Taking Turns - Ep 018 - Geertina Hamstra

What's in a sales chatbot? Is it the a great conversational experience by automation, or maybe a live chat agent waiting in the dark to save the day? And, wait - why not both? Eric Kades, Founder at TextChat by JetSense.ai, believes in combining those two - and gives several examples of how conversational interfaces can resurrect a campaign, improve conversion rate substantially, and even help students avoid dropping from college.

2020 was a tough year, but at least at digital marketing and transformation, it was the Year of the Chatbot. And while we look, most of the time, to the USA or Europe as the center of the universe, the South African market is awakening as well - which is a great reason to have Nick Thomson from GotBot on the line. So why is chatbots so easy to sell nowadays? What happens when a chatbot you've created is TOO successful? And why should a good chatbot be "super sassy"? Watch Nick's fascinating conversation with our host, Eran Soroka.

Geertina Hamstra, mom of 2 daughters and +100 chatbots, knows first-hand how a chatbot can create a bond with a human. In the 18th episode of Taking Turns with Eran Soroka, she also recalls a chatbot that she created to protect kids online, and talks about the importance of a bot's personality.

How can a human-like chatbot help a country connect better with its citizens during a pandemic? How can a digital person become your business' brand ambassador? And how did Zara Jillings, a national basketball star and NCAA starting PG, pivot to conversational AI? Watch this episode of Taking Turns, and as a bonus, get an unexpected answer to one of the hottest discussions of the last two seasons: Kawhi or LeBron?

The Coronavirus brought the world to a halt - including the physical experience of shopping... and that's where and when chatbots came to save the day.   Maciej Maliszewski is the head of bots in K2bots.ai in Poland, where they help all kinds of businesses and institutes - from Ikea to the Warsaw University and deep into the fashion market. In the latest Taking Turns episodes, Maciej is talking about the gains businesses can get from going conversational, even in areas where the fit - pun intended - feels strange.

Sometimes, a societal change can be seen and measured in... the logs of a chatbot.  Take, for example, Roo. The award-winning chatbot of Planned Parenthood was launched in February 2019 and had millions of conversations since - with teens from all over USA and the world. The insights are fascinating: following the #MeToo movement, for example, those teens are starting to search for ways to behave respectfully towards their partners.  So, how did Roo came to life? How do they know when an adult is posing as a teenager? And what are the plans forward for the world's most popular sexual health chatbot?  As part of the 6th meetup - Healthy Conversations - here's PPFA Senior Director of Digital Products, Ambreen Molitor, talking with our Eran Soroka.

Lauren Golembiewski and her partner, developer and musician Matthew Buck, just loved to play at home with voice interactions and automation devices. When the industry started to evolve, they both quitted their jobs and founded Voxable, which helps companies - and individuals - create voice skills the right way.  So, how can you learn an instrument with a voice bot? How hard was it to create a voice skill for SXSW? And why is a user research so crucial?

How are being a teacher and being a conversation designer similar? How can e-learning benefit from conversational AI? And how can Alexa help you prepare a Thanksgiving turkey? In the 12th episode of Taking Turns, Eran Soroka catches up with one of the biggest and experienced experts in the field - Rebecca Evanhoe. Enjoy the show!

How can the implementation of conversational AI in the gaming industry create a better experience for the gamer - and a new world of opportunities for gaming companies? Why is the inability to have a free-flowing conversation with a character "sticks like a sore thumb"? In Episode 11 of Taking Turns,  especially for the Conversation Quest Meetup, Eran Soroka caught up with game development and design expert Nir Meidan.

How can you convince your stakeholders to explore a new route and change their perception? How a meetup with Japanese audience made him a voice expert? And what's the important thing that companies missing in the Coronavirus era? Emiel Langeberg, voice conversation design lead for Dutch fintech company Kandoor, talks all of it and more in the latest episode of Taking Turns, hosted by Eran Soroka.