TOBi is our new digital assistant, much more than a chatbot, TOBi is a new channel of interaction and relationship with our customers. An easy, immediate and always available digital interface at any time of the day.
The importance of conversational interfaces
A few weeks ago I bought an iPhone X and, with the enthusiasm that for some is very understandable and for others total madness, I hastened to open it and configure it immediately, restoring the back up from my previous iPhone. I opened the Mail application, to read the emails that had come to me in the meantime and, I say this with not little embarrassment, I was no longer able to get out of the application. Since there was no home button, I didn’t know how to get out of the app. I tried and tried again. I leave out the story of everything I’ve tried to get out of the Mail app, pressing the few buttons on the device once, twice, then holding them down. Nothing, nothing. The experience ended on YouTube (from another device) where I learned how to use the new iPhone X. Apple is certainly very good and attentive to the User Experience and once you learn the new gestures everything has become veryimmediate and natural. For years now, I didn’t have to consult the instruction manual to use a technological gadget or a smartphone.
This is just a small personal experience that shows the difficulty of some users (me in this case) to adapt to the experience that was designed for me.
For the first time ever in human history, conversational interfaces do not require the user to learn how to use a particular tool. They do not require to adapt to an experience but only to do what is as natural as possible: talk.
TOBi, the digital assistant
TOBi allows you to perform many activities that Vodafone customerscan do on our digital channels by talking instead of clicking or stopping (a nasty word misspelled in English to indicate clicks made with your fingers on the touchscreen of the phone). It makes it easier, more immediate.
How many people know what their PUK code is, for example, for unlocking the SIM when you mistype your PIN? A few, very few. And although the information is available on the MyVodafone app, it is certainly not immediate to find it. With TOBi everything becomes easier, in a few seconds (literally less than 10), is able to give the answer we are looking for.
Although TOBi is used more than 1 million times a month today, it is still very young and sometimes does not understand… and then there are, of course, complex requests that TOBi is not able to handle, just like the app or website are not. Cases where there’s nothing better than talking to a human. In these cases TOBi knows that it’s not his bread and passes the conversation to a Vodafone consultant who supports the customer with his request: the best of both worlds would say overseas.
If you’ve tried TOBi on our app, let me know what you think in the comments!
