distinction, learn from other brands’ successes on WeChat, and choose the type of messaging that best suits the objectives of their Messenger bots. Brands also need to be aware of the new 24-hour reply window for re-engaging users.

The Lab has extensive knowledge about building chatbots. If you’re interested in reaching your audience on messaging apps and better serving them with a chatbot, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) for more information or to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: Marketing Land

Domino’s Launches Pizza-Ordering Bot On Facebook Messenger

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Pizza Hut may have announced their pizza-ordering bot for Facebook Messenger first, but it has been beaten by its rival Domino’s, which has launched its chatbot for the popular messaging app in the U.K. and Ireland. As an extension of the Domino’s Easy Order program, which allows customers to order their favorite pizza with a simple tap of a button in its app, the chatbot will cue up your default order in response to a single word command of “pizza” once you’ve signed in with your My Domino’s account.

What Brands Need To Do
This is not the first time Domino’s has ventured into conversational interfaces. In February, Domino’s released an Alexa skill that allows users of Amazon Echo devices to order pizza by speaking. The chatbot is designed to focus on performing one task only, which is certainly a valid approach as we pointed out in our Medium post on chatbots.

However, compared to Pizza Hut’s upcoming Messenger bot, which promises the ability to hold a back-and-forth conversation with customers and functions beyond ordering pizza, Domino’s approach may be missing out on chatbots’ vast potential for customer service and feedback collection.

The Lab has extensive knowledge about building chatbots. If you’re interested in reaching your audience on messaging apps and better serving them with a chatbot, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) for more information or to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: VentureBeat

Amazon Pushing Alexa Into Connected Home And Car

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon has big plans for its voice-activated digital assistant Alexa. The company is seeking partnerships with smart home device makers such as Nucleus to build Alexa Voice Service into their products. This initiative is aimed at positioning Alexa as the central command hub for devices around the smart home space, even the hardware that isn’t made by Amazon. Beyond the home space, Amazon is also actively seeking to integrate Alexa into the connected car. The company has so far established partnerships with BMW and Ford to explore how Alexa can bring voice commands into cars and, in Ford’s case, bridge the gap between smart home and connected car.

What Brands Need To Do
Amazon’s vision of an intelligent assistant is set to push conversational interfaces into new spaces and further infiltrate consumers’ daily lives. In turn, it will give rise to more marketing opportunities for brands to reach customers in cars or at home with branded Alexa skills. As Amazon continues to push Alexa into the smart home and connected car, it is time that brands start working with developers to build branded Alexa skills.

The Lab has extensive experience with building Alexa skills and helping brands navigate the new realities that conversational interfaces are set to bring. If you’re interested in learning more, please reach out and schedule a visit to the Lab. For additional information on how brands can effectively reach consumers on conversational interfaces, please check out the first section of our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: New York Times & The Verge

 

Facebook Rolls Out Shop Section For Brand Pages In Select Markets

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook first started testing the addition of a Shop section to its Pages last September, and now the social network has started the official roll-out in select “high-growth and emerging” markets, including Mexico, India, Brazil, and Taiwan. Page-owners can now display their products and services in the Shop section for customers to browse and search. The Shop section will redirect interested shoppers to Facebook Messenger to complete their orders. Facebook says the section will roll out to all global markets in the coming weeks.

What Brands Need To Do
Adding a Shop section to Pages provides brands a great tool to showcase their offerings and help with customer conversion. More importantly, however, it also serves as a portal for Facebook to push for the ecommerce capabilities of its messaging app. As Messenger recently hit 1 billion active users worldwide, there is no denying that it is important for brands to be present on Facebook’s messaging platform to connect with its massive users and adapt to the rise of conversational commerce.

To learn more about how brands can effectively reach consumers on messaging apps and other conversational platforms, please check out the Conversational Interfaces section in our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: VentureBeat

Customer Engagement Platform Flok Adds Chatbot Service

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Another day, another CRM platform gets on board with the ongoing rise of chatbots. Customer engagement startup flok announced that it is adding a chatbot service to its platform to enable the thousands of local businesses using its platform to connect with customers. The addition of chatbots aims to facilitate customer feedback and provide a more engaging customer service experience.

Previously, flok’s main product focused on helping local businesses build customer loyalty and improve engagement by using beacons to retarget customers who have previously visited their stores. Besides small local businesses, the company is also working with the likes of Salvation Army and Subway to help them better understand their customers on a local level.

Why Brands Should Care
As we pointed out in our Medium post on branded chatbots, they serve as a great tool for handling basic customer service and other single-focus tasks such as gathering feedback. This chatbot service from flok provides local businesses and brands with physical locations an opportunity to add a chatbot to their customer communication channels.

The Lab has extensive knowledge about building chatbots. If you’re interested in reaching your audience on messaging apps and better serving them with a chatbot, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) for more information or to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: Street Fight

Patrón Develops Alexa Skill To Dispense Cocktail Recipes

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Patrón is turning Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa into a digital bartender. As part of its Patrón Cocktail Lab initiative, the tequila brand worked with Razorfish to develop an Alexa skill that allows users to ask for cocktail recipes based on flavor or occasion via voice command. Users can also ask for some interesting tidbits about tequila. The skill currently covers over 168 different recipes and Patrón says it plans to add new content every month.  

What Brands Need To Do
With this Alexa skill, Patrón stays ahead of the digital curve by dipping a toe into the voice-based conversational interface. Using Alexa-enabled devices to distribute branded content gives Patrón a way into consumers’ homes. For more information on how brands can develop authentic brand voices and navigate the new interface, check out the Conversational Interfaces section in our Outlook 2016.

The Lab has extensive experience with building Alexa skills and helping brands navigate the new realities that conversational interfaces are set to bring. If you’re interested in learning more about our take on this topic, please reach out and schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: Digiday

Amazon Had A Great Prime Day With Voice-Ordering Via Alexa Popular Among Shoppers

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon reported record sales for its second annual Prime Day event it held on Tuesday. The Seattle-based ecommerce leader enjoyed an increase of over 60% in global sales volume and more than 50% in the U.S. compared to last year’s Prime Day.  Compared to the mixed reaction Amazon received last year, the consumer feedbacks regarding Prime Day improved significantly this year, according to two social analytics services.

An important tidbit emerged from Amazon’s press release on Prime Day was how much the sales event pushed sales for Amazon’s Echo smart speaker. Tuesday counted as the largest sales day for Amazon Echo devices, with sales up over 2.5 times compared to the previous daily sales record. Interestingly, many Echo users also tried out the Alexa-enabled voice ordering, purchasing one Alexa-exclusive deal per second on average during Prime Day using their voice.

What Retailers Need To Do
Given the positive results, it seems very likely that Amazon will bring back Prime Day next year. The success of Alexa-enabled voice ordering shows the potential for integrating ecommerce capabilities into voice-based conversational interfaces. As more and more Amazon shoppers get Alexa-enabled devices, voice ordering is something that retail and CPG brands need to look out for.

The Lab has extensive experience with building Alexa skills and helping brands navigate the new realities that conversational interfaces are set to bring. If you’re interested in learning more about our take on this topic, please reach out and schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: Amazon’s Press Release

Here Come The Pizza Hut And Whole Foods Chatbots

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Another day, another crop of branded chatbots pop up on Facebook Messenger. Pizza Hut customers can now ask a chatbot to order a pizza and, once signed in with their Pizza Hut accounts, check their past purchases. In addition, the Pizza Hut bot will also be available via Twitter DM. For people who wish to eat healthier, Whole Foods is developing a Messenger bot that will respond with curated recipes related to keywords and emojis users send. Both chatbots are built with the Conversable platform and were unveiled at the VentureBeat MobileBeat conference on Wednesday.

Why Brands Should Care
These two chatbots are the latest additions to a growing list of branded bots as companies seek to connect with consumers on popular messaging apps. As we noted in our Medium post on branded chatbots, they are great for handling basic customer service and other single-focus tasks. Both of these new chatbots adhere to that principle, focusing on ordering and dispensing recipes, respectively. With more and more smartphone users opting to communicate via messaging apps, it is time for brands to consider developing chatbots in order to reach prospective customers.

The Lab has extensive knowledge about building chatbots. If you’re interested in reaching your audience on messaging apps and better serving them with a chatbot, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) for more information or to schedule a visit to the Lab.

Source: AdWeek

Kik Introduces An “Invite” Feature To Help Bots Go Viral

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Kik added a new feature for its chatbots on Friday that allows users to invite their friends to try them out. The Canada-based messaging app launched its Bot Shop in April and has since accumulated over 70 available bots from various brands, publishers, and game-makers. The first bot to receive this invite feature is a game called Zombie Invasion, and Kik says it is working with other bot developers to widely roll out this feature.

Why Brands Should Care
This invite feature should be a handy tool for brands to spread the words about their Kik bots and we expect other messaging platforms to come out with similar features for their bots soon. Early adopting brands such as H&M and Yahoo have launched branded bots on Kik to reach users, and more should take advantage of this new feature to aid chatbot discovery. With eMarketer predicting that messaging apps will reach 80% of global smartphone users by 2018, brands would be smart to start experimenting with branded chat bots to reach customers on popular messaging apps.

To learn more about how brands can use chat bots to better serve customers via messaging apps, check out our Medium post on this topic.

 

Source: AdWeek

 

Header image courtesy of Kik’s official blog

Amazon Expands Alexa’s Shopping Capability

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Alexa lovers rejoice! Amazon has expanded the shopping capability of its digital voice assistant service. Previously, Amazon Echo users could ask Alexa to make basic purchases such as reorders of existing products as well as order a handful of select items from Amazon. On Friday, Amazon announced that Alexa can now search and purchase millions of products that are eligible for Prime shipping. Now when users ask Alexa to buy a product, Alexa will suggest a Prime eligible product and tell the cost, and users can simply place the order by responding “yes.” Certain product categories, including apparel, shoes, jewelry, and watches, are currently not eligible for purchase through Alexa, but Amazon says it is adding new items to Alexa’s shopping list daily.

What Brands Need To Do
This expansion marks an important step in Amazon’s integration of its industry-leading ecommerce business with its growing line of Alexa-enabled products. As we explained in our Outlook 2016, conversational interfaces will drastically change the rules of search discovery for brands and this serves as a good example to that point. When shoppers search for items via Alexa, they won’t see a list of options as they would on Amazon.com, but are instead served with a few top choices determined by Amazon. As Alexa-enabled devices continue to proliferate, especially among Prime members, it can significantly alter how shoppers discover and order products, and brands relying on Amazon as a sales channel will need to take proactive measures to respond.

The Lab has extensive experience with building Alexa skills and helping brands navigate the new realities that conversational interfaces are set to bring. If you’re interested in learning more about our take on this topic, please reach out and schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: CNET