Introducing Apifonica's Voicebot for non-technical users

We are happy to announce the new and improved Voicebot by Apifonica. The solution allows non-technical users to launch, manage and measure automated mass calling campaigns fast and easy. 

Since its launch in early 2019, the Voicebot has become one of Apifonica's most demanded solutions. It proved to deliver quick and straightforward results to companies across multiple industries. Some of the largest employers in Poland and Finland leverage Voicebot to automate the initial stages of the recruitment process, reducing the time and cost to hire 3-4-fold. Professional sports clubs use it to create social buzz and bring more fun into a team-fans relationship. For gambling operators, the Voicebot is a secret weapon to activate new customers and re-engage inactive players. 

Until recently, launching a Voicebot campaign with Apifonica required either some programming skills or 24/7 support from our engineering team. Now everything has changed: we made the Voicebot accessible to non-technical users. An HR manager, a marketer, a salesperson can now launch and manage Voicebot campaigns and get reports through a simple and intuitive web interface. 

Here's a quick overview of what the new Voicebot is about.

Boilerplate scenarios

After having run a couple of hundred campaigns for our clients, we realized that scenarios are, in many cases, very similar. Regardless of the industry, companies need to poll their clients, notify them about special offers, and offer information on demand. So, in the new version of Voicebot, most popular scenarios are ready for use out of the box. All you have to do is to add bot's replies and upload your contact lists. 

As of now, three preset scenarios are available (and more to be added into scenario library soon). Let's discuss them in more detail. 

1. CSI/NPS survey

   As the name suggests, this scenario facilitates polls and questionnaires that you can run on your client database. Note that the Voicebot does not just collect answers. It also can evaluate whether the answer is in line with your criteria (goal).  
   
   Let's assume that your goal is to recruit candidates with a command of the English language. Voicebot would call through your entire candidate pool, asking the question: "Would you be willing to be interviewed in English; Press 1 for yes, 2 for no". The bot will deem all "1" replies as "pass", and "2" as "fail", so you'd see that in your report, and can quickly identify the candidates who satisfy your search criteria.
   
   Along the same lines, our customer Domino's Pizza gauges candidates' interest in a job opening, and Poland's fastest delivery company finds candidates whose salary expectations fit what the company is willing to offer. 

2. Communication triggered by call status 

   Under this scenario, Voicebot's actions depend on whether the customer answered the call or not. If the customer did answer the call, the Voicebot starts the conversation, and later may text something like: "Thanks for your time, here's your special offer: {link}". If there were no answer, the bot would send an SMS like "Dear customer, we have a special offer for you. Call {number} to learn more". 
   
   This scenario is popular in the entertainment industry. For example, sports clubs use Voicebot to emulate a personal call from a star player to each fan. Voicebot dials a number and plays a message recorded by a star player. Upon terminating a call, the bot sends an SMS with a link related to the relevant content on the club's website. If the fan did not answer the call, Voicebot sends a text on the club's behalf.
   
   You can find more details about the Voicebot-powered campaigns in the entertainment industry in the "Success Stories" section of our blog.

3. Communication triggered by user action

   In this scenario, actions of Voicebot depend on the client's choices. If, for example, a client presses the "1" button, the bot would ask them the next question, "2"- send a text message, "3"- say "goodbye" and hang up.
   
   Our customers from the gambling industry often use this scenario. Typically, a promo campaign to compel gamblers to increase their deposits starts with the Voicebot calling the players with promo details (for example, a bonus bet for a deposit). During the call, it offers an SMS with a promo code to unlock the offer. Also, the bot asks for the client's consent to receive further phone communications. 
   
   Then, the scenario depends on client actions. If the client chooses to decline further calls, the bot will confirm that, and mark the corresponding fields in the report. If they decide to participate, the bot sends an SMS, and so on.
   
   To find out more on how gambling operators use Voicebot to activate and retain clients, check out our blog; there, you'll find case studies from one of Spain's leading betting operators, online bookmakers Soft2Bet and Mondobets, and others.
   
   You can tailor all the scenarios to your specific needs by adding replies, audio files (or texts for text-to-speech), SMS texts. Also, we are always ready to give you a hand with setup, or custom scenario development, - there is a dedicated contact form in the user interface. 

The voice of the Voicebot

To give voice to the Voicebot (pardon the pun), you can use either pre-recorded audio files or text-to-speech. Apifonica uses one of the world's best text-to-speech engines that support the majority of the most common languages. You can choose not just the language, but also the voice to pronounce your text.

Personalization

Voicebot can address each call recipient by name or send them a unique promo code. Our customers use these variables both in voice messages generated through text-to-speech and in SMSs.

To personalize your messages, upload a database that contains phone numbers of target users and data for merging (name, promo code, etc.). Voicebot will parse the file automatically, prompting you to define which field goes where. The bot accepts and recognizes almost any file format (xls, csv, txt), so you won't waste your time on data formatting. Also, Voicebot will automatically detect invalid phone numbers and exclude them from the calling queue.

Campaign scheduling

You can schedule campaigns to launch automatically or launch them manually through the web interface. In the schedule, you can specify not just the time to start and stop the campaign, but also the time and number of attempts to reach customers who did not answer the first call. You can also adjust the speed of calling (number of simultaneous calls per second).

Reports

Real-time campaign efficiency reports are available in the admin interface. There you can oversee your campaigns, observing performance indicators such as number of answered calls, number of Voicebot interactions, number of promo codes requested, number of SMSs sent. You can download reports both for each call attempt and for a campaign as a whole.

To be continued

Apifonica's non-technical user-friendly Voicebot is only starting its journey. In the nearest future, more capabilities will be added, including but not limited:

1. Speech-to-text
   For situations when you'd like to capture the voice input from customers and turn it into text for further search and processing.
   
   
2. Aggregated reports
   Visualization of how your campaigns perform in the form of graphs and charts showing conversion funnels and other stats.
   
   
3. GUI scenario builder
   Drag-and-drop interface enabling users to build custom scenarios for the Voicebot with even more ease.

The new Voicebot represents the knowledge we have accumulated from our customers about their challenges, the market, and consumer preferences. With the new, improved capabilities, you no longer need to seek help each time you need to adjust the campaign. To try the new Voicebot in action, log in (or sign in) to your Apifonica account and head to the Voicebot section in the main menu.