Israeli smart bot solutions provider Nanorep is looking to make inroads in the Australian market with senior executive Mark Granot confident that its technology can shake up the local self-service market.
Nanorep’s vice president of Alliances and Partners, Mark Granot, said that the continued evolution of virtual assistants is forcing businesses to rethink their approaches to customer service
Virtual assistants are increasingly in the frontline as customers get more comfortable with self-service options when it comes to resolving a query. However, Mr Granot said that the term “Artificial Intelligence” has been far too liberally when it comes to chatbots and virtual assistants.
“Chatbots have been very fashionable lately using the AI buzzword but many solutions in the market are point-to-point and are implemented on services like Facebook Messenger,” he said.
According to Mr Granot, Nanorep is much more expansive in its outlook,
“We look at things at an enterprise level and our solution allows the business to implement a self-service platform on any touch point relevant to their customer,” he said.
“It doesn’t just have to be Facebook; it could be the website, the mobile app or any other touch point.”
Australia had been on Nanorep’s radar for some time but Mr Granot said a patient approach to entry was critical.
“We were looking to build credibility and domain expertise in the main verticals we target.”
“Distance was also a factor, we really didn’t thing we could do this properly by ourselves,” he added.
Nanorep has found an ally in equity crowd-funding platform, OurCrowd, which has not only invested in the company but also opened doors for it in Australia.
OurCrowd’s Australian managing director Dan Bennett told The Australian that Nanorep had both a solid technology and team to attract the interest for businesses.
“The Nanorep solution is sophisticated, price competitive and already deployment across the globe,” he said.
Nanorep’s existing client base includes banks like RBS; retailers like Toys R Us and telcos like Vodafone.
“Given that financial services is a big vertical for Nanorep and we have the four biggest banks on the planet here, it was a natural fit for us the get them connected,” Mr Bennet said.
Mr Granot said that self-service can’t simply be window dressing any more for companies.
“This term has been abused in the past and I think has hurt the credibility of the technology,” he said.
“There was no real technology behind the chatbots and no strategy behind the understanding the customer experience.”
Nanorep says its technology is designed to provide a clearer and real-time view of the customer experience and Mr Granot said that customer expectations are starting to change as they get more comfortable with voice assistants like Siri and Amazon’s Alexa.
These technologies are blurring the lines between human and machine-driven interaction but Mr Granot added that the personalised experiences customers are seeking will still require management.
“Otherwise we will just get back to what happened in the past when virtual assistants services will just be another form of window dressing for companies.”
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