Introducing Powerful New Support for Screenless Interfaces

Chatbots are sizzling hot. As the most immediately accessible AI technology available now, organizations of all sizes are examining how bots can boost business.

While we tend to group chat and voice bots together, bots actually encompass a range of AI technologies, from text-based chatbots to voice-led interfaces like Siri and many other increasingly popular virtual assistants. What unites them is that their aim is to enable and carry out a naturalistic conversation with the customer or end-user. Yet their testing requirements can vary a lot (check out our blog, Bot testing for beginners).

Despite their complexity and relative novelty, chat and voice bots are becoming an essential component of enterprise digital strategies. Consumers have a broadly positive perception of chatbots, and enterprises and their customers alike are embracing the benefits. Penetration of the technology is still fairly low, so there’s a lot of space in terms of market-defining innovation, but the sheer volume of different use cases is growing exponentially.

These are exciting times, but they do present some challenges for enterprises. Legacy QA tools often lag behind the curve. Many do not support the automation of what is now fairly standard interface test and development, like TouchID or camera interface testing. Intent, tone and accents all add to the complexity.

That’s why Apexon is proud to announce a fantastic new suite of enablement services and tools we’ve created specifically for screenless interface test and development. Our offering is dedicated to supercharge your bot development efforts. See more https://www.apexon.com/service/chatbots-voice-interfaces/

The numbers speak for themselves

Gartner predicts that by 2020 we will spend more time talking to bots than with our spouses and children. Just three months after the launch of its chatbot platform last year, Facebook Messenger confirmed some 11,000 bots had been added. However, you look at bot growth figures, the consensus is that a wide range of differentiated apps can be designed with screenless interfaces.

Apexon’s screenless interface services make it easier for enterprises to engage customers in new ways, integrating seamlessly with existing platforms and social channels.  Just look at these potential use cases:

• Bluetooth-enabled smart device interfaces
• Apps extracting text from images using mobile cameras
• Apps relying on biometric authentication
• Location-enabled apps triggering actions on mobile devices
• Location intelligent apps triggering alerts based on local date and time.

Utility is the number one priority

In customer services, people want issue resolution or information retrieval…fast. Nothing fancy, just the right answer.

Depending on the business case, the range of potential vocabulary may be vast or much more restricted. But that’s not the only variable. Questions can be posed in a number of ways. Perhaps they are not posed as questions at all. Apexon’s new-generation interface toolkit accounts for these complexities with acceleration tools like QMetry BOT Tester, a chat bot test automation framework, and the Alexa Integration development framework, both of which enable organized, reproducible testing and integration for different bot services.

Bots should be nimble

We often talk about the importance of feedback loops and the ability to respond quickly to what the data is telling us. Bots are repositories of vast quantities of unstructured data. Customer service bots are the eyes and ears of an enterprise, a direct link to customers, and they can incorporate a lot more than text too: images, locations, videos, etc. The fact that the interaction is now automated by software offers opportunities to spot trends and react to them. Enterprises should ensure that they are set up to get the most out of this valuable customer connection.

Bots are your brand

While customer service bots are primarily utilitarian, they certainly needn’t be boring. Bot branding is becoming an increasingly used marketing move as enterprises recognize bots as a valuable way to increase audience engagement.

You can boost the power of your bots with Apexon’s screenless interface enablement services and tools. Learn more here or if you have a particular use case in mind, get in touch with us directly. We’d love to help you accelerate your screenless interface initiative.