Can a bot learn to ABC?
I look at a business and analyze it by its individual parts.
You have classifications for these parts; you can call them cost centres, revenue centres, and investment centres and so on. For those who haven’t studied business, this can be a bit counter-intuitive. Yes, overall, a business aims to make more money than it costs to run. However, certain parts of your business are not required to make a dime at all. Instead, they exist to serve a purpose that might support the process of getting money.
Take customer service for example. Its purpose is customer satisfaction, not sales. It won’t make you money directly and like the name ‘cost centre’ suggests, it’ll be expensive, but it’s important for keeping customers happy. Usually, best practice is to find ways to make these parts of your business more efficient, or less costly.
Enter chatbots.
Chatbots can save customers from the archaic and annoying ‘Press 1 for English, Press 2 for French’ call centre systems, or the dreaded process of having to actually talk to a human being. With a few words, they can detect your problem, direct you to your answer and service as many requests as needed. This is efficiency, a perfect application for a cost centre.
But wait, there’s more!
They can even help users shop for things. See, when shopping, you’re already intending to purchase something — a faster and easier way to buy something is perfect. However, when browsing, a shopper might need some extra persuasion. That’s where salespeople come in handy, and I don’t believe bots can replace them in a profit centre like sales just yet.
There’s such a strong human element involved in selling; salespeople ask tricky leading questions, they generate emotional appeal and demand, and more than anything they build a relationship with a prospect all the way through the sales funnel until they’re a customer.
In order for a Glengarry Glen Ross bot to Always Be Closing, 1 of 2 things will need to happen:
- AI will need to be smart enough to hold and win sales conversations
- We as shoppers will need to become more rationally driven, and accept recommendations a bot makes using a plethora of data
- Have a bot aid an existing sales person.
Personally, I’d probably listen to a bot or a person if I asked them about a shirt I’m looking at in Wal-mart and they told me it’s the cheapest of its kind in the area, it matches with 47% of the things in my wardrobe and only consumes 14% of my monthly shopping budget.
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