how the image and persona of bots influence customers
If in the 2000s the user was inexperienced and was content with a minimally humanized “clip” when working on a computer, now he is spoiled, he needs to be surprised: think through the image in terms of visuals, tone of communication, linguistic features and features. The better the development, the higher the emotional response from clients. Today, the most popular voice assistants and chatbots have not only their own names, but also a full-fledged personality: character traits, communication style, legend of origin, etc.
Why does a robot need an image?
As shown statistics, the introduction of personalization can increase sales by 20%. The client becomes more loyal when he feels attention to his requests and a special approach to service. 80% of buyers are more likely to buy from companies that have worked to personalize offers. Most modern people seem to have a built-in detector for poor quality communication with a brand, and this can lead to a 79% drop in the likelihood of a sale.
In some cases, robots are still perceived by users as less capable of answering pressing questions or solving problems: as if their range of competencies is limited, and they lack the empathy that almost every living person possesses.
In fact, there are cases in which the sales of a robotic AI employee were 4 times higher than the efficiency of inexperienced employees who are poorly versed in the product, have insufficiently developed presentation skills, and allow themselves to be harsh when communicating with clients.
Accordingly, thanks to the presence of a virtual assistant, your business can close the shortage of junior level employees, but the most important thing is to eliminate the negative human factor: with the bot, brand messages will be correctly and unambiguously conveyed and a uniform tone of communication will be maintained in different communication channels.
The ideal bot, what is it?
Choosing and developing the image of a virtual assistant is a rather labor-intensive task, because the finished image may not suit the audience or brand. According to research from Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Google Assistant, users prefer female voices in voice assistants. They consider him more “responsive” and empathic, so they perceive interactions with him better.
Other study also confirms this. The “ideal” assistant, if represented as a person, should be an adult female professional with a reserved demeanor and an elegant appearance. But if you want to create your own assistant, it is better to know much more about it.
Recommendations for developing a bot
To decide on the type of assistant for your business, answer yourself 7 questions:
Who is he? Is it a person or an animal, a cartoon character or something abstract, or maybe a projection of a real person?
How does he communicate? Serious or cheerful, friendly and understanding or businesslike and setting clear boundaries?
What is his gender? Male or female, or maybe it doesn’t matter?
What's his name? A real human name or something fantasy and associated with a brand?
What does he look like? Sophisticated and elegant or free from stereotypes and creative or does it depend on the situation?
What's his voice like? Tall or short, childish or adult, human or with a touch of the extraterrestrial?
What is his legend? Maybe he arrived from the future or graduated from HSE, regularly invests himself, or dreams of buying a car for his wife, and then houses, an apartment and much more?
It is important to test the formed image of an assistant on the target audience.
Domestic best practices
Nowadays, the largest players in the banking market have an advantage in assistants with a certain gender, most often male. They have a distinctive character, but no visual identity. This is probably due to the fact that banks want to be associated with the future and virtualization, and not be tied to specific people.
Many chatbots of Russian banks can not only correspond, but also communicate by voice. Among them: SberBank, Alfa-Bank, Tinkoff Bank and Raiffeisen Bank. VTB Bank and Sovcombank adhere to communication through the assistant exclusively in text format.
According to research Markswebb consulting agency for 2023, the best chatbots in mobile banks on the Android platform were Alfa-Bank, Sovcombank and VTB Bank. (By the way, the Alfa-Bank bot was developed by us at Just AI).They are followed with a slight lag by Tinkoff Bank and Raiffeisen Bank. The bots were rated based on user-friendliness, ability to complete 51 user requests without the need for a consultant, and conduct dialogue in accordance with the 9 Conversational User Interface (CUI) principles.
Accordingly, the presence of three different bots, like SberBank, or the availability of communication in text and audio formats does not guarantee popularity among users and high efficiency for business. You can communicate with clients only by text, as Sovcombank and VTB Bank do. The main thing is a clear image and the ability to solve the user’s main problems.
Functionality that can be delegated to chatbots
Assistants in fintech should first of all be functional and answer frequently asked questions: opening hours, subscription costs, limits or the nearest ATM. Delegating such tasks can significantly relieve your operators.
Additionally, the assistant in the mobile banking application can be given responsibility for implementing other simple operations. For example, connect or disconnect a product, change data or tariffs, restore access, generate certificates and documents, upsell products that are potentially interesting to the client.
What does GPT change?
Now the classic tools for creating an image for a brand or bot: associative maps, brainstorms, searching for reference iconic images and forming a collective image of users will gradually be suppressed by generative tools. So, for example, you can delegate to AI the task of thinking through Tone of Voice, giving it a brand description or brand book as input. You can ask to generate an image, roughly outlining the character. Or find out what references artificial intelligence will offer based on the needs of the brand. Now creating a persona becomes easier and much faster. However, this does not eliminate the need to validate hypotheses on users, even if they are created by artificial intelligence.
Instead of a conclusion
It is better to treat the creation of an assistant no less responsibly than the development of any other point of contact for the company. The image and persona of a chatbot can influence a client’s experience of interacting with a fintech product. This will either increase the likelihood of a sale or cause you to lose contact with a potential buyer. Create hypotheses, test and only then launch your assistant into the world.
