Designing Effective Chatbots - Rachel Whitehorn - Conversations That Matter - Episode #54

Conversations That Matter, a podcast from Uniphore

On today’s episode of Conversations That Matter we feature a conversational wizard with over 4 years of chatbot experience. She's a skilled chatbot designer whose areas of expertise include, AI training, persona creation, and copywriting, just to name a few. Joining us for this episode is Rachel Whitehorn, a Conversation Designer in the insurance industry. Randy and Rachel sit down to look toward the future of chatbots and LLMs. Join us for another exciting conversation as we discuss how companies can better meet the needs of customers, the importance of maintaining your bots, and the importance of collaboration as a conversation designer.

Takeaways:

• When it comes to implementing conversational AI, many companies think it is quick, easy, and a silver bullet solution. In reality, chatbots take time, and human effort to implement them in an effective way.
• Customers have always wanted to be able to have a conversation with bots, but were frequently left disappointed. With the advancement of Large Language Models (LLM), businesses will finally be able to provide that level of experience to customers.
• In highly litigious industries like the finance and insurance industries, half baked chatbots can pose a risk. You need to make sure that your chatbot not only complies with business regulations, but legal regulations as well.
• When a customer has a question, they are ultimately looking for guidance to a solution. While many chatbots do provide guidance, they can often give customers a rigid experience. LLM’s offer the potential for a more fluid customer experience.
• As a conversational designer, collaboration is key. It’s important to draw input from your call center, legal, and marketing teams. Cross collaboration results in a solution that helps all departments.
• When building bots, build for the long term. Building a chatbot takes time, money, and resources. Bots are iterative, and need to be maintained. Doing so allows you to utilize your bot through its whole life cycle, and prevents wasted resources.
• When Rachel looks to the future of chatbot tech and conversational design, she expects chatbots to be more conversational with their designers as well. Instead of looking at logs or customer feedback, she envisions bots that can self-report trouble areas.

Quote of the Show:

• “Customers like being guided, but hate being railroaded.” - Rachel Whitehorn

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelwhitehorn/

Ways to Tune In:

• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/conversations-that-matter-podcast-for-contact-center/id1525650658
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6Xx9G8w6bntQayIpbkgxc5?si=cNeVuJicSHagsftlpL8-tg
• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9jb252ZXJzYXRpb25zdGhhdG1hdHRlcnBvZGNhc3QubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M