Tag: chatbot

Baidu Launches A Medical Chatbot That Acts As A Physician’s Assistant

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Baidu, typically referred to as China’s Google, launched a medical chatbot that aims to speed up the diagnosing process and help doctors collect patient information. The bot, named Melody, lives in the Baidu Doctor app, which launched in China in 2015 and aims to connect patients to local doctors for inquiries and booking appointments. Melody, only available in China right now, is powered by Baidu’s deep learning and natural language processing systems. It prompts users with generic questions, such as asking for the demographic info of the patient, what medications they are on, and how long a symptom has lasted, in order to gather sufficient information to pass to doctors for diagnosis.

What Brands Should Do
While Melody does not present any marketing opportunity for brands, it is still notable as a rare use case of chatbots in the healthcare field. This chatbot is also notable for its limited capability as Baidu stresses that Melody is not supposed to replace human doctors, but instead acts as a physician’s assistant and does prep work for them. This mirrors the Lab’s take on branded chatbots: they are great for handling basic customer service and other single-focus tasks such as gathering information and feedback. With more and more smartphone users opting to communicate via messaging apps, it is time for brands to consider developing chatbots in order to modernize their customer experience.

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: The Verge

 

Telegram Launches Chatbot-Powered, In-Chat Gaming Platform

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Popular messaging app Telegram is upgrading its chatbot platform to support bot-powered mini games as it aims to spice up its user experience and drive more engagement. Previously, developers could make text-based bot games for Telegram. The new API introduced on Monday allows for integrated HTML5-based games inside chat windows, complete with graphics and sound. The API also includes a running tally of your contacts’ scores, if they are playing the same game, to make the games competitive and engaging.

What Brands Should Do
This chatbot initiative opens doors for brands to devise bot-powered mini-games on Telegram to engage with consumers. With more and more smartphone users opting to communicate via messaging apps, it is time for brands to start exploring the new brand opportunities generated by chatbots to reach prospective customers that are becoming increasingly averse to conventional ads.

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: TechCrunch

 

Kik Introduces Concierge Bots That Chime In To Help You Shop

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Kik users will soon find themselves talking to more than one chatbot in one conversation as the popular messaging app launches “concierge bots” today. Designed to be like a friend helping you shop for clothing or makeup, Kik users can enlist their help when they are talking to chatbots from brands such as H&M, Sephora, and Victoria’s Secret. The concierge bots will chime in and offer suggestions based on celebrity styles, the occasions that the user is shopping for, and the inventory of the brand whose chatbot started the conversation.

What Brands Need To Do
This interesting new feature is illustrative of the potential capability of conversational commerce. By bringing in another chatbot, Kik is making the in-chat shopping experience more social and closer to a real-world shopping experience. As consumers increasingly turn to messaging apps as their primary channels of communication, it is important that brands follow the customers to reach them. To learn more about what chatbots can do for brands, check out our Medium post on chatbots.

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

Johnnie Walker Would Like To Chat With You About Whiskey

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Whisky brand Johnnie Walker is embracing conversational interfaces as it launches a branded Alexa Skill and a Facebook Messenger chatbot. The Alexa Skill aims to aid product discovery by recommending whisky blends based on user input about taste preference and budget. It can also dispense whisky-related trivia and cocktail recipes. The Messenger chatbot shares similar functions and adds ecommerce integrations with services such as ReserveBar, Cocktail Courier, and Drizly to drive sales.

What Brands Should Do
More and more brands are embracing messaging platforms and voice-based smart devices to engage with consumers through conversations. For instance, fashion brand Coach recently abandoned its two-year-old iOS app and shifted its focus to its “Coachmoji keyboard” to connect with mobile consumers. For additional insights on how brands can effectively reach consumers on conversational interfaces, please check out the first section of 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, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: Digiday

TGI Fridays And Beverage Brand Dirty Lemon Embracing Conversational Commerce

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Two more brands have jumped on the bandwagon of conversational commerce to better serve their customers on messaging apps. Restaurant chain TGI Fridays recently struck a partnership with chatbot startup Conversable to roll out a service chatbot on Facebook Messenger that can help customers find the nearest TGI Fridays and take reservations at select locations, a first in the casual dining industry.

Upmarket beverage brand Dirty Lemon, on the other hand, is using an SMS-based system to power its new customer experience. The company worked with cloud communications startup Twilio to create the infrastructure for handling all customer interactions through texting. They are using Stripe to process payments. Customers can text the brand in natural language and see all their needs, from product inquiries to reordering, fulfilled without leaving the chat.

What Brands Need To Do
As we pointed out in our Medium post on branded chatbots, they serve as a great tool for handling basic customer service and goal-oriented tasks. The rise of conversational commerce points to changing consumer behavior on mobile and a shift in brand-customer interaction. A recent study found that most consumers now prefer to use messaging to interact with businesses rather than calling. Therefore, other brands should take note and start developing a strategy for conversational commerce.

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

 

Sources: PR Newswire & Fast Company

 

Domino’s And Burberry Launch Facebook Chatbots To Sell Directly To Customers

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Domino’s Pizza and Burberry both launched ecommerce-focused chatbots to sell directly to online customers via Facebook’s messaging app. Domino’s chatbot for Facebook Messenger, which was first launched a month ago in the U.K. and Ireland and officially rolled out to U.S. customers last Thursday, allows customers to chat with a bot to quickly repurchase their most recent order or the “Easy Order” saved in their Pizza Profile.

Burberry’s Messenger bot, on the other hand, engages users with design sketches and a mini maze game. Users who finish the maze will unlock access to a “Burberry show space,” where they will be able to order items that they fancy directly from the new line as they become available after Burberry’s London Fashion Week show on Monday, September 19.

What Brands Need To Do
Both examples are illustrative of the ecommerce potential that chatbots have in converting interested consumers. As consumers increasingly turn to messaging apps as their primary channels of communication, it is important that brands follow the customers to reach them. To learn more about what chatbots can do for brands, check out our Medium post on chatbots.

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: PRNewswire & Glossy
Header image courtesy of Domino’s press release

Facebook Allows Messenger Chatbots To Accept Payments

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook will soon allow chatbots on its Messenger service to accept payments. Messenger bots will be able to use credit card information users saved in Facebook or Messenger without having to open a webpage to complete purchases. Developers can now apply for a closed beta test program if they wish to add this feature, which Facebook says will become more broadly available by the end of the year. To ensure a smooth checkout experience that supports most payment options, Facebook is reportedly working with all the major players in digital payments including Stripe, PayPal, Braintree, Visa, MasterCard, and American Express.

What Brands Need To Do
This new feature marks an important step for Facebook to fully realize the ecommerce potential of chatbots. It creates a frictionless purchase experience within chat that signals huge opportunities for social commerce, as WeChat’s success in China has shown. Therefore, brands that are consider developing Messenger bots need to take this new capability into account.

For more information on how brands can effectively reach consumers on messaging apps and other conversational platforms, check out the Conversational Interfaces section in our Outlook 2016 and our latest Fast Forward analysis on chatbots. If you wish to develop a branded chatbot to connect with consumers on messaging apps, please reach out and schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: TechCrunch

Starbucks Launches Facebook Chatbot To Hype Pumpkin Spice Latte

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Summer is nearing its end, so Starbucks has already started hyping the impending return of its best-selling seasonal product Pumpkin Spice Latte with a chatbot on Facebook Messenger. The bot is designed as an engagement tool to get fans excited for PSL’s upcoming return. Users can take a PSL-themed fan quiz or ask a question, to which the bot will answer with a seemingly random piece of old social media content. The bot does not respond to any question about the product or Starbucks.

What Brands Need To Do
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 Starbucks chatbot is designed as a silly fun game for people to have a pretend conversation with, leveraging the messaging platform for content marketing, and it does the job admirably.

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: The Verge

Singapore Bank Develops Chatbot To Handle Banking Tasks Via Text

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Singaporean bank DBS wants customers to handle their common banking tasks by texting a chatbot. Available via text and soon on WeChat and Whatsapp, the chatbot uses natural language processing to understand customers’ requests and carries out transactions as commanded. DBS says the SMS bot was created in partnership with U.S.-based Kasisto, a spin-off of SRI International, the company that created Siri.

What Brands Need To Do
DBS Bank’s chatbot serves as a user-friendly banking tool that caters to mobile users’ increasing usage and fondness of messaging apps. As branded bots are poised to become a crucial tool, brands should consider developing bots to reach customers on messaging apps that are popular among mobile users. For more information on this topic, check out our Medium post on branded chatbots.

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: Mashable

 

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