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By Dwight Ford, IBM
Imagine. You’re a salesman. On the road. And you need some information about the clients you will be meeting for the first time. You pull over. Power up your tablet and download a spreadsheet that is more spread than sheet.
And you start searching and searching and searching for the pertinent information. But what if what you are looking for is not part of the standard ledger? There’s no one in the car but you, but you are dying to ask a question. What if the answer was right in your lap?
That’s just a tiny fraction of the new potential of the chatbot as a modern customer service tool. Now, with cognitive technology, chatbots are becoming more personalized and able to have intelligent interactions, helping business employees and customers alike find answers faster.
Over the past few years, cognitive computing tools, such as Watson APIs, have developed deep speech and language capabilities. Combined with the power of cloud infrastructure, greater numbers of developers are now training cognitive apps to understand the intention behind a specific command -- such as a question -- and build chatbots to assist users in a growing range of tasks.
For example, business solutions provider Staples recently collaborated with IBM to use the Watson Conversation API in its “Easy System,” enabling customers and office managers to reorder supplies, track shipments and ask questions, whether it’s via the Staples Easy Button or through its app.
You may have also been helped by an intelligent assistant when calling your bank, which are increasingly using chatbots to direct customers to the right customer service agent.
Or, you may have been assisted by a chatbot at your job, helping you sift through internal data to find the information you needed for a client presentation. The idea is to reduce the number of user clicks while speeding up, simplifying and engaging in a meaningful dialogue.
The chatbot phenomenon is exciting consumers, businesses and a new generation of developers. The vision of the Bluemix Garage in San Francisco where I work is a collaborative environment staffed with a diverse group of experts who work as one team with clients to rapidly design and develop apps on the cloud, using a design thinking method and tools such as cognitive APIs.
This personalized approach is resonating as the demand for more customized experiences skyrockets. Because Watson services are available as API “building blocks,” including capabilities which tap the cloud to analyze language, speech and vision, businesses can build highly specific apps to fit their needs. With a chatbot there is nothing to download, no complex interfaces with other sites, and no bottlenecks.
Cloud platforms are helping more developers to build with cognitive APIs, and chatbots are just a fraction of the potential for cognitive apps. By using IBM Watson and the cloud, we can expect to see a new wave of even more personalized and engaging business models.
Tweet this: Find out what @demandingdata has to say about chatbots and @IBMCloud @Forbes
Dwight Ford is a Solutions Architect at the IBM Bluemix Garage in San Francisco.
