Adding Speech into the Cross-Platform Mix

For example, Hootsuite manages multiple online customer engagement programs, but these communities and customer support channels don’t always share the same features if they’re built on different platforms. By going to a single platform built on a single user interface offering the same look and feel—with the same images, emoticons, uploaded files, private messages, banned users, etc., as well as a single sign-on—customers have more consistent experiences. At the same time, Hootsuite has one source for analytical data, averting the need to integrate data across different platforms, according to Speyer. 

In addition to Hootsuite, large enterprises like Microsoft, Intuit, and HP, to name a few, offer community forums to encourage users to find answers to issues themselves rather than contacting a live agent.

The most effective forums—to say nothing of cross-platform conversational interfaces that incorporate text with video, voice, etc.—incorporate responsive design. Responsive design ensures that your site is optimized for screens of all sizes—which is especially important when we’re talking about cross-platform communication.

Responsive design isn’t new, but not all companies have perfected it yet. Those that haven’t are hurting themselves. Earlier this year Google’s search rankings started penalizing “non-responsive” design. The full implementation of the new algorithms won’t occur until later this year.

Google’s algorithms will eventually primarily use the mobile version of a website’s content to rank its pages, to understand structured data, and to show snippets from the site in its search results.

The Secret to Successful Cross-Platform Conversational Interfaces

To be truly effective, cross-platform conversational interfaces need to work across different types of communication, as well as across different devices. “You don’t want to be siloed with a single type of technology [e.g., voice or text],” says Osborn. “Some private companies have done that and have a bunch of separate technologies. Those siloed technologies don’t always connect with one another.”

“In the old days, you had the physical stores that were the primary customer touchpoint; now everything has moved to the internet,” Iyer adds. The physical stores promoted the brand’s personality. Today’s electronic communications need to do the same thing in a way that is consistent across those touchpoints—including voice.

So brands are increasingly seeking solutions that allow them to deploy one solution across multiple devices and communications platforms, rather than developing individual solutions that would then need to communicate with each other. Delta Airlines, for example, allows customers to start booking flights on mobile devices using voice or text. You can inquire later—with the same device or with a different one—about using frequent flier miles for the trip, then make your payment later using yet another device, receiving confirmation via your preferred mode of communication, Osborne says.

These interfaces increasingly rely on chatbots to automate most of the interactions. But not all chatbots are the same. Some are virtual assistants with only very basic answers—thus are little better than FAQs. Others have more in-depth knowledge bases, yet are still static and don’t incorporate AI.

Developers should improve chatbots not by examining searches that have been successful in finding answers but by looking at ones that have not, says Jon Reid, senior consultant with Function 1. By seeing where chatbots fell short, developers can further refine them to ensure that more customers get the answers they’re seeking, meaning faster resolutions and fewer transfers to a live agent.

The most effective chatbots, Iyer says, are ones that can co-browse the company’s website with the customer, showing the customer relevant information. For qualified customers—or when the service issue warrants it—the chatbots should be able to transfer the communication seamlessly to a human agent, Iyer says. Even with the growing intelligence of chatbots, humans are still best at resolving some of the most complex interactions. 

Building the cross-conversational interface is only the first step. As customers and businesses evolve, so must the interface to meet changing customer and business needs, Osborn says. So that means constant training of interfaces so that they can maximize efficiencies. The underlying technology also has to remain flexible enough to incorporate new platforms as they evolve.