Chatbots.expert is delighted to announce that Jan-Willem Sieveking has joined the company as Chief Commercial Officer. Jan-Willem brings extremely relevant expertise and experience to Chatbots.expert in order to help build and grow the company. His primary focus will be on the commercial strategy and commercial operations but he’ll also take on the responsibility for everything HR and Finance related. He previously worked as Managing Director at Weeronline, Head of Commerce at Zoover and in management consulting at Accenture Digital.

“I first met Chatbots.expert while at Weeronline in 2019 and was became very excited by the potential of conversational AI,” says Jan-Willem. “In the meantime, huge steps have been made with the development of the converstational AI platform Antonic.ai by Chatbots.expert and I believe the commercial potential is huge. I believe I can add a lot of value and I look forward to the challenge to grow this company”.

Ries Deijkers, CEO and founder of Chatbots.expert: “I’m very excited to be welcoming Jan-Willem to the team – ever since our paths crossed 2 years ago he has impressed me with his great work at Weeronline, his professional approach and enthusiasm. Jan-Willem’s unique experience in building strong teams and successfully growing and transforming a company will be of critical importance to Chatbots.expert and Antonic.ai to achieve further growth. He’s an important hire and I’m excited to have him on board. I look forward to working with him”.

The 3rd Employee Experience Summit will soon take place, and Chatbots.expert will be there to give a workshop on the use of chatbots for human resources and recruitment. The European Chatbot & Conversational AI Summit and the Chatbot Africa & Conversational AI Summit will also take place soon. In addition to the role of Chatbots.expert as one of the main sponsors of these two events, we will also give a keynote and workshop on the conversational customer journey. You can read more about the ‘conversational customer journey’ below, but you are cordially invited to attend one of the digital summits if you would like to have more information! Tickets can be booked on the website of the summits. The 3rd Employee Experience Summit will take place on December 2, 3 and 4, 2020. The European Chatbot & Conversational AI Summit will take place on February 4 and 5, 2021, and the Chatbot Africa & Conversational AI Summit will be held on March 4 and 5, 2021. For both the European Chatbot Summit and Chatbot Africa Summit, Chatbots.expert will be a Platinum Sponsor.

3rd Employee Experience Summit

The 3rd Employee Experience Summit is a three-day (online) event that will take place from December 2, 3, and 4. The main focus of the summit will be recruiting and managing employees. The contribution of Chatbots.expert will be a workshop in which we take a step-by-step approach to explain how a company could use chatbots in order to simplify, improve and reduce the costs of recruiting new staff and keep existing staff happy.

European Chatbot & Conversational AI Summit

The European Chatbot & Conversational AI Summit is a two-day event that will also be held online. The digital stage on February 4 and 5 will be filled by speakers from the field of AI and chatbots, including us from Chatbots.expert. Topics that will be discussed include user experience design, NLP and virtual assistants. The event will consist of presentations and workshops, while there will also be multiple opportunities to network with employees and CEOs of companies that are ahead of the game when it comes to chatbots and conversational AI.

Chatbot Africa & Conversational AI Summit

Just like the European version, the two-day event of Chatbot Africa & Conversational AI Summit will be held online. On March 4 and 5, some speakers from the European summit will also be present at this African summit, combined with speakers whose core businesses lie in Africa. The topics that will be covered are similar to the European version, but the focus will be more on the African continent. Both events are interesting for designers, marketers, product managers, programmers and anyone else interested in chatbots.

What is a conversational customer journey?

Advances in AI over the past few years have enabled customers to engage with businesses in a whole new way. Amazon Alexa, Google Voice Assistant and Siri are the most famous examples that make this possible. You can operate these digital assistants by voice, as you can get answers to questions, receive personal advice or make appointments with companies. The so-called “conversational customer journey” is the conversation that customers have with companies through chat or speech. The era of boring websites is over; these days, the experience that customers have with companies should feel like an informal conversation. This is great for the customer, but companies can also benefit from this as

they are able to build a personal relationship with the customer. Here at Chatbots.expert, we have been active for years in building chatbots that can be operated via chat and speech. At the aforementioned two AI summits, we will give a presentation about the use of chatbots in a conversational customer journey. During our workshop, we will give practical advice on how you can build a conversational customer journey yourself.

Links to the event websites:
http://claridenglobal.com/conference/employee-experience-sg/
https://theeuropeanchatbot.com/
http://chatbotafrica.com/

Tickets:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-european-chatbot-conversational-ai-summit-2021-100-virtual-online-tickets-102420488438

We proudly present the new chatbot of Beter Bed. Chatbots.expert has designed a chatbot for one of largest sellers of beds in the Netherlands; Beter Bed. The chatbot will be available through Google Assistant, Facebook Messenger and the Beter Bed website. As a customer, you can use the chatbot to ask a question or make an appointment. For the time being, only relatively simple questions will be answered, but soon, questions on advice will also be answered.

Finding a new bed has never been so easy

The chatbot is designed to help customers find the right bed. A bed should suit your needs, your budget, and last but not least, it should be comfortable! That’s why Beter Bed wants to make it as easy as possible for customers to obtain information about their beds. An advantage of the chatbot is that questions can be answered in a quick and clear manner. The chatbot is available through text and buttons in Facebook Messenger and on the website. It can also be commanded by voice when using Google Assistant. In the near future, the virtual assistant will also be present in the physical stores, so that customers can ask questions there as well. One instance for which this would be useful is when all sleep specialists in the store are already helping other customers. Everything is set to serve the ultimate goal of making shopping as smooth as possible and giving customers a great experience.

The customer is king

One of the key characteristics of the chatbot is its availability through day and night. This 24/7 service enables the customer to ask questions whenever it suits him. This is great as you no longer have to choose a moment between 9 and 5 on a busy working day to call the customer service. Whether you’re sitting on the couch at night or are still lying in bed on a Saturday morning, you can always ask your questions. The chatbot is able to answer most questions, but if a question pops up for which the bot has not yet been trained to answer, the customer will be redirected to customer service whenever it is opened. The chatbot is also suited to make appointments in the store or ask/answer questions about previously purchased beds. Soon the chatbot will even give personalized advice. After customers have made an appointment in a Beter Bed store, the in-store advisors will take the time to prepare for the specific needs of this customer. As a customer, you will always receive the best advice, whether it is inside the store or online.

Win-win for both the customer and Beter Bed

Beter Bed has an extensive customer service team that is available every working day to answer customers’ questions. Of the 1,600 questions that the team receives on an average day, a large proportion is recurring and therefore, the answers to these can easily be automated. It is this automation that takes place inside the chatbot. This relieves the pressure on customer service and allows customers to get an answer to their questions in an even easier and faster way. Questions coming in through the chatbot that really ask for personal attention from an employee, will be redirected to customer service, where an employee will take the time to give the best answer possible. In addition to improving the quality of customer service, the chatbot is also fully scalable, which means that it is able to help many customers at the same time. As we all know, Beter Bed likes to be known for its

extremely customer-oriented service. Chatbots.expert is proud to have succeeded in helping Beter Bed to achieve their goals, focusing on digitalization, innovation and efficiency. At Beter Bed, the customer comes first and at Chatbots.expert, we are happy to help doing this.

Our technique

For this project we have used our Conversational AI platform Antonic.ai, which can be used to build highly user-friendly chatbots. In doing so, the company creates a natural way of conversating with customers.

The corona-virus crisis has a serious impact on the business of all size companies, and it will probably only grow over time. As perhaps most affected by the new situation, we can single out companies operating in the aerospace, tourism, hospitality or sports industries that seem to have completely lost control of their destiny. On the other hand, companies such as Zoom, Amazon, or those involved in food delivery, are experiencing an absolute boom. Somewhere between these two extremes is the majority of those others who, in this crisis, found themselves more or less ready to survive. Some of them were more fortunate, but all of them found themselves in a later stage of business development when they have a significant number of customers and the financial resources at their disposal. There are also quite a number of those who were just getting ready to conquer the market with only some money raised from investors. All of them are aware that many factors determine their future – how quickly they will spend money and how long existing cash reserves will last, but also how long customers will be able to continue to pay for a product or service.

If you find yourself lost during this unexpected situation, maybe this text will help you to change your mindset and give you another perspective.

It’s no secret that some of the largest global companies today are founded in times of economic crisis. You can find General Motors, Disney, KFC, Whatsapp, Airbnb and many more.
Think about what is common to all these companies.

“Without change, there is no innovation, creativity, or incentive for improvement. Those who initiate change will have a better opportunity to manage the change that is inevitable.”
C William Pollard Former Chairman/CEO of Service Master Co

Now is the perfect time to unlock the true why, how, what, who, when and where of your business.

Learn how your company can adjust and how to make your communication more effective because crises may be really good timing for innovation. Remember, there are incremental and radical changes in everything in life.
Chatbots.expert might definitely have the right solution in this unexpected times.

Together with our partners, the University of Amsterdam, AZ Alkmaar and the KNZB we were told at the Meet & Match afternoon of Sportinnovator that we have won the National Sports Innovation Prize 2018.

From 39 proposals, five innovations were chosen by a jury consisting of a delegation from the Top Team Sport and experts from the field. The theme of the National Sportinnovator Prize 2018 was “Mind Your Fitness”, with which we searched for revolutionary ideas that are potentially of great value for the mental fitness of top and recreational athletes. The winning innovations excel in their great impact for the sport. “With these innovations we can optimally support athletes,” says jury chairman Martin Olde Weghuis.

https://www.sportinnovator.nl/nieuws/innovatieve-ideeen-in-de-sport-beloond-met-nationale-sportinnovator-prijs-2018

Cato: The Coach who never sleeps

Our concept for the National Sportinnovator Prize is Cato a virtual coach (Chatbot) that supports athletes 24/7 to mentally peak at the right moments.
Through Cato, athletes can be accompanied even more intensively to come and remain mentally at top level.

Below an example conversation of the Cato Chatbot:

2017 was really the year of the Chatbots, they experienced a boost in popularity and companies started using them on a massive scale. The number of Chatbots on Facebook messenger has risen sharply between 2016 and 2017: from 30.000 to 100.000 bots. And that is with reason: Chatbots can help companies with proactive customer support. Every large company has a Chatbot or has announced its development of a bot and billions of people worldwide are already using the bots. It is therefore estimated that by the year 2020 almost 80% of the companies will have their own Chatbot. This is really the time to get started with Chatbots. So go along with this hype and integrate the bot into your company. Curious about the do’s & don’ts? Be sure to read these 10 recommendations for companies.

1. Let your bot be a complement and not a replacement:

The biggest misconception regarding the bots is that they will take over services and jobs altogether, however, the truth is that they can especially be used to replace apps and to minimize human efforts while producing more productive results. Chatbots can interact with people within a certain scope, if the question falls outside their predefined tasks, then the bots directs the customers to their human colleagues.

2. Create lower operating costs thanks to the bot:

Chatbots will mainly focus themselves on repetitive tasks, while your employees can focus on more complex problems. They will not completely replace employees, but will ensure that you need a smaller operational team. The nice thing about a Chatbot is that they are available 24/7, which makes it possible for your company to help customers directly. Does the customer’s question fall outside their scope? Then they have to forward the customer, but they can already request all the necessary information and forward this to their colleague.

3. Customers like to use Chatbots, so do not disappoint them:

People love to discover new technology, this is also the case with the bots. But a smooth interaction is really the key to success, a bot that does not function properly will only generate irritation from the customer. So make sure that your Chatbot works professionally and flawlessly, fits your company, has good language skills, can be used on different types of devices and has clear tasks.

4. Bots require constant evaluation and optimization:

The performance of your Chatbot must be monitored and evaluated regularly, with regard to user experiences, linguistic possibilities and usability. Companies can introduce the necessary changes to make the bot even more efficient. Optimize the Chatbot regularly: set the right goals, vary with the welcome messages, include additional information about the company, add new products, enter price changes and send new and attractive offers.

5. Boost customer loyalty through excellent customer service:

Customers expect a simple but clear and efficient interaction with a company. The bots can be used very well for this purpose: they understand the issue immediately and can directly offer a suitable solution. And because of the 24/7 interaction, a customer never needs to wait for the opening hours of your company’s customer service, they are simply helped immediately. And such good service ensures loyal customers, stronger customer relations, good reviews and a boost from your company.

6. Use the Chatbot for the marketing and sales of your company:

In addition to customer service, the bots can also be used very well for marketing and sales purposes. Think of improving customer engagement through personalized customer interactions, offering guidance during every step of the sale, predicting customer behavior and using this knowledge to send notifications, creating greater reach through social media and finding the right audience for your brand.

7. Improve your customer service and sales thanks to the bot:

Chatbots can easily collect customer information (name, profession, website or social media profiles) with which they can compose customer profiles. And this can again be used for both customer service and sales activities. Through the 24/7 interaction, the bot forms the bridge between your brand and your customers, so they can help customers by answering questions but also by delivering product information.

8. Let your bot promote new products and/or services:

Chatbots have a huge range and can check perfectly which customer is interested in which service or product. They can therefore also be used very effectively to promote new products and/or services, without the risk of customers becoming irritated by the “spam” they receive and in which they are not interested at all. Through the bots, customers only receive advertisements that actually fit their preferences and profile.

9. Transform your marketing strategy through a Chatbot:

In marketing, of course, it is all about reaching the right audience and this is something in which the Chatbot is very talented. A bot can predict the preferences and interests of customers by monitoring customer behavior and following the interests of customers, on the basis of which customers can be contacted. Through this they can build good customer relationships and have the ability to persuade consumers to buy something by proposing preferred items.

10. Let your bot advise clients:

Does a customer doubt a particular purchase? Even in this case, they can direct themselves to the Chatbot. By analyzing various facts about the customer profile, the bots can offer customers various options that suit them. This way, they can advise (potential) customers on which products and/or services is a good match for them. Does the customer have interest in a particular item? Then the Chatbot can always suggest similar products.
As you already noticed, the possibilities are endless. So what are you waiting for? Let 2018 be the year that your company will also enjoy the many advantages of the Chatbots.

Every company needs dedicated customers who are well aware of the latest offer and know the benefits of these offerings. It is the marketing team that stimulates this or generates customers from the leads. The communication and marketing of the product or service.

Generating leads

The sales funnel starts broadly with the marketing and narrowly with the actual sale, so in the beginning of the funnel there is the marketing team that communicates with customers about a wide range of subjects. A variety of customers approach a variety of channels, both online and offline. Through this, they are informed about the services, this forms the first leads interface with the company, and it is the marketing team that deals with these approaches. During this internship, the leads are called “Marketing Qualified Leads” (MQL). A company has many MQLs and some customers will actually buy the product at the end of the funnel, in the Sales Qualified Leads (SQL).

Marketing – from traditional to modern

In the past, before the internet became popular, customers had very limited access to information. In most cases, customers had to visit the company’s store or receive information via mail, radio or television. This traditional marketing communication still exists, but the biggest disadvantage of this is that they only have one message for all customers. But those with doubts, are not convinced by this. And that is, or course, a shame.

The first step towards one-on-one interaction with the customers with live chats. A customer opens the website of a company, reads information and starts a conversation with an employee via the chat. However, the disadvantage of this child of traditional, live chats is that they are very labor intensive and therefore can be applied to a limited extent. But thanks to Chatbots this has become a more realistic option.

Chatbots – one-on-one conversations on a large scale

Thanks to “Artificial Intelligence” (AI) and “Machine Learning” (ML), computers have become increasingly better at communicating with users. Therefore Chatbots are used more and more. Thus, on the one hand, they have a better language skills while they also have a relatively low customer contact.

Thanks to the Chatbots, all customers can have one-on-one conversations with a representative of the company, without having to wait in long queues. This gives them a personal customer experience and they answer all their questions. Often this happens without the customers realizing that they are chatting with is not really a person.

Chatbots – also very suitable for the sales team

But Chatbots are not only useful for the marketing department, because the sales department can also make good use of them. You can get the job done online. “Marketing Qualified Leads” (MQL) to the more specific “Sales Qualified Leads” (SQL), when the customer is . Since Chatbots can help during the entire sales funnel, they provide a higher level of continuous customer retention and can provide the sales team with the necessary data to close the sale.

Chatbots are very sophisticated nowadays, they have excellent language skills and can be used in many ways in the communication with customers. In this way they provide a personal customer experience that is efficient, fast and virtually effortless for both the customer and the company.