BOT2001 Report
Commercial Success with Bots

By Brian Proffitt

In any new technology's history, there is a point where, if the technology is successful, the technology will move from the realm of the theoretical to the practical. And, if it is very successful, from the practical to the commercial.

This is the point where many bot and intelligent agent companies find themselves these days, and it if any company is a shining example of commercial bot success, it could certainly be NativeMinds.

NativeMinds is a company with a new name, but it is one that is been in the business of bots for some time. Formerly Neuromedia, NativeMinds still employs an enhanced version of the NeuroServer technology used to produce the former Shallow Red chat bot.

Today, NativeMinds has launched itself full force into the customer service game, and has recently announced a partnership with Ford Motor Company to provide the U.S. automaker's with Virtual Representative (vRep) technology to provide online technical and support assistance to about 5,400 Ford and Lincoln Mercury dealerships in the U.S. and Canada that use Ford's Worldwide Diagnostic System (WDS).

This is one example of the success that NativeMinds has enjoyed, and was the part of the message delivered by NativeMinds' CEO Dr. Walter Tackett during his presentation to BOT2001.

Tackett is a man clearly charged with energy needed to propel his intelligent agent company into the customer relationship management (CRM) marketplace, and it showed as he regaled the audience with the successes his company has enjoyed and by his own admission stirred up a bit of controversy with his business focus.

The beginnings of his company's vRep technology, which uses natural language processing and a series of emotive images to interact with the human user, has its roots within the chat bot paradigm, even as far back as the first chat bot, Eliza.

Tackett has seen the writing on the wall, and is pushing chat bot technology into new areas once managed by humans. Specifically, the area of CRM. NativeMinds is not the first firm to venture into electronic CRM (eCRM), but it is clearly making one of the strongest efforts.

Traditionally, customer service is handled in a three-tier relationship. Tier one is typically where the customer assists himself, availing himself of printed help instructions or online databases. Tier two is when the customer contacts a help desk or other customer service organization, which tries to help the customer over the phone or via e-mail. Finally, tier three is when the helping organization must come to the customer to diagnose and repair their problem.

NativeMinds' vReps insert themselves into this structure as a tier zero solution. By providing the user with an interactive support feature, many times their questions can be answered without the intervention of a human customer support agent.

"Tier zero... empowers the customer to help themselves," Tackett stated.

Just tossing an interactive bot in front of the customer is not the end of the solution, Tackett warned.

"The challenge is to answer the customer's questions correctly the first time. This is the key factor," he explained. vReps can also provide seamless escalation to human agent assistance, should the customer desire it, a feature many eCRM solutions provide.

The savings for a company using such a solution are very clear, according to the figures shown by Tackett. Using vRep, the cost of a customer interaction is about $.54 per incident. This is in sharp contrast to dealing with a live customer service agent, when can cost from $20-$30 per incident.

Tackett is very confident in the direction he wants to go with NativeMinds. Citing the CRM solutions offered by Ask.com, home of the popular Ask Jeeves natural-language search engine, Tackett declared to the audience that "we will be the Ask Jeeves-killer."

Thus far, NativeMinds has done a good job getting its technology out to the world at large. Besides the Ford deal, NativeMinds is working with Oracle, British telecommunications company One2One, and even CRM firm Convergys, which uses NativeMinds vReps for their own in-house support and Web site questions.