Whether you’re a digital agency, an enterprise, or a small business, it’s critical that you stay up-to-date on the latest marketing innovations. Google Duplex, an artificial intelligence reservation system, is one of the latest developments, and its entrance into the technology industry is likely to have a significant impact on the future of marketing.
In simple terms, Google Duplex enables consumers to set up reservations and appointments over the phone with the aid of a human-like AI system. The software works with the help of a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) which enables the system to cope with the challenges of natural, human conversation. It also works alongside other solutions, such as Google Assistant and search engines, to improve the User Experience (UX). Perhaps most surprisingly, the software was developed with the help of a few open-source tools, including WaveNet and TensorFlow.
Google Duplex is quite adaptive, which means it can be used to set up appointments and reservations for a wide range of businesses and services such as mechanics, salons, restaurants, hotels, doctor or dental offices and online agencies that provide appointments and services.
This software can be used by many other types of businesses, including creative and marketing agencies. It offers potential benefits for just about anyone in the customer service industry.
While it may seem simple at first glance, there’s a lot more to Google Duplex than meets the eye. Let’s take a closer look at how it will affect the future of marketing, as well as what you can do to prepare for the inevitable changes.
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It Will Revamp the Customer Service Experience
An exemplary customer service experience is one of the best things you can offer your customers. In fact, it’s been shown that consumers will even spend more for better service. Google Duplex can offer this to your customers in various ways.
Duplex relies less on humans, for example, which ensures a consistent and and more readily-available experience for callers. At the same time, the more natural and adaptive approach provides a “human” feel that current solutions are typically lacking.
Best of all, creating a positive experience for your customers is made easy with Google Duplex. For example, you can:
- Make your information readily available. One lesser known aspect of Google Duplex is its ability to collect information such as hours and add them to your business’ online directory. To take advantage of this feature, businesses can include an off-hours recording that provides that information to callers.
- Keep humans on stand-by for when they’re necessary. While Google claims that its new solution successfully completes 80% of conversations (and is getting better), it’s important to have a human agent available for the 20% chance that further help is necessary. Fortunately, getting those calls transferred over is simple.
Overall, you’ll want to focus on incorporating both AI and human elements into your customer service interactions, to ensure that your audience receives the best of both worlds.
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It Will Increasingly Rely on Automated Voice Search
The use of Google Duplex will likely help to make voice search more commonplace. This is because the software relies heavily on Google Android, the operating system (OS) that also assists in Google’s voice search technology. You can recognize this in the way Duplex relies on natural speech patterns, as well as how it collects business data (over the phone and online) using its own voice technology.
All of this means that optimizing your website for voice searches is key. To ensure your website is ready, we recommend that you:
- Create “answer box” content. This is the content that appears first in Google search results, and it’s a great way to boost organic search traffic via voice searches. You can first find out which questions your customers are asking, then answer them on your site in a concise and conversational manner.
- Optimize your website for a conversational search approach. If you’ll be using Google Duplex to handle a larger number of customer inquiries, it’s important to optimize your website for that purpose. For instance, this could mean adding a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page that offers information in a back-and-forth format.
While you shouldn’t focus solely on AI when writing your site’s content, it should factor into a lot of your decisions. These include your website’s search function, as well as how your content will appear on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
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It May Eventually Transform Data Collection
One way that Google Duplex may transform data collection is by making it easier to get data from your target audience. This includes basic details, such as demographics, and more complex data including previous purchases, past searches, and more.
After all, the technology uses a conversational approach that’s more likely to prompt genuine responses. The software’s AI may also be “trained” to ask more questions about consumer needs in appropriate settings.
To be sure you’re ready for the future of data collection, you’ll want to:
- Incorporate survey questions into phone calls. If you end up using Google Duplex directly, you may be able to add survey questions at a later point in development. This is an excellent way to collect information easily from customers.
- Train your workers to ask more pointed questions. If your business is frequently called by Google Duplex to set up reservations, you may be able to direct more pointed questions at it (such as the reason for the reservation), in order to improve how you approach consumer interactions.
In the future, you may be able to eventually harness the power of Google Duplex’s AI for your own data collection needs. However, it’s important to see how the software fares on the consumer side first.
Artificial intelligence has played an ever-increasing role in online marketing, and the introduction of Google Duplex is just one more way that AI will contribute to its eventual transformation. This is why it’s crucial to make the proper changes to your business setup now, in order to ensure its continued success in the industry.
Do you have any questions about Google Duplex and what it could mean for your business? Let us know in the comments section below!