Built for Scale: Conversational Interface

Who interacts with a conversational interface?

Aaron:  It can be a consumer who’s purchasing a product, it could be a real estate broker or an agent who’s looking to help their own customers, but really any individual with any limited amount of tech ability – pretty much if you use a computer you can use our interface and it can solve a wide variety of problems. Additionally, we do a lot of work with customers who are at large companies on internal use cases and so employees at companies or their contractors, suppliers, really anyone that works with them can use our interface to solve a certain business need.

Where can end users access a conversational interface?

Edan: There are a few different ways where end users can access a conversational interface. Very commonly it’ll just be on the website where I can go directly and begin, you know, messaging. Other times a lot of people might call a company on the phone and instead of waiting on hold they get an option, with a text message, to go directly to a conversational interface, get their problem solved immediately without waiting.

What types of use cases can users experience via the conversational interface?

Edan: There’s a wide variety of use cases that users can experience with a conversational interface. So, for example, in insurance, let’s say, I can go through a conversational interface to submit a claim in a much more conversational way rather than through some outdated form, or let’s say in the consumer packaged goods space I can go interact with a conversational interface to find the best product for me in a really personalized way.

Amelie: It can really vary on what KPI the business is trying to move, whether that’s increasing customer satisfaction, reducing cost, or another KPI, but really we can do whatever the customer needs.

What design elements are levered in a user experience via Pypestream’s conversational interface?

Aaron: We utilize a variety of design elements in our user experience. We include everything from NLU capabilities to guided flows. It includes images, GIFs, videos as well. We also use buttons and, what we call, Listpickers which are, like, a multi-select option for users it can be used to select one option or several options at once. We also allow our customers to upload or download different types of documents things like PDF. So, for example, an individual could download a bank statement or upload a picture that shows damage done to their house during a flood as part of a claims process.

Edan: We really like to utilize design thinking in the way that we build solutions. So, really putting ourselves in the footsteps of the end user, of the customer, what is he or she feeling, thinking, doing, and saying throughout the experience, so that we can really resonate with them.

In what use cases do companies use rich assets?

Aaron: So, a good example of that is a company that is looking to help their customers find and purchase one of their products, right? So, they may have a large product line with small key differentiators from one product to the next and so we’ll use something like a carousel, for example, which will help their customers figure out which product is best for them. They can, say read customer reviews of that product to see if it’s right for them, they can see where they can purchase that product whether it’s online or in the store near their home, they can use our Google Maps API which will allow them to identify stores that are close to their current location, for example. So, all of these tools are really designed to be a kind of rich asset that makes the experience much more immersive, much more like being in a store, and this, in this example, and really helps customers to do everything from seeing the product itself, learning about what differentiates it from other products, and then ultimately buying it as well.

Do all conversational interfaces look the same or are the configurable to a brand?

Amelie: They do not look the same. We provide customer the ability to customize the look and feel of the conversational interface, so we’re talking about the header colors, the button colors, and so forth, ,as well as the text. We also provide additional customization option with a messaging API.

Edan: We have a lot of customization that you can do in terms of the look and feel but there is also a little bit of a unifying aspect, it’s very easy to tell when a conversational interface was built by Pypestream because it still has our dedication to a rich user experience and all those design elements intact.

How is the conversational interface deployed?

Amelie: All you need to do is, really, customize the look and feel that you want to use and then copy and paste the script to your website and voila that’s all you need to do.

Check out the other videos in the Built for Scale series: Dovetail and Pypes