A Guide to Creating Personas Part II: The CAI’s Organization

In our last post we talked about building AI personas from the 10,000 foot view. In our second installment, we’ll go more in depth around the things you should take into consideration when defining your CAI organizational alignment, and the organization your brand identity and CAI has been built for.

Your CAI’s organization

It probably goes without saying, but you should have a deep understanding of your organization: what it’s goals are, who it;s customers are, how AI user interaction functions as part of your ongoing AI assistant persona development, and how all these things work to improve your customers’ lives, before you start pouring time and money into building a product, or advertising lead generation campaigns. The same can be said about building a CAI, and digital channel AI optimization. Before getting into the weeds of building your CAI and its accompanying persona, it’s important to holistically evaluate where your organization is now, what its biggest pain points are, what its biggest strengths are. From there you can start crafting a persona that compliments what you do well today vs. what you want to do well tomorrow.

For example, if your organization is known for having outstanding customer service, the persona you craft for your CAI should absolutely take into account, and embody, the things that make your organization’s customer service excellent, as you wouldn’t want your customer facing CAI experiences to feel completely misaligned from your human-to-human customer facing experiences. On the flip side, say you’re creating an employee facing CAI experience to augment all the great work that your customer service representative do. In this regard, who your organization is matters just as much as if you’re creating a customer facing experience…but instead of looking to the branding and customer experience guidelines that have made your organization successful, you might have better luck looking to your HR and operational guidelines for crafting a AI Assistant and brand consistency.  

The Organization’s Brand Identity

Corporate identity in AI assistant is important, and according to a recent article by Smallbizgenius, it takes several impressions for people to remember your brand. But, with a  user-centric AI design placed on your social media pages and other digital assets, you can not only increase the amount of impressions per user–you can make those interactions more useful and engaging. Imagine a customer journey where a prospective client clicks on one of your ads and is directed to a web page enabled with a CAI that can answer FAQ’s or complete tasks. From a customer perspective, that’s not only two impressions for the price of one–it’s adding value to the impressions by branding through Conversational AI, which allows you to serve up more multi-channel AI experiences for your perspective customers.

The CAI’s relationship to the organization’s brand

Of course, if you’re going to use CAI to improve your brand identity, then the CAI you’re building has to have a relationship with your brand. Think about it: if you’re a retailer with physical stores, you’d train your customer service representatives to speak a certain way about products, and to affect an “on-brand” demeanor when interacting with your customers.

The same goes for CAI deployment strategies. For example, if your company is an outdoor brand, you’d want to consider training your CAI to be able to answer questions about which hiking trails are their favorite. You might also consider training it to be able to give customers suggestions around the types of products you offer. If one of your customers were to ask “I’m going to white water rafting, what kind of paddles do you have in stock?” you’d want your CAI to be able to respond according to the relationship you’d like it to have toward your brand–whether that be pointing the customer to products on sale, or asking follow up questions such as “do you have a price range you’re looking for?”

Whatever the experience is you want to create using a CAI, first ask yourself–is this how I’d want my human employees to interact with a customer, then make that a part of your AI Assistant goals and objectives.  

The Organization’s Audience

Next, take into account who your audience is. Just as you would consider your audience’s needs, preferences, and goals before creating traditional marketing collateral your CAI’s persona should bake in these attributes as well. Think about it in terms of people to people conversations: the way you’d speak to your manager is going to be different than the way you speak to one of your co-workers, and the same should be true of your CAI. Your audience represents the segment of the market you want to reach, and your CAI’s verbiage should affect the type of speaking style that’s germain to your target audience. Digital customer service engagement is both an art, and a science, and for you customer service AI integrations to really be useful to you, building AI personas that know your audience inside and out is key to doing Conversational AI branding well.

Defining Your AI Assistant’s Goals 

Lastly, to truly nail your AI Assistant personality crafting,  you’ll need to delineate your AI Assistatant’s goals and the channels it will operate through. An AI assistant’s goals are essentially the guardrails that it will work within. Goals are important because at the end of the day, all AI assistants (even the entertaining ones) need to be action oriented and focused on solving customer problems. Here are the areas to consider:

1. The AI Assistant’s Standard Goals

Specify the primary objectives you want your CAI to achieve, whether it's providing information, facilitating transactions, or resolving customer queries.

• Objective: A standard goal for an AI Assistant typically involves providing users with information, assisting them in completing tasks, answering questions, or offering support in a straightforward manner.
• Interaction: The AI Assistant’s primary purpose is to be informative and helpful. It responds to user queries or requests by presenting facts, instructions, or relevant data. It focuses on efficiently fulfilling user needs without trying to persuade or influence the user in any particular way.
• Examples: Providing product information, giving weather updates, assisting with account inquiries, or guiding users through a troubleshooting process.

2. The CAI’s Persuasive Goals

Determine how your CAI can influence users positively, whether it's encouraging purchases, sign-ups, or brand loyalty.

• Objective: A persuasive goal for an AI Assistant is oriented toward influencing user behavior or decisions positively. It aims to guide users towards specific actions or outcomes that align with the organization's goals, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or promoting brand loyalty.
• Interaction: The AI Assistant’s interactions are designed to be more persuasive and engaging. It may use techniques like recommendations, personalized suggestions, and tailored messaging to encourage users to take desired actions. The AI Assistant seeks to not only provide information but also motivate users to make decisions that benefit the organization.
• Examples: Recommending products based on user preferences, encouraging users to subscribe to a service, promoting special offers, or persuading users to provide feedback or reviews.

3. The AI Assistant’s Channels

Identify the digital platforms and channels where your AI Assistant will be deployed, such as websites, social media, or messaging apps. The channels on which an AI assistant operates can significantly impact its persona and how users perceive it. Here are some reasons why the choice of channels matters to an AI assistant's persona:

• Communication Style: Different channels have different communication norms and expectations. For example, the persona of an AI assistant on a messaging app may be more informal and conversational, while one on a corporate website might adopt a more formal tone. The choice of channel influences how the AI assistant speaks and interacts with users. That said, you should consider all the channels you have in your arsenal in terms of where you want to deploy your AI Assistant, and should design one experience with all those channels in mind so that you’re AI Assistant's persona works at a high level across all channels. From there, Anima’s platform makes it easy to surgically pinpoint where you want to tweak the persona and conversational style on specific channels. 

• Branding: The channel is often an extension of the organization's brand. No matter the channel, the AI assistant's persona should harmonize with the brand's image and values, ensuring consistency across all touchpoints. While it’s ok to tweak the conversational style across channels, a complete persona mismatch can lead to confusion or a disconnect with users.

• User Expectations: Users expect different things from AI assistants on different channels. For example, on a social media platform, users might expect quick, concise responses, while on a support website, they might seek more detailed assistance. Adapting the persona and conversational style to meet these expectations is crucial. For example, on a support site, if a user asks about your AI Assistant’s favorite color it’s okay to have it answer this question but you’ll certainly want the conversation to be turned back to the matter at hand quickly–which is finding a resolution. On the other hand, if your customer is conversing with your AI Assistant on a social media channel, a more free flowing conversational style can create engagement. The point here is that Different channels have varying levels of user engagement. The persona may need to be more engaging and persuasive on social media, while on a technical support website, it might focus on providing precise solutions. 

• Functionality and Use Cases: The capabilities and limitations of a channel influence the AI assistant's persona. For instance, on a voice-activated device, the persona needs to effect a certain speaking style, accent, and tone that can actually be heard by the user, whereas on a chat or SMS, you may want to consider the use of emojis and specific types of punctuation that align with the persona.

• Language and Culture: Channels often serve diverse language-speaking and cultural audiences. An AI assistant's persona should consider linguistic nuances and cultural sensitivities to ensure it communicates effectively and respectfully with all your customers–not just the ones that are culturally similar to your own.

Conclusion

In this installment of Anima’s guide for Conversational AI branding and creating AI Assistant personas, we've explored the intricate relationship between an AI Assistant and its organization, emphasizing the importance of crafting a persona that aligns seamlessly with your digital customer engagement strategy by focusing on brand and audience across various channels.

Understanding your organization's goals, strengths, and pain points is the foundation upon which you can build an AI persona that complements your present achievements while paving the way for future success delving into user-centric AI design. Whether you're enhancing customer-facing experiences or empowering your employees, a well-defined persona that resonates with your organization's identity, and digital customer engagement strategy, is key.

We've also delved into the significance of your AI Assistant’s  presence on different channels. The choice of channel directly influences communication style for voice user interface branding and chat user interface branding alike, because user expectations, and branding consistency are paramount to conversational AI branding as a whole. Each channel you choose to engage with your users in offers distinct opportunities for branding through Conversational AI, and adapting your AI's persona and conversational style accordingly is essential to meet user needs and expectations effectively.

And perhaps most importantly, we discussed the importance of setting clear goals for your AI assistant, differentiating between standard goals (focused on information and support) and persuasive goals (aimed at influencing user behavior positively). These goals serve as guardrails, guiding your AI assistant's interactions to provide value to users while advancing your organization's objectives.

In today's digital landscape, where AI assistants play a pivotal role in customer engagement and support, understanding the intricate interplay of organization, branding, channels, and goals is essential. By carefully crafting your AI assistant's persona and tailoring it to your specific context, you can create a more engaging and impactful user experience, strengthening your brand and achieving your organizational goals.