Tag: Customer service

Twitter Integrates Call-To-Action Buttons Into DM

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitter is adding a new feature to Direct Messages (DM) to make it a better customer support tool for brands. Now, when brands manage their Twitter DM through Twitter’s API, they can send call-to-action buttons via direct messages that, when clicked, can direct people to visit a specific site, post a pre-written tweet, follow the brand’s account, or start a chat with another of the brand’s accounts.

What Brands Need To Do
This new addition should make Twitter DM a more convenient customer support tool to leverage and create a frictionless experience for customers. As Twitter continues to improve its chat functionality, it is attracting many brands to extend their customer support operations to Twitter DM. For example, Dutch airline KLM recently added their customer service bot to Twitter DM to better serve its global audiences that are not using Facebook Messenger, which is where KLM’s bot originally resides.

 

Source: VentureBeat

 

 

Warby Parker’s New App May Stop Customers From Visiting Its Offline Competitors

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Online eyeglasses retailer Warby Parker has launched a new app that allows users to check their prescription at home, without visiting an optician. It assists users to find the correct distance to conduct the equivalent of the familiar Snellen eye exam on a computer screen and send the results to an eye doctor for review. If their vision has not changed, they can also get an updated glasses prescription without needing to visit an eye doctor. The service is only available in California, Florida, New York, and Virginia so far.

What Brands Need To Do
It is a clever strategic move on Warby Parker’s part to leverage mobile to enhance its post-sale customer services and boost retention. Saving the customers a trip to the opticians not only provides convenience for glass-wearers, but also prevents customers from visiting its brick-and-mortar competitors — some of whom host in-house optometrists to offer vision exams — and buy glasses online. More brands should take note and think about similar ways to leverage mobile apps to enhance your user experience and redefine their customer journey.

 

Source: TechCrunch

Header image courtesy of Warby Parker

Twitter Launches Direct Message Card To Help Brands Promote Chatbots

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitter announced a new ad unit called Direct Message Card to help brands promote their chatbots and other conversational experience in Direct Message (DM). This new ad unit is customizable using either an image or video, along with up to four call-to-action buttons meant to encourage Twitter users to start a conversation with brands via private DMs instead of tweeting publicly. Patrón Tequila is among the first to use this ad product to promote its “Bot-Tender,” which can recommend tequila-based cocktails based on occasions and flavor preference according to user input.

What Brands Need To Do
Twitter first started allowing brands to plug in chatbots to answer Direct Messages sent to their certified account in November, after steadily adding features for enhancing customer service on its platform throughout last year. Given that most consumers now prefer to use messaging to interact with businesses rather than calling, it makes sense for brands to take advantage of these improvements and upgrade their customer service tools on Twitter. For brands developing conversational experience accessible via Twitter DM, this new ad product should provide a great way to drive conversation and engagement.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience in building chatbots to reach consumers on messaging interfaces. So much so that we’ve built a dedicated conversational practice called Dialogue. The NiroBot we built in collaboration with Ansible for Kia is a good example of how Dialogue can help brands build a conversational customer experience, supercharged by our stack of technology partners with best-in-class solutions and an insights engine that extracts business intelligence from conversational data.

If you’d like to learn more about how to effectively reach consumers on conversational interfaces, or to leverage the Lab’s expertise to take on related client opportunities within the IPG Mediabrands, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

 

Source: TechCrunch

Twitter Releases New APIs To Boost DM-Based Customer Services

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
On Thursday, Twitter released several Direct Message (DM) APIs and announced plans to unify its API platform as it aims to make it easier for businesses “to deliver faster, richer and more engaging human- and bot-powered customer service, marketing and engagement experiences.”

The new APIs released include a beta Account Activity API for subscribing to real-time activities related to an account, a new DM POST endpoint for sending DMs with supporting features like quick replies and shared media, as well as a welcome message endpoints for creating and managing welcome messages in DMs.

What Brands Need To Know
Twitter has been steadily adding customer service tools to its platform, and this introduction of chatbot services is a natural step for Twitter as it builds out its DM as a customer service platform to appeal to the growing needs of brands. A study by Twilio found that most consumers now prefer to use messaging to interact with businesses rather than calling. As Twitter continues to make its platform more brand-friendly with new messaging features, we expect to see more brands utilize the tools to provide better customer service.

To learn more about how brands can reach and engage with customers and deliver hyper-personalized experiences with AI-powered chatbots, check out the Augmented Intelligence section of our Outlook 2017.

 

Source: AdWeek

Amazon Launches New “Amazon Connect” Service To Transform Call Centers With A.I.

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon has launched a new service on its Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform that aims to leverages its AI smarts to transform call centers. The new service, dubbed Amazon Connect, uses the same technology used by Amazon.com’s own customer service system to route and manage calls using speech recognition and artificial intelligence. This will allow callers to simply state their issues instead of having to listen to long lists of menu options and figure out which one is closest to what they need. The service works with existing AWS services such as DynamoDB, Amazon Redshift, or Amazon Aurora, as well as third-party CRM and analytics services.

What Brands Need To Do
This new service comes at a time when more and more companies are starting to experiment with AI-powered solutiAons in their business and marketing practices. In January, Toyota launched a campaign that is partially generated by IBM’s machine learning program Watson, and last month, H&R Block integrated Watson into its tax filing system to helping people maximize their tax returns. As AI and machine learning technologies continue to develop, brands need to explore the kind of enhanced customer service and product recommendations that AI-powered CRM solutions are set to bring.

 

Source: Business Wire

Twitter To Speed Up Customer Service By Offering Brands Chatbots

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitter continues to make its platform more brand-friendly as it launches a chatbot service in Direct Messages that brands can use to speed up their customer service. The new feature allows brands to partner with nearly a dozen third-party services to build automated message systems specific to each brand, such as Welcome Messages and Quick Replies, to generate timely responses to inquiries and prompts from customers. Brands such as Pizza Hut, Spotify, Tesco, and Airbnb are among the first to try out this new product.

What Brands Should Do
Twitter has been steadily adding customer service tools to its platform, and this introduction of chatbot services is a natural step for Twitter as it builds out its customer support tools to appeal to the growing needs of brands and their customers. A recent study by Twilio found that most consumers now prefer to use messaging to interact with businesses rather than calling. As Twitter continues to make its platform more brand-friendly with new messaging features, we expect to see more brands utilize the tools to provide better customer service.

To learn more about how brands can reach and engage with customers via conversational interfaces such as messaging apps, check out the first part of our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: AdWeek

Header image courtesy of Twitter Advertising

Facebook Updates Pages To Add More Website-Like Functions

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook has added new tools to Pages to allow users to interact with local businesses without leaving the Facebook app. An update to the “call to action” button on Pages brings more options such as “Start Order,” “Book Now,” or “Buy Tickets,” which are powered by tech partners such as Delivery.com, Eventbrite, and Fandango, respectively. Even if the business is not using the services of those integrated tech partners, they can still manage bookings and answer quote inquiries with this update.  

What Brands Need To Do
This update builds out the business-oriented functions of Facebook Pages, making it easier for businesses to manage customer interactions. Instead of driving customers off Facebook and to their own websites, now businesses can provide online customers a more frictionless experience. As Facebook and other major digital platforms continue to make their sites more business-friendly, brands should take advantage of the available tools to modernize their customer experience.

 

Source: Facebook Business

Header image is a promotional image courtesy of Facebook Business

Twitter Adds New Features For Better Customer Support

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitter has rolled out some new features to help brands provide better customer service. Now brands can indicate when their customer service account will be available and when customers can expect a response. Twitter also revamped the profile pages of those brand accounts to add an enlarged “Message” button, encouraging users to send their inquiries and complaints via Direct Message rather than tweeting them publicly. Several brands, including Delta, T-Mobile, and United, have activated the features on their accounts

What Brands Need To Do
According to a recent study published by Twilio, most consumers now prefer to use messaging to interact with businesses rather than calling. So it makes sense that Twitter is improving its customer support tools to appeal to the growing needs of brands and their customers. Last week, Twitter revamped Direct Messages to add some convenient features and make it more chat app-like, signaling its intention to expand its messaging service. As Twitter continues to make its platform more brand-friendly, we expect to see more brands utilize the tools to provide customer service.

To learn more about how brands can reach and engage with customers via conversational interfaces such as messaging apps, check out the first part of our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: TechCrunch

BetterBrand Launches Chat App Marketing Platform

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
London-based startup BetterBrand is launching a conversational marketing platform to help brands communicate with customers on various messaging apps. Brands using this platform will be able to engage users who visit their public page or account on supported chat apps with predefined conversations that follow a customizable conversational flow-chart and may include rich media such as photo, video, links, and buy buttons. Currently, BetterBrand supports Kik, Viber, Telegram, Slack, and KakaoTalk, with support for Facebook Messenger coming soon.

What Brands Need To Do
BetterBrand says its platform will be the first self-service marketing platform for multiple chat apps. The announcement comes at a time when big technology companies like Facebook and Microsoft are pushing brands to get on chat apps and start talking to consumers. According to eMarketer, messaging apps will reach 80% of global smartphone users by 2018. So it is in the best interests of brand marketers to experiment with conversational platforms to connect with consumers in popular chat apps.

To learn more about how brands can navigate the unique challenges that messaging apps, check out the Conversational Interfaces section in our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: Marketing Land

Twitter Makes Direct Message A Better Consumer Service Tool

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitter is making it easier for brands to use its platform for customer service. The microblogging network has added two new features to its private messaging feature specifically for this cause. Now brands can add a new button to a tweet that opens up a Direct Message to help customers move the conversation into private messages when private information is needed, such as payment information or membership ID numbers. Moreover, a new feedback feature now prompts customers to rate their experience on a 0-to-10 scale after a chat with customer support on Twitter. Last week, Twitter also started supporting videos in Direct Messages, making it possible for brands to send instructional or promotional videos to customers when needed.

What Brands Need To Do
As more and more customers turn to social media to talk with brands, either asking for help or airing their grievances, perhaps knowing that the publicness of such interactions may guarantee faster responses, it is important for brands to be more proactive in their social customer support and properly use the new tools to handle the requests and complaints. Combined with Twitter’s new buy button, the new tools can also help brands advance their social commerce initiatives.

 

Source: TechCrunch