* Aspect and Facebook's initiatives to bring enterprise-class customer service experience to Messenger.
* Chatbot messaging backed by Aspect's Natural Language Understanding (NLU) and integrated with agent-assisted service from the contact centre gives consumers best of both worlds.
* Facebook's Strategic Partnerships manager to speak at the Aspect Customer Experience (ACE) Conference in the US.
Aspect Software, a leading provider of fully integrated consumer engagement, workforce optimisation, and back-office solutions on-premises and in the cloud, today announced an initiative to accelerate consumer brand transactions and interactions through Facebook Messenger.
New research from Aspect Software shows burgeoning consumer demand for messaging-based brand interactions. The Aspect Consumer Experience Index found nearly 40% of consumers would rather use messaging apps like Facebook Messenger for customer service versus a phone call.
At the Facebook Developer Conference F8 yesterday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated: "We think you should message a business just the way you would message a friend." Like Facebook, Aspect sees Facebook Messenger rapidly becoming a critical customer service and engagement channel, one that will allow brands to design more frictionless and delightful interactions with their consumers. Messenger is a natural extension to Aspect's Customer Experience Platform's (CXP) omni-channel capabilities: another conversational channel for customers to self-serve on, in addition to IVR, mobile Web, SMS, and Twitter. Bryan Hurren, Facebook's Strategic Partnerships Manager responsible for Messenger Platform partnerships will speak on the potential for businesses to engage consumers on Messenger at the Aspect Customer Experience (ACE) conference on 9-12 May in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The integration between Aspect CXP and Facebook Messenger helps create chatbots using NLU in more than a dozen languages to match a customer query to the right response. The chatbots can engage consumers in a conversation to get more information when needed or complete multi-step transactions. And when agent assistance is needed, conversations can be transferred seamlessly with full contact centre integration and appropriate routing to the right agent without the consumers needing to repeat themselves. CXP's design once, deploy anywhere capability means chatbots designed for Messenger can easily be deployed on SMS and Twitter, while the years of experience Aspect's Professional Services has in Conversational UI design guarantees that enterprise bots built on Aspect CXP begin with a high level of quality.
"Intelligent, automated messaging has the potential to create highly engaging and interactive conversations for consumers, and chatbots offer the promise for timely and intuitive consumer engagement. But brand interaction in isolation from the customer service ecosystem, regardless of the medium or application, puts businesses at risk of falling into the same customer service failures of the past," says Joe Gagnon, SVP and Chief Customer Strategy Officer. "With 900 million active users on Messenger, Facebook is poised to take messaging to a new and very exciting level, and we're thrilled to be elevating the quality of company-consumer interactions on the platform to which more and more consumers are moving."
In this digital-first age, there is a growing desire for consumers to engage brands through text and messaging. The Aspect Consumer Experience Index study found 73% of consumers want companies to offer more self-service options for customer service. However, if consumers start brand interactions with a text or message, 75% of them said they still want the ability to talk to a live person when they want. So, like all interaction channels, messaging must be approached as a seamless part of a larger customer service experience.
Aspect Customer Service on Facebook Messenger:
* Needs no rip and replace: It can be integrated and implemented alongside existing contact centre and self-service solutions, even if they aren't Aspect platforms.
* Allows consumers to opt-in to outbound messages like important notifications, payment reminders, or sales promotions, and respond to inbound inquiries with natural dialogues powered by Aspect NLU.
* Provides a seamless transition from automated self-service to agent-assisted messaging or voice.
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