Own The Conversation - Issue #49
Own The Conversation - Issue #49
Own The Conversation is a weekly, manually curated newsletter with all the news in the world of Conversational AI.
Ahoy hoy!
Welcome one and all to Own The Conversation, especially to the new subscribers that have joined us this week.
Thank you for, once again, tuning into my newsletter. If you think it would be valuable to your network, please feel free to share.
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Without further ado, let’s move on to the juicy stuff!
Conversational AI Jobs
Firstly, let’s talk about Conversational AI jobs. Hiring is still happening at full pace, so make sure that you sign up for alerts at Bot Jobs and keep up to date with the latest roles in our space. Plus, be the first to know about some interesting developments coming soon to Bot Jobs in October.
Top of the list today is are a few roles being advertised by our friends at Emotech here in the UK:
👉 For a 50% discount on job postings on Bot Jobs, use discount code BOT50 when posting featured jobs - available for all Own The Conversation subscribers 👈
Now, onto the interesting news, articles and content of the week.
Conversations To Own
Firstly (as always) funding and acquisitions. From what I can see, the madness of the last few months has settled down with one or two announcements per week (please correct me if I am wrong).
And a massive congrats to Speakeasy AI whose acquisition by Verint has just been announced. Watch these guys, folks. This could be a huge move in the right direction by Verint.
Last week’s newsletter and the stream of reports bouncing around about chatbot dissatisfaction have been driving the vast majority of my (‘scuse the pun) conversations this week.
So, I wanted to double down on a few things here.
Firstly, dissatisfaction is a rather broad term, in my opinion, and immediately opens up the question “how do we measure dissatisfaction (or, by that rule, satisfaction)?
We see so many metrics and, while they are usually industry-dependent, they usually come down to something like CSAT, NPS, or anecdotal feedback. I’ve seen ROI mentioned (again, ROI of what and how is it measured).
Here are my thoughts - and you can absolutely argue with me on this. I think when we design a chatbot ‘properly’ and start from the user perspective, we are trying to work backward from what the user is trying to achieve*. And what they are trying to achieve is usually something that they would normally talk to a person about. So, ultimately, we are automating a conversation and the successful outcome of that automation is:
the user getting to the end of that journey
the business automates one conversation (which can equate to ROI/OpEx etc.)
So, here’s my key metric to measure satisfaction - automation rate.
It may not seem obvious, but successful automation will usually mean that a user is happy that they have got to an outcome and that the business has seen some ROI. You are never going to automate 100% of all conversations - due to curve-balls and possibly some gaps in the conversation design, etc. but the closer you can get to the 100% figure means the more satisfied all parties will be. That also creates a further necessity for a live-chat fallback. It fills in the ‘satisfaction’ gaps of your chatbot.
Oh, and the (*) above? That’s to point here - the basis of any successful chatbot is user/conversation-centered design. Design the user journey and conversation first, before selecting technology. So many businesses make this mistake - select the software and then build for that.
Events to Attend: September - December
September
AI Summit Silicon Valley
Sept 28–29
Santa Clara, CA
Voice of Healthcare
Sept 29, 2022
Boston, MA
Botrepreneurs Online Networking Event
Sept 29, 2022
Online
October
Voice Summit 2022
Oct 10–13, 2022
Arlington, VA
World AI Summit
Oct 12–13, 2022
Amsterdam, NL
November
Open Data Science Conference
Nov 1–3, 2022
San Francisco, CA
Voice of Money
Nov 9, 2022
New York, NY
December
AI Expo
Dec 1–2, 2022
London, UK
AI Summit New York
Dec 7–8
New York, NY
I’ve been lucky enough to be provided with a preview copy of the new book by Robb Wilson (of OneReach.ai ) - 'Age of Invisible Machines'. Firstly, this legend is donating the proceeds of the book to help the people of Ukraine (don't worry, I'll be buying my own copy as well!). But, most importantly, I'm seeing some great perspectives here. Some new slants to familiar ideas and some completely fresh perspectives. And, without giving anything away, here's my favourite quote so far: "the status quo is a death sentence." The book's available 27th September and you can pre-order it here.
Anyway, if you want to add anything into next-week’s newsletter (events, news, articles) then feel free to DM me on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram or even TikTok
Here’s hoping you have a great week.
Martyn