AI chatbot - the future of the world of customer service./Image processing, Stable diffusion
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AI-based chatbots are a powerful tool that can be used to improve the service the business provides to employees and especially to customers.
They can answer questions, provide information, guide and train employees and perform tasks automatically, while significantly saving time and manpower.
Those who remember the rise of the "stupid" chatbots before the age of AI surely remember the frustration we all felt when we encountered questions that the bot didn't know how to answer and the bluffs it would go into when there was no suitable answer for the specific situation the customer had.
This is a fairly common scenario that unfortunately still happens on many websites in Israel and has devastating consequences for the customer's experience - more devastating than human service whose availability is limited.
Fortunately, in the last year we have seen significant progress in AI technology, which has come to the aid of the service personnel and actually allows today to replace most of their work with automatic processes.
How is an AI bot different from the old generation bots?
The main difference between the bots of a few years ago and AI-based bots is in their architecture.
If in the past we had to think in advance of every common question that our customers might have, formulate the answer in advance, then give the bot a list of keywords that would be used as triggers so that it could identify which answer to pull out in response to which question, which left a lot of open space because there will always be questions that we didn't think of About them, today a large part of these efforts are saved because we don't have to formulate anything in advance.
Instead, we can teach the bot all the material, and even train it through simulations if necessary, and it already knew how to formulate the answers by itself in real time.
In comparison, it's a bit like the difference between memorizing material for a test and deep learning where we don't need to remember things by heart, because we just know the material well.
There is no doubt that this is the future of the customer service industry and those who do not adopt the new models will lose a lot.
As evidence, a Salesforce report from the end of 2023 checked and found that 17% of the purchases that customers made online during the big shopping week of November were made with the help of AI
. For your customers, an excellent service that is always available and also to avoid critical mistakes that could ruin everything.
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Planning first
Define the purpose of the chatbot
: decide what you want the chatbot to do, the types of questions it should answer and the interactions it should handle.
Try to think about what functions you want it to perform and what information it needs to perform them.
For example, it can be a service representative designed to answer questions from customers or surfers, a sales agent or technical expert who answers inquiries and problems, or even a presenter who will present your business plan to potential investors.
For each such function you will have to enter slightly different information in order for the answer to be accurate and relevant.
Choose a platform
: There are a variety of platforms for building an AI chatbot.
Although they all work quite similarly, there may be one that suits your business needs better than others.
It is recommended to do research and check which platform is the most suitable for you, depending on the industry in which you operate and the goals in defining them.
For example, the CUSTOM GPT model of OpenAI will be excellent in providing immediate answers to questions, while AGENTS of the Israeli D-ID will provide a more natural user experience because it also has a visual appearance and the interaction with it is more similar to a conversation with a human being than a chat with a machine.
Bottom line, any tool that has the ability to build a conversational interface that is specifically trained on the contents of the business may be suitable.
Common platforms include Dialogflow, Botpress, Microsoft Bot Framework and of course the popular ChatGPT.
Design the conversation flow
: Map out the conversation flow by determining the questions the chatbot should ask and the answers it should provide to get the customer to where you want them to go - for example, closing a deal, purchasing a product, signing up for a newsletter, etc.
Knowing the final destination of the conversation will help structure the conversation accordingly and ensure that the chatbot serves the purpose for which it was established.
The following tutorial will show you how to do this without writing a single line of code
And now for practice: how to build an AI-based chatbot?
1. Create a large language model - the body of knowledge of the business
In the first step, the bot is fed all the materials that will be used to create the language model (LLM), which is actually the knowledge base from which the bot will learn to get to know the business.
This can be any written information that exists in the business - documents, presentations, transcripts of meetings, conversations or videos, or URLs from which we would like to extract information.
Currently the type of information is textual, but in the future it is likely that videos, photos, infographics, excels and entire websites can be entered on which the bot's knowledge will be based.
Despite what one might think, your business does not need access to all the information available on the Internet - on the contrary.
The need is actually to reduce and reduce the language model to the minimum necessary to keep your bot focused on the right things.
Businesses do not need a model that knows how to answer everything because it is not business oriented, they need a model that is trained on the database of the business and its needs, so that they can market and offer a service in their specific area of expertise.
This means that a bigger model is not necessarily better.
Of course this also affects the costs because when the models are small then the costs are lower and they are also more adapted to the needs of the business.
2. Determine the nature of the chat bot
After we have defined the role of the bot, we also want to tell it how to behave with the users.
For example, you can define that he will answer with short answers, in a polite, witty, or funny way.
You can even ask him to answer only in rhymes, or in Shakespearean style.
We can literally define the personality of the agent based on the nature of the organization or brand, and determine what the nature of the interaction will be.
Do we want something lighter that speaks in slang or an official agent that speaks in a more business and professional language?
If until recently all these things were reflected in the design of the user interface, the microcopy and the marketing communication, now we are dealing with robots that have direct interaction with the customers, so we need to make sure that they speak the language of the brand.
All this can be defined using a prompt and reach a high level of accuracy.
3. We trained the chat bot using simulations
Ask the bot questions that will help it provide better and more accurate responses.
Every business has common questions that they receive often, but in addition there will always be specific requests that do not align with the common standard solutions and that we also want the bot to be able to answer.
Since it is a learning machine, these scenarios can also be entered into the database by training and giving feedback to the bot, so that even unusual cases will eventually enter the database and the bot will learn to handle even things that are not obvious.
If you have an existing track record focused on standard service, it can be an excellent resource for such scenarios.
4. Embed the chatbot in your digital assets
Integrate the chatbot into your website and/or social media accounts, in accordance with the platform's integration methods.
Once you've created a bot you're happy with, you can embed it in your digital assets or user interface by embedding code you received from the vendor.
This way, people will be able to interact with the bot and get their questions answered without having to leave your website or app.
5. Update the chatbot regularly to make sure it works as intended
Use user interactions and feedback to refine the chatbot and make the necessary adjustments.
In addition, any new information that is added to the organization's knowledge base must also enter the chatbot's body of knowledge.
The questions and answers, the sales pitch and the price list are things that may be updated frequently, but your AI agent is not connected to the Internet and does not know how to extract information in real time.
What he is trained on is the information that was fed to him in advance.
So if, for example, the return fee in the store changes, he needs to enter this new information so that he knows how to provide it to customers who ask about it.
Not sure what information to enter into your bot?
Think about its uses
The list of uses for an AI-based chatbot is as long as a business's potential workforce.
To simplify the planning and thinking processes, a chatbot can be thought of as a new employee who comes to the company and now needs to be taught all aspects of the business that touch his area of responsibility.
For example, on an ecommerce site we would like to enter product descriptions, information on prices, deliveries, availability, FAQs, etc. into the bot.
If it is a technology company, we will enter content that guides the users on how to use the product, technical specifications of the user interface, recommendations from customers, case studies, and anything that strengthens the consumers' trust in the product and their desire to purchase.
It can also be a type of guide that conveys educational material, gives tasks to be performed and directs users to additional information if necessary.
A chabot that knows how to meet all these needs can in theory replace the business's website, but since it is a relatively new technology and people are not quite used to it yet, the more common use today is a type of guide that works within the website, accompanies the surfer and helps him reach a decision buy.
Basically, instead of surfing and looking for the product on the website - and this is especially relevant for websites that have a lot of products - the customer can open a conversation with the bot and ask it for things, for example, show me all the pink sweaters you have in a medium size.
Now tell me what is the delivery time and how can I pay, and so on.
Basically, this agent eliminates the need to search, because it has answers to all questions.
How long does the whole process take?
Assuming the materials are ready and it's just a matter of entering them, the whole process can amount to minutes, or a maximum of a few hours for those doing it for the first time.
What takes time is the preparation of the materials and the prompt that explains to the bot how to deal with the information that is fed to it.
If you choose to also create an avatar, i.e. a visual representation for your chatbot, then there is also additional time for building its character, face and voice.
A little inspiration to finish: where else can it go?
Ron Friedman of the Israeli company D-ID predicts that this is just the beginning.
According to him, "In two or three years, most of our interactions as consumers with organizations, companies and institutions will be through AI. I think there will always be value in a human answer, but when we call support or service centers, then the first thing we will encounter will be AI and only after that, if we did not receive an answer to the question According to him,
"of course there will always be people who prefer to talk to a human, even if the AI is very sophisticated and knows how to answer every question, but in the end, on a day-to-day level, we will interface with AI Everywhere - on commercial websites, in the services we receive from government agencies, non-profit organizations, etc. It may actually appear in the form of avatars, but there is no doubt that AI will be at the forefront.
The technology has long passed its initial test and already today we cannot always distinguish between a chatbot and a white Adam. In the future, every digital device, such as a car, TV or even a smart refrigerator, will be equipped with an AI-based service component. It will be like Siri and Alexa, but with better conversation capabilities and communication with them will be more natural and human, just like talking to a friend."
Ron adds that "In the future, we will also see execution capabilities. Today everyone is talking about LLM - large language models, but in the future we will see more and more LARGE ACTION MODELS - models that are able to perform actions based on instructions given to them. Already today we see tools like BABY GPT and -AUTO GPT, you can give them a task and they break it down into steps to understand what they need to do to carry it out. It can be simple things like "write a positive reply to the email I received from the client" or more complex things like "check what's missing in the fridge and make a shopping order From the author" in the case of a smart refrigerator. The ability to talk to any device and perform actions will become commonplace and so it will be with every digital interaction. For these reasons, businesses that want to be at the forefront and overtake their competitors should jump on the bandwagon now and not wait, otherwise they will be left behind."
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