Why digital assistants are better than apps

SMARTPHONE applications took the world by storm in the last decade, to the point that an app was created for practically everything that we do.

The rapid proliferation of these apps, however, have led to a burnout among many users, prompting businesses to seek alternative methods to serve their customers while also being able to engage with them meaningfully.

Among the many different substitutes, voice-activated digital assistants, as well as chatbots, have emerged as a useful tool to fill this void for many companies.

The recent rise in popularity of digital assistants has provided businesses with great opportunities to enhance their customer experience delivery further while making interactions with customers more attractive.

Additionally, customers are also increasingly choosing voice-enabled digital assistants because they’re hands-free and convenient, and a spoken language interface and natural language processing (NLP) technology make it an attractive option.

But the usage of chatbots is not limited to customer-facing use cases alone. Businesses could deploy digital assistants in IT departments to help employees reset their network passwords, in finance departments to follow up on payables, and in HR to request for leave or raise queries on paychecks.

While companies continue to invest in self-service applications within the corporate environments, adoption of the services among employees is still low, as most of these solutions tend to be non-interactive, drab, and have rigid query options.

Digital assistants, however, enhance human interaction, offer highly personalized services, and plenty of options for upgrades.

Here are some of the steps that companies should consider, to successfully deploy digital assistant or chatbots to their operations.

#1 | Picking the right solution

Picking the right solution for enterprise use is inherently more challenging as there are are many factors to consider. The platform of choice must first meet the security standards as well as other regulatory and industry standards to protect valuable company data.

Further, it should be easy to deploy and able to integrate with existing applications and solutions.

#2 | Clearly define your objectives

Not having a clear goal or objective is a sure-fire way of setting up a project for failure, and the digital assistant initiative is no different.

It would be best if the function expected out of the solution is specific and focused, at least in the beginning.

#3 | Ensure seamless integration

There will be a whole lot of data sharing and collapsing of silos involved when it comes to integrating new solutions.

Business leaders need to work closely with IT to integrate digital assistants seamlessly, while also adhering to common network security, compliance, and governance standards.

#4 | Continuously optimize the platform

When it comes to AI-powered chatbots or digital assistants, continuous optimization is paramount. Upon deployment, companies need to monitor their performance and track all the necessary metrics so they could be further optimized and improved.

Further, the platform can only be adjusted to fit the needs of users after certain usage pattern and trends are established.

#5 | Always innovate

Like any digital initiative, companies need to develop a framework or program to ensure constant innovation, improvement, and expansion of the digital assistant.

User feedback has to be taken into account, as well as infrastructure challenges so that subsequent iterations or upgrades would be better than the previous ones.

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