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The Future of �Conversational Interfaces

And how we get there��And how that fits with CPaaS and Conversational Customer Service Generally

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About Me

20+ Years Innovation

Software/�Network Engineer

Strategical Technical Delivery

Product Management

Walter Ong: Orality and Literacy

a Jesuit who wrote “Orality and Literacy” 1982, in it he spoke about Oral societies where transformed by literacy
Pre oral we memorise things and tell stories laden with pneumonic devices
One of the big transformations is how we go from a memory based society to a written-law, written holy books, and physical boundaries, the fluidity of culture can change because we have ideas and rules set it stone
He talk of oral societies, literate societies then secondary oral societies which is an oral society based on the written word (plays, radio, tv, and now internet) and this makes its orality more contextual, nuanced, and sophisticated
The interesting progression here is how we don’t stop at literacy, the urge is to come back to orality
Computer engineering similarly going “secondarily oral” conversationally

Why conversational?

History: input devices

History: interoperability

The Present: RESTful interoperability

So how do we get context?

Need to get and keep context

The Mountain to Climb

Where we are: Voice & �Voice Recognition

Problem with interfaces

First step: Getting conversational text right

Then get the design right

Then vocabulary and accent

Unguided Learning (self-correct)

Then we bring it all together!

Why Conversational �Customer Service?

Conversational customer service is likely thoing to be a big driver because:

Starting with an ID&V means we can definitively ID customer
We can get contextual information through CRM
The use cases and outcomes are specific
There are clear commercial goals and aims: reduce call wait time, give customer care agents meaningful rather than repetitive tasks, upsell and cross sell
So when we are building a Conversational Platform as a Service these are the elements/experience gaps are bridging to make a truly conversational platform are:

I expect that will start to see each of these element come together over the next years or so

Questions �& Suggestions�& Ideas