Voicebots in customer communication

Voicebot is a modern tool that allows you to support customer contact on many levels. Voice assistants are gaining popularity in various industries. The applications of voicebots are countless, but what are they? How do they differ from chatbots? How to work with them? Let’s check!

Differences between a voicebot and a chatbot

Voicebot is a solution that helps automate communication through voice technologies. It is provided with tools that allow it to recognize, process, and generate sound. As a result, according to pre-programmed scenarios, it can carry out conversations similar to those handled by a contact center. 

Voice solutions use in many cases the same components that are implemented in chatbots. Scenarios are built from text messages, and open and closed questions with verification of the correctness of the form of the answer (e.g. checking whether the answer is a text, a number, or a phone number). Building scenarios and entering phrases into NLP (natural language processing, thanks to which the bot knows what phrases spoken by the user it should respond to and what) is the same as the process that takes place when implementing a chatbot. The basic mechanics of both types of virtual assistants are therefore very similar.  

Chatbots and voicebots are different because of the way users communicate with them. It’s just like when talking to another person – we speak to each other in a different way and write in a different way. When designing scenarios and training phrases, we need to take this into account. Spoken language is often more colloquial and can be less understandable. The voicebot should be trained with this in mind as well.

Types of voicebots

The basic division of voicebots takes into account their size and the extent to which they are supposed to support our processes. There are solutions that are very extensive, with multiple scenarios, paths, and opportunities for the user to move from one topic to another. You can check the example of Nexera’s voicebot. However, not every voicebot needs to be configured this way. More and more solutions available on the market, however, are task-based bots that handle a single, but often a crucial process for the company, and it is on this process that we focus the user’s attention. Specifying the activities of a virtual voice assistant in this way allows you to maximize the effects of the campaign you decide on by building a very specific scenario.  

Voicebots also differ in terms of how they start a call – two options are available, which can also occur at the same phone number simultaneously. Click below and check.

OUTBOUND

campaigns that involve calling a list of numbers with a prepared scenario, such as a short survey or a single question to confirm a user’s previous choice.

INBOUND

this type of voicebot handles incoming calls to a given phone number that the user will call.

Outbound voicebots are most often used as elements of marketing or sales campaigns. They can be a full process or the first step of confirming consent for further contact, presenting an offer, or choosing which of the available options the user is interested in so that the consultant already has a set of required information at the start of the conversation. Inbound bots are often implemented in company call centers so that users calling them first are verified and handled in an automated way.  

The level of autonomy of voicebots depends on the assumptions of the scenarios and the needs of the customer. Voice solutions can assume scenarios that switch the user to talk to a consultant or not in a certain situation. The switchover in such a situation is automatic, and it is noted in the call data.  

Voice solutions can sound in many ways, depending on which TTS (text-to-speech, the system that generates sound in a bot) is implemented. The choice of voices in the KODA platform is actually unlimited. Thanks to the specifics of how our system works, we can use any voices for voicebots from popular providers such as Techmo, Microsoft, and Google, as well as the recently launched voiceover generator from ElevenLabs. In addition, we can decide on the “gender of the voice,” its tone or speaking speed. If the ready-made solutions are not suitable for our needs, it is always possible to upload voiceover material as well.

In addition, voicebot scenarios can be closed during a phone call or go beyond that. During a conversation with a user, we can mark places in the scenario that require additional data to be passed to the caller, such as confirmation of an appointment, additional materials, or links. We can pass them on by sending them in the body of an SMS message, which will be automatically forwarded to the number from which the user is calling. 

Uses of voicebots

Voicebots can work well in virtually any process in a company that is repetitive, thus saving employees time and automating monotonous tasks. In what tasks will voicebot help us?  

Implementation and maintanance of voicebot

The time to implement a voicebot depends on its complexity and the multitude of scenarios. However, conversations consisting of simple questions and messages can be implemented in just a few days. To implement such a solution, we need information about the conversation scenario and the questions that should be asked by the voicebot. When setting up an outbound campaign, the intuitive panel additionally clicks on the basic data about the campaign – when, at what times, and to which numbers it should be addressed. For more complex solutions, the KODA platform also gives the possibility to integrate with APIs or databases, from which data can be downloaded or sent after being collected during the call. 

During the implementation there is no need to involve many people, after providing basic information, the KODA team creates a preliminary version of the bot based on their previous experience and knowledge of such solutions. Later operation of the voicebot can be done independently by the customer on an intuitive platform after prior training. The same tool contains statistical data on conversations and our campaigns. Everything in one place, presented in a clear way, gives you the opportunity to manage your assistant quickly and easily.

Voicebots offer a lot of opportunities to support company processes. The ability to tailor them to your needs, and to choose the right functions makes them very malleable solutions. At KODA, we select the right functions so that the solution brings the best possible results. Our experience in working with different types of voice bots and in many industries makes the final scenario deliver results not long after implementation, and it does not take much time to operate.