Ever wondered what the key to a successful Conversational AI (CAI) implementation is? Gartner, the lead research and advisory firm on emerging technologies, has some answers. In their “Guidance Framework for Evaluating Conversational AI Platforms” they offered a detailed step-by-step framework for successful CAI implementations. On it, they break down the main aspects for enterprises to watch for while looking for vendors. One of the things Gartner highlights is the ability to leverage pre-built integrations:
As you investigate your use cases, consider the benefits of using the prebuilt capabilities of enterprise application offerings. Significant time and effort go into creating conversations, establishing the required workflow and integrations, and testing and launching a solution. Prebuilt offerings directly mitigate this risk and challenge.
What is the value of prebuilt integrations for customer experience?
According to Gartner, 92% of the Virtual Customer Assistant implementations are to be integrated with some shape or form of an enterprise application (see figure below).
Teneo offers prebuilt connectors with enterprise systems through both cloud and on-premise APIs. Teneo connectors allow developers to expose their applications via different channels (web, voice, IVR, mobile, social media platforms, etc.). Furthermore, they allow integration with backend systems of different types. These include live chat systems, call centers, CRMs, CMS, RPA providers, ticketing and issue tracking systems, etc.
Not only does this create more possibilities to create customer experiences across multiple platforms. It also removes the issue of building them for a business itself.
“You should leverage prebuilt channel integrations whenever possible, unless your conversational platform cannot or does not provide the channel capabilities.”
Teneo Connectors and the Teneo Community
Teneo Connectors meet specific needs the Teneo Developers community have.
About 40% of the connectors currently available through Teneo Developers have been contributed by the community itself. All of these connectors are open-source and openly available for anyone to leverage in their Teneo solutions. As the library of connectors grows, the community benefits from reduced implementation times in their projects. They also enjoy proven and robust code, updates and extensive documentation for customization purposes.
Connectors make it possible for Teneo applications to be available through multiple channels. These include web, messaging, voice, contact centers, IVR, mobile, etc.
Users can interact with Teneo via:
- IVR (Twilio, Vonage, CISCO Connect, Genesys, etc.),
- Messaging (SMS, WhatsApp, LINE, WeChat, etc.),
- Social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.),
- Mobile (iOS and Android SDKs are publicly available on Github for Teneo Developers to develop their own apps),
- Voice assistants (Alexa and Google Home),
- Less obvious channels, like TV boxes or drive-thru systems.
Teneo seamlessly integrates with numerous backend systems such as Salesforce, JIRA, and ServiceNow for digital operations. For travel agencies, it connects with major flight search services like Amadeus and Sabre, offering endless automation possibilities.
Teneo enhances RPA processes, making them more user-friendly. It adds natural language and dialogue management to RPA workflows from big names like BluePrism and UiPath.
For Bot Framework Developers, Teneo offers specialized connectors within the Microsoft Azure Bot ecosystem. These range from frontend connectors for Teams and Skype to backend integrations with Power Automate. Plus, there are pre-built Conversational AI dashboards in Power BI, customizable with Teneo’s patented TQL language.
Moreover, Teneo Connectors make CAI implementations highly modular. Teneo can work with other Intent engines like Amazon Lex and IBM’s Watson. It also integrates with various models and classifiers, from StanfordCore NLP to OpenNLP. Essentially, Teneo’s architecture offers boundless modularity.
Teneo Connectors in Action
Frontend connectors facilitate the communication between your channel of choice and Teneo. They are typically comprised of a Node.js application (available in Github) which can be easily deployed as a “middleware” or web application, hosted locally, through Heroku or via any preferred Cloud service. The frontend instance will pass on requests to the Teneo Connector, which will make sure to translate the communication into a format Teneo will understand, also handling specific Teneo events like sessions, timeouts, etc. automatically. Setting up a frontend connector can take from 10 to 30 minutes maximum.
SelectQuote, is leveraging one of our connectors (Vonage voice), which allows agents to transfer calls from their contact center to a voicebot. The connector was readily available before the project started so the development team reduced implementation times significantly by leveraging its functionality. The integration was used without any further customizations.
Backend connectors are meant to integrate your natural language application with different backoffice systems, allowing your bots to create and curate tickets, pull user details from different sources, retrieve answers from specific databases, connect to search services (products, flights, etc.), hand over conversations to agents (along with dialog and user information), etc. They are typically comprised of a starter solution containing a prebuilt integration with the backend system at hand and a set of intents and flows that will add conversations capabilities to flight searches for instance, the creation of Support tickets in a system like JIRA, etc., etc.
Adding new Connectors
Oftentimes partners and clients ask this question: What if there is no existing Connector for the enterprise application I am planning to integrate with?
Our answer is:
- Engage with the community, you will be surprised how collaborative of an environment it is. Earlier this year different community initiatives resulted in a number of contributions from our own developers. Our Contentful, Shopify, Zoho Desk and Hubspot connectors can attest to that!
- In addition to that… our Customer Success will be happy to help! We thrive in new challenges and are willing to help create new connectors to help you meet your needs while continuing expanding the versatility of a CAI platform we pride in.
Prebuilt connectors are an asset you want to look for in a CAI platform in order to create the best customer experience possible. Teneo Connectors have been recognized by analysts like Gartner and ISG, for the enormous value they provide in real CAI implementations.