What are Contextual Conversation?

All of us have been there. A request which bounces to different departments, shifted from one support executive to another, repeating the problem again and again due to shifting from one channel to another and ultimately failing to get resolved. All of this had one thing in common, us stating our problem again and again as “Without context, “conversations” are just noise”.

The world today is about SPEED, as customers of today aka the millennial’s want relevant answers/support instantly. Technology has already taken over most of the day-to-day tasks right from shopping for groceries to purchasing a house. Every user today is looking for simple and time-saving ways to get things done quickly and hate repetitions and redundancy.

This is where Contextual Conversation can play a major role in improving the user experience and ultimately bring you more app engagement. 

Chat-bots and Voice Assistants are gaining momentum but conversations there are still non contextual. A bigger challenge comes when customers get stuck and look for support from peers or customer support instantly and often are made to repeat the long story again over chat (assuming, you know customers are no longer interested to call or write an email).

What are Contextual Conversation?

As per the formal definition, contextual communication is the “bidirectional transfer of information between two parties where both parties are aware of the relational, environmental, and cultural context of the exchange.”

It simply means that both parties are completely aware of the context of the conversation since the beginning.

For example, you want to order food and decided to message the restaurant on their app. They ask you about preferences and you help them with the same. However, questions like location and contact details are not asked because it has been fetched using the app’s location and profile details. You call again the next day and he just asks you about the quantity as he knows what you love ordering from them. This is the power of creating interactions which are personalized and contextual in nature.

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Ways To Initiate Contextual Engagement

Peer To Peer

A conversation that happens between two users of the same application regarding a particular subject.
For example, a user who wants to purchase a property on a property marketplace reaches out to the seller about the furnishing of the property. He uses the in-app messaging features to message the seller, who replies in a flash as he is aware of which property she is talking about. He has listed multiple properties and knowing which property the user is talking about makes it easier for him. He also knows his history of interaction (if any) and responds accordingly.

Chat-bot based

With Google displaying how its assistant can do natural conversations, the world is excited to witness it. Chat bot based conversations will rise and reach to a point where human and bot conversations become alike without losing the essence of the conversation.

For example, if you are reaching out to make a reservation for your dinner tonight, the chatbot studies the distance, traffic trends, and weather outside to recommend the best time to make a reservation. Wooh! Interesting, right?

Customer Support Professionals

Chat bots are already taking customer support to the next level as discussed earlier but collaboration with humans is equally essential. Often when an ongoing conversation is transferred from a bot to a human, the user has to start from the beginning, which is quite frustrating.Having a bot-human hand-off which ensures contextual overlap is a must-have and with tools like Kommunicate this has been made possible. 

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Context Changes Everything

Apparently, most  conversational technologies don’t focus on the context and hardly provides any input about the user.

But simple cues like whether the user is on the Checkout Page, whether he had been regularly complaining about negative experiences etc. can make conversations much better.

Based on the situation, the response and style of interaction can be l changed  to make it more relevant and thereby ensure customers love the business & become advocates.

This is not just an improvement in the process but a wonderful start to ensure a positive experience and way to delight, retain without major efforts. 

The time to consider every customer touchpoint on each channel as an opportunity to form a picture of who your customer is and what he cares about has come. The world isn’t about selling more but helping customers to solve a problem for what they came to us for.

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