70% chatbot failure rate for Facebook shows difficult road ahead for AIs in 2018

AI consultants Humanotics and service communications experts soh partner to create user-focused service solutions that deliver tangible ROI.

LONDON, UK (20/12/2017): AI consultants Humanotics and service communications experts soh today announced a new partnership that will make it easy for organisations to create practical user focussed solutions that cut costs, boost sales and increase customer satisfaction.

Talking about the reason for the new partnership Fran Fish, Managing Director at soh, says: “AI and chatbots show lots of promise for the service sector but with high profile media coverage of problems at Facebook and Microsoft, as well as scepticism from business journals including Harvard Business Review, clients are nervous about whether the technology can deliver.”

Dr David Naylor, Founder of Humanotics, continues: “There’s a lot of hype around AI. Suppliers are down playing the effort required by businesses to create applications that deliver a return on their investment. The Humanotics – soh partnership is about making it easier to create AI solutions that work well for customers, businesses and frontline advisors.”

The first collaboration between the two companies is the “AI Ready” assessment that helps service organisations make better business cases for AI by choosing the best service applications and thoroughly assessing the impact.

Talking about what will happen in future Fran Fish says: "With pressure to cut costs, get customers to self-serve and to digitise customer operations so that advisors can concentrate on more complex queries, our clients are asking whether digital service — including AI and machine-learning — is the answer. We’re developing how we can help companies use AI and prepare their customer service communications for any digital transformation."

“Working with soh means we are increasing our focus on the quality of customer conversations embedded in automated assistant or chatbot applications," says David Naylor. "We're also able to work together to strengthen our offering in AI as a managed service. It's an exciting development for our clients."

About soh

soh help leading brands — including Allianz, Sky and John Lewis — create better customer experiences that save money, enhance service and increase sales.

Using a mix of science, creativity and service know-how, soh improve how organisations communicate with their customers through all channels and media — from AIs, webchat and online answers for FAQs to SMS, letters and the phone.

Their award-winning work has reduced costs by cutting repeat contact by 90% as well as moving 47% of calling customers to self-service channels, increased CSat by 37% and boosted sales opportunities by 24%.

soh work collaboratively with clients to find opportunities for improvement, create strategies to realise these and make it easy to maintain better communications with managed services.

For more information, visit www.soh.co.uk

About Humanotics

Humanotics’ mission is to demystify complex Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies and enable businesses to realise the many benefits of their use in applications from chatbots to predictive analytics for improving sales and service performance.

Their unique Ai2B Methodology supports clients by assessing business priorities, building benefit cases, designing and building applications, managing change and providing ongoing support so that solutions continue to deliver business benefits.

Led by Dr David Naylor — who gained his PhD in AI for pioneering research at Loughborough University — the Humanotics team have over 25 years’ experience in customer operations, analytics and experience design. David has worked with many leading FTSE 100 companies including Vodafone, Lloyds Banking Group and Severn Trent.

For more information, visit www.humanotics.co.uk

For Additional Information:
Fran Fish: fran@soh.co.uk