TALKDESK HANDBOOK

TALKDESK AI

Creating retail FOR EVERY DAY

virtual concierges
through
conversational AI
Best practices for retail
& consumer goods brands
Table of contents
Introduction 03

I. The basics 04

Bot Dos 05

Bot Don’ts 14

II. Four things to remember when using customer names 18

III. User authentication 19

IV. IVR menu structure 21

V. Error handling via voicebots 23

VI. Behavior modeling 25

VII. Watch out for priming 26

VIII. Keep SMS messages short 27

Final notes 29

Conclusion 31
Introduction
The way you design customer conversations matters
more than the artificial intelligence (AI) behind it.
In this guide, you'll learn how to put tried and tested
conversation design and retail principles into practice
when implementing a chatbot or voicebot.

DAWN HARPSTER GÉNESIS MIRANDA LONGO

Conversation Architect Retail Expert
Talkdesk Talkdesk

3
I. The basics
"I've learned that people will forget what
you said, people will forget what you
did, but people will never forget how
you made them feel."
— MAYA ANGELOU
This goes double for chat and voicebots, especially
in retail. Your customers may not remember the
details of the interaction, but they will remember
how they felt about it, and will associate that
feeling with your brand. Were they frustrated?
Delighted? Impressed at its efficiency and speed?
Were they able to get what they needed?
The end goal is always to make your customers’
experience as pleasant and efficient as possible.
Anything that gets in the way of that is to be
eliminated and avoided.
Chat and voicebots are “honor systems”. They are Our hope is that through conversational AI,
only as good as the information that your customers retail bots will be seen as virtual concierges that
are willing to give. We rely on their honesty to route customers trust to solve their problems quickly
them correctly. Sometimes they will say whatever they and efficiently.
think will get them to a human agent fastest, even
if what they say isn’t the real reason they're contacting
your brand. This is likely because of their poor
experiences with bots in the past, so unfortunately,
there is nothing we can do to remedy this. We have
to take the customer at their word and route them
accordingly, hoping that after many great experiences
with your conversational AI, you can win their trust.
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Bot Dos
General rule
Try to write voice prompts how people speak -
specifically those that have been trained to
represent your brand. If you are struggling with
this, it helps to transcribe your top customer
service representatives’ conversations before
committing prompts to your voice or chatbots.
If you don’t have examples you’d like to copy, it
helps to write out a conversation as if you were
having it with a stranger. If you’re a brand with
physical stores, then go into one, ask a question,
and transcribe what the in-store associate says.
For many retailers, the goal is to bring the in-store
experience to their customers’ couch. The best
way to do that is for chat and voicebots to approach
conversations as your best in-store associates do.
"When designing a BOT from scratch,
always DREAM BIG but start SMALL.
Don’t overwork the journey. It is better
to provide three great services, than
ten lousy ones."
— JAVIER RAMIREZ, AI SPECIALIST, TALKDESK
Focus on first issue resolution
No one calls a contact center because they’re happy
and want to tell you how much they appreciate you
(though if your customers are calling you because
they’re happy, kudos to you!). So why are your
customers calling? It’s always to get something
done or to get a problem fixed. Customers want
to get from point a (their problem) to point b
(the solution) as quickly, efficiently, and easily
as possible.
Our research shows that the number one driver
of customer loyalty is first issue resolution.
So the best thing you can do is avoid overcomplication
and flowery language. We’re all busy. We're
all customers so we all know what it's like to be
on an endless loop with a bot, and then have to do
it all over again because it didn’t work the first time.
So ask yourself, “is this solving my customers’
problems as simply as possible?”
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Greetings: To name or not what it was named? Did it enhance the experience?
Did it build confidence in the bot? Or did you just
to name? want to get your issue fixed and call it a day?

Always make sure people know that they’re

From our experience, when your customers call you,
in the right place. It’s a courtesy and a security.
they consider the voicebot they hear as your brand.
They don’t think, “I’m talking to the bot named AI
“What if I misdialed?” “What if I’m on the wrong
<NAME>”. They simply say, “I’m on the phone with
website?”
<BRAND>”.

If you were to call a human customer service

In this case, a simple phone greeting like,
representative, they would answer,

“Hello, thank you for calling <BRAND>. Calls

“Hi! Thank you for calling <BRAND>, my name FALTA ILUSTRA
are recorded. How can I assist you today,”
is <NAME>, how can I help you?”

or chat greeting like

The same concept applies to voice and chatbots,
however, not all brands choose to give their bots “Hi! I’m your <BRAND> virtual agent. What can
a name. On the other hand, many brands spend lots I help you with today?”
of money creating a virtual agent persona that they
feel best represents their customer base. That get the job done.
is an individual business decision. When deciding
if your virtual agent should have a persona, think
about your own experience. Did it matter to you

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However, some brands are getting
more creative with their digital
presence—especially as avatars,
VR, and AR are taking a bigger seat
at the table. If your brand does have
a persona being leveraged across
social media, then it makes sense
to carry that through to your digital
customer service presence via
your chatbot.
Chatbot personas are generally
received better than voicebot ones,
especially due to the customization
available with modern chatbot
technology.
If you have that available, consider
giving your chatbot an avatar and
name, and making the chat interface
reflect your brand identity. Just be
sure to make it clear your bot is a bot,
and not a real person. For example:
“Thanks for contacting <BRAND>.
My name is <AI NAME> and I can
help you with things like
<CLICKABLE OPTIONS, INCLUDE
“OTHER”>.
If you’re unsure how your customers
will react to you naming your bot,
play it safe. Remember, your
customers probably already know
it’s a virtual agent so you don’t need
to call attention to it if it won’t add
to your brand experience.
Make chat interactions conversational with
an AI-powered digital virtual agent.
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Greeting a known customer Adding language options
Is your customer a returning customer? Did they DE&I is a top value at Talkdesk. We believe customer
fill out their name before entering the live chat? service should be accessible to all, and providing
Or were they already logged into their account language options for your bots is one step
Ciao
on your website before they engaged with you? towards that.
If so, you have more opportunities for personalization. Hello
A chatbot can say: From our experience, the best place to add language Bonjour
options for your voicebot is after the first line of your
greeting. For example: Olá
“Hi <NAME>, thank you for being a loyal
<BRAND> customer.” Or simply, “Hi <NAME>, Ahoj
“Thank you for calling <BRAND>. Para continuar Salut
I’m your <BRAND> virtual agent. How can I help
Guten Tag
you today?” en Español, porfavor presione el uno.”

For live chat, you can have your chatbot say:

However, please note that saying names via
voicebots can be a double edged sword. Refer to Ni Hao
“Please select your language” Hallo
the “Four things to remember when using customer Tere
names” section below for more information.
and provide clickable options, written in their native
language, below.
"Make sure to keep a consistent dialog
when addressing the customer (e.g. If you
address customer as Mr. James never call
him by his first name down the thread.)"

— JAVIER RAMIREZ, AI SPECIALIST, TALKDESK

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Disclaimers
the initial greeting. For example,
Are the calls being recorded? If the answer is “yes”
then legally, you need to inform your customers
of this fact. Regulations vary by state and country,
for example EU regulations may require that you
allow the user to opt out of recording.
Sample verbiage:
“Calls are recorded for training and quality
assurance purposes.”
“Your call may be recorded or monitored.”
“Calls are recorded.”
“To assure quality, calls are recorded
or monitored.”
We typically see this disclaimer mentioned after How you ask a question is as
important as what you are asking
“Hello, thank you for calling <BRAND>. Calls
How you phrase a question will dictate what kind
are recorded. How can I assist you today?”
of response you get.
The question, “Are you calling about a return,
an exchange, or to check the status of a refund?”
may lead you to expect an answer: “yes.”
A small, yet simple change to the phrasing can
clarify the expected answer to the user. For example:
“Which are you calling about? A return,
an exchange, or the status of your refund?
If your chatbot has the capability, consider presenting
options as buttons or as clickable selections.
This way, your customers don’t have to type it out.
Another best practice is to provide your customers
with a menu of frequently asked questions or quick
answers when they click on your live chat button,
but before they’re greeted by your virtual agent.
This way, they can simply click on what they need
and the chatbot will respond accordingly.
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Discourse markers You can also use “great,” but be careful where you
use it, especially if there is a possibility the user
Words like, “OK,” “thanks,” “got it,” are discourse is contacting for a negative reason. For example:
Virtual agent: How can I help you?
markers. They indicate that the conversation is
moving along and that the user is understood.
Consider them the head nods you get when
Customer: I lost my job and can no
you’re talking to a friend, the head nod that tells longer afford to pay for my recent
order. Can you cancel it please?
you that your friend understands and is following
the conversation.

Discourse markers may also indicate a change in

Virtual agent: Great!
topic or direction. They can also be used as reporting
markers to indicate that the user was understood
or not understood, based on the specific discourse
marker used. For example:

Virtual agent: What’s your phone number?

Customer: 712 328 8970

Virtual agent: Thanks (when the record is not found)

or

Virtual agent: Got it (when record is found and confirmed)

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Covering dead space
System delays are sometimes inevitable.
When a back-end system is looking for information,
it’s a good idea to let the user know that it may
take time to get the requested information from
the system (order status, product ID, etc). It sets
the expectation that there may be a brief period
of silence while the system is doing something.

For example:

“One moment while I look that up.” “Please wait

while I look that up.” “One moment while I check
our records.” “One moment while I look up your
account information.” “Let me look that up.”

or even just a sound effect or music to let the user

know that something is happening and that they
have not been disconnected.

Design and publish template-based process flows for Virtual Agent, Agent Assist, Guardian,
CX Sensors, and Feedback with Talkdesk Automation Designer.

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Repeat important information
For voicebots, it is best practice to always read
out a phone number, physical address, web address,
confirmation numbers, tracking information, and
other information the user may want to write down
or confirm twice so that the user has time to
document it. Provide a repeat option if possible.
For example:
Virtual Agent: That number is 712-328-8970.
Again, that’s 712-328-8970. Would you like me
to repeat that?
If possible, and if the user has opted in to SMS
messaging or email, offer to text or email the
information in addition to reading it out. This works
particularly well with tracking numbers. Sending
the customer the information in a text allows them
to reference it again later.
For chatbots, it is not necessary to repeat the
information since your customers can read it
to confirm it is correct. However, it is still considerate
to text or email that information to your customers
so that they can refer to it even after the chat closes.
Some brands email the entire chat transcript
to their customers for their records after
the conversation ends.
When appropriate or relevant, sending calendar
holds and reminders is also convenient and helpful.
They are especially useful for:
• Buy-online-pick-up-in-store time slots
• 1-1 In-store shopping appointments
• Upcoming product launch dates
• Delivery appointments
• Upcoming sales and promotions
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Leverage SMS when you can Build your virtual agent so that you can automatically
send links to your users to solve common problems
Most users have smartphones. If they have already or answer frequently asked questions.
opted in to receiving text message notifications from
an organization, text them helpful information when
you can. For example:
Improved
customer
satisfaction
“I see that you’ve opted in to get text messages.
I’m sending you a link with a calendar hold and
instructions for your furniture pick-up.”

Including scheduling, cancellation, and rescheduling

Customer
links in those reminders will help divert traffic Results lifetime value
growth
from the virtual agent and phone system.
This is wonderful because it opens up possibilities
as to the rich content that you can send to your
users:

• Sending a web link to a specific web page

Increase in
or knowledge base article. net promoter
score

• Sending/receiving pictures to help a user

troubleshoot or reset
an appliance.

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Bot Don’ts
Don’t call attention to voicebots
When it comes to voicebots, avoid saying things
like, “This is a virtual agent who can help you with…”
Users want to complete their business as quickly
as possible. Extra, unnecessary verbiage just
wastes time.
For chatbots though, this can be reassuring for your
customers. If customers know the chatbot has been
pre-trained to solve certain problems, and theirs
is one of them, then they know they don’t need
to insist on a human agent. To save your customers’
time though, consider listing the options your
chatbot can help with as buttons.
Don’t have your bots pretend Don’t waste time
they’re human
When it comes to voicebots, saying “please listen
carefully as our options have changed,” is not
While our systems can detect sentiment, customers
recommended.
don’t respond well to a virtual agent saying things
like: “I understand you’re upset” or “I can tell that
Most customers don’t call the number often enough
you’re angry.” This ventures into the 'uncanny valley',
to notice a change. Brands often insist on putting
where something non-human seems a little
this verbiage in and then they never take it out.
too human and can make users feel uneasy.
It just wastes time and adds no value to the interaction.
Instead of having the virtual agent express empathy,
If this verbiage has been on a system longer than
offer sympathetic phrases that are simply statements
30 days it breeds distrust in your customers.
of fact about the situation, not the emotion of the
customer. For example:
As for chatbots, don't 'word' people to death.
Use 40 to 50 characters messages, avoid messages
“Let me help you with that.”
larger than this (TL;DR). If you need to use more
“Let me help you fix that quickly.”
text, summarize it. You can use the Jenga technique,
which consists in taking out as many words as possible
Move to, and focus on, solutions as quickly as without losing the sentence's context and meaning.
possible and that will help diffuse the situation. (Be creative, but remember that simplicity is key!)
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Don’t use complicated language Don’t forget your customers may
be irritated "It is always a good idea to say, I don't
Avoid using: know the answer to that, but I have made
Users typically use the voice channel when they a note to my team to train me on the
Flowery and overly complex matter."
have a problem they haven’t been able to self-solve
Slang on the web or with chat. If they're calling about — JAVIER RAMIREZ, AI SPECIALIST, TALKDESK
money, refunds, damaged product, or lost deliveries,
Marketing messages in the virtual agent
they may be irritated or angry. Because of this,
Industry-specific jargon avoid, “We value your business,” “You are a valued
Reading web addresses unless absolutely customer.” A frustrated user hears this verbiage
necessary and thinks ”If you value me so much, why did you
lose my order and why am I not talking to a human?"
Web addresses, unless absolutely necessary

Customize your conversation to have a different

A business may insist on calling a product or service
greeting if you know your customer failed to get
by a branded name which may not be how their
their issue resolved the first time, and now
customers actually refer to it. If you insist on using
they’re trying again.
a branded name that’s different from what your
customers call it, build an intent in the background
Own up to your mistake. Apologize for the effort
that will recognize and accept what the customers
they’re having to spend on this. Get them to a human
call it, and what the marketing team insists is the
agent as soon as possible. In fact, tools like sentiment
correct name. Tools like Talkdesk AI Trainer™,
analysis can help you route a frustrated customer
part of the Talkdesk Retail Experience Cloud,
to your best customer service agent to help.
are perfect for this.

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Don’t trap the user in an
endless loop
While containment is often the goal of a virtual agent,
containment at the expense of customer satisfaction
is always a negative. Don’t trap your customers in
recursive loops. Always give an escape route to the
user and give the possibility to return to the main
page, or escalate to an agent. This also applies to
retries. If they are struggling, give them two retries
to recover. Too many retries frustrates them, makes
them distrust the bots, and increases the possibility
of negative reviews on social media.
Plus, by the time your human agent receives the
call, your customer will be furious, which will only
make the agent’s job harder.
If a customer can’t help themself quickly through
your virtual agent, don’t let them suffer. Transfer
them to a human agent and be sure to provide that
agent with all the context and gathered information.
Don’t ask double-barreled
questions
What is a double-barreled question? Any question
that asks the user multiple questions in a single
prompt is a double barreled question. For example:
“How can I help you? Are you calling about your
warranty?”. The user doesn’t know which to answer.
Ask just a single question; “How can I help you?”
or “Are you calling about your warranty?”
A double-barrelled question is different from
“What is the account name or the order number.”
In this instance, you are offering the user two ways
to identify.
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Don’t make your Don’t overuse please
customers repeat and thank you
themselves
Use them strategically and sparingly. Improvement IVR
of average containment &
If every request for information handle time cost reduction
Avoid asking for information that the
is preceded with please, such as
user has already shared. If gathering
“Please say your birthdate”, “Please
user information in a part of the virtual
tell me your address”, “Please tell
agent flow, save the response to the
me why you are calling”, it sounds
user attribute and then re-use it later
repetitive, unnatural, and doesn’t
as/if appropriate so that you don't
move the conversation along in an
need to bother the user by asking Reduction Team lead
efficient way. Especially if the exact of manual Results FTE
it again. work Savings
same phrasing is used in fallback
or retry prompting. For a better
experience, change up the phrasing.
For example:

“Please say your birthdate”, Digital

Improvement
“What’s your address?” channel
of first contact
optimization
resolution
savings
or

“How can I help you today?”.

17
II. Four things to remember
when using customer names
1. Where possible, avoid mentioning the customer's
name unless you are absolutely certain the
virtual agent can pronounce it properly.
This can be tricky with phonetic spelling of
names, languages, cultural differences, and
norms. Similarly, be sure your chatbots can handle
accents or symbols on your customer’s names
to avoid any misspellings. If you want to add some
personalization for your loyal customers, address
them as such: “Hey! Thanks for being a loyal
customer.”
2. Make sure that it is culturally appropriate and
not overly familiar to address customers by name
in the region the virtual agent is deployed.
Some cultures use honorifics as a sign of respect
when addressing customers. If this is the case
in the region in which you are deploying a virtual
agent, be sure to observe those customs.
3. Beware of social engineering. d. Demographic. Sometimes users say it is creepy
and verging on the uncanny valley. Others say
a. Shared accounts. Can the virtual agent be sure it adds to the personal experience. This will truly
of who is on the other side of the phone line? depend on your customer base. The key here
is understanding the nature of your business
b. Privacy concerns. Names are personally- and the expectations of your customers.
identifiable information (PII). Be cautious about However, from personal experience, younger
letting customers disclose other people's names generations prefer personalization if it means
to the virtual agent, especially for sensitive getting their issues resolved faster. Plus, if your
matters, such as an active legal case. This customers know you did a look-up to find their
is especially important in highly regulated account, they will not be weirded out by you
environments like PCI DSS. using their name.
c. The context in which a name is used. First name
only? First name and last name? It also depends
on the customer and business security rules
and practices.
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III. User authentication
Make user identification and authorization as easy
as possible, keeping in mind the sensitivity of the
transaction, PII, and individual business rules.
• Leverage as much back-end data as possible
to find the most intuitive and frictionless way
for the user to get through any security process
necessary to get their business done.
• Don’t make the user authenticate until you find
out why they are calling.
• Don’t authenticate unless it is absolutely necessary.
• Use voice biometrics when possible, this takes
much less effort for the user and speeds up
the interaction. Note: make sure the user is not
communicating using spoofing or burner phones.
• Use authentication information that is intuitive
to the user, such as phone number, birthdate,
zip code, last four digits of a Social Security
Number—if allowed by PII—or numerical portion
of a street address.
• If you need to collect an email address, narrow
• Order numbers should be a one-to-one match,
and only the people who need them, the customer
and the seller, should already have them. Use those
to authenticate when possible.
• If user authentication requires a long identification
alpha-numeric string or an email address, collect
these by SMS, approved messaging apps, or optical
character recognition (OCR) if possible. Collecting
them over the phone with voice is problematic
because of recognition issues. Some letters
and numbers sound the same (for example, 3, B, C,
D, E, G, P, Z) and special characters may be
used in email addresses. The lack of a pattern
makes it difficult even for advanced speech
recognition systems.
the possible field as much as possible to improve
the odds of recognition. For example, if the user’s
phone number is already recognized in a one-
to-one match, back-end services should provide
insight into the customer’s record and be able
to provide the email you need the user to match
and improve the odds of speech recognition.
Consider just confirming the first and last letters
of the email address on file. For example, “Does
your email address still begin with an a and end
with x at gmail dot com?”
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Collect data by OCR wherever possible. Having Example uses for OCR collection are:
a user take a picture of a model or serial number
for an appliance to collect the relevant information • A picture of a damaged product
will be much faster and far less frustrating than • A picture of an incorrect delivery (different color/
having to read it or DTMF/touch-tone it in. size got delivered) Results
• An identification number Improvement
It will lower call time, reduce the risk of user
of Average
frustration, and get people talking. Imagine being • A product tag Handle Time

on a call, taking a picture of your product, texting • A model or serial number for an appliance
it and getting right to an agent, or being able to get
• A gift card
your questions answered instantly. It can go a long
way to contributing to a frictionless user experience. • A loyalty card
Results
• A picture of a product damaged in delivery

• A photo for warranty claim

Cost
Reduction

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IV. IVR menu structure
—voicebots
Menus can be helpful in constraining responses,
especially when the virtual agent is specifically
designed to handle a few, very specific tasks.
Keep your menus between three and seven total
items. The human brain can only remember four
to seven things at one time.
• Put your heavy hitters first. What’s a heavy-hitter?
Anything that has high call volume.
For a retailer, it might be checking “where
is my order?”. For a consumer products
company it might be, “How do I claim my In fact, they’re probably multitasking as they’re
warranty?”
• Include a “For anything else”, “It’s something else”,
or “It’s none of these” option, in case the user’s
needs don’t neatly fit into the offered categories. IVR
containment
• If you have too many menu options, a natural
language menu is the answer.
A simple: “How may I help you”, with robust
speech analytics and training can direct users
Results
with fewer steps than layered menus, particularly
if the business is specialized and menu options are
somewhat limited. This will also prevent customers
from hitting 0 to get to an agent as soon as they
hear the options will go on and on. Your customers
don’t want to waste time listening to all the options. Cost
Reduction
hearing the options.
21
Avoid front loading menus In this specific instance, offering a single, upfront Another way of anticipating customer needs is by
question is a great way to avoid having to offer integrating your contact center systems to your
For example: To check, modify, or cancel your latest a menu. order systems. If a customer places an order and
order, say “order.” For returns, exchanges, or refunds, immediately calls you, it’s likely they’re calling about
say “returns.” For information about store locations, If possible avoid a “menu” altogether. that order. In that case, you can say
store hours, or to schedule an in-store appointment, Consider this scenario:
say “store.” “Are you calling about your most recent order?”
A restaurant employee calls a food distribution
At first glance, this menu appears to conform to company weekly to ask, “where is my delivery truck?” instead of,
the four to seven rule, there are only three options Armed with this information, we can anticipate the
customer’s needs and ask a “most likely question” “How may I help you?”
- “orders”, “returns”, and “store”; right?
to speed the user along and complete their business
Actually, there are 12 options in this menu that a user in less time. For example, we can say
must remember:
“Welcome back! Are you calling about your food
1. Check order status delivery?"
2. Modify order
3. Cancel order instead of,
4. Say Order Improved
“How may I help you?” Results deflection
5. Make a return
rates
6. Make an exchange
Anticipating the user’s needs skips two turns and
7. Check on my refund
gets them where they want to go much faster.
8. Say Return
9. Store locations
10. Store hours
11. In-store appointment
12. Say Store.
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V. Error handling via voicebots
While nothing replaces listening to calls to
understand user behavior, users often ‘error out’
for the following reasons:
1. Excessive noise in the background—TV, other
people talking, side conversations, street noise,
dogs barking, or kids playing.
• Solution: repeat the prompt. In extreme cases,
change modality to dual-tone multi-frequency
(DTMF) entry.
2. The user may be confused about what they are
expected to say. This usually happens if they are
not familiar with a new natural language system
or prompts are poorly written and confusing.
• Solution: repeat the question and provide
guidance as to the expected response.
For example, “Are you checking the status
of your order? Just say yes or no.”, or model
the responses you’re looking for “Briefly tell
me how I can help you today. You can say things
like, I need to cancel my order or I want to check
the balance on my giftcard”
• If you are offering more than one retry, change
the verbiage for the second retry. For example:
“How may I help you today? You can say things
like, are your fitting rooms open? Or What hours
are you open today?
3. The virtual agent is asking for specific
information, but the user is unsure of where
to find it.
• Solution: give instructions about where to find
the requested information. For B2B customers,
an example could be, “I’ll need your order
number. You can find the order number in a box
in the upper right-hand corner of your invoice.
What’s the order number?”
• Please note, by integrating your systems, you
should be able to pull the order number without
need for the customer to input it. This will make
the experience so much more seamless.
4. The choices offered in the prompt do not fit what
they need. This usually happens in limited static
menus.
• Solution: if you must use a static menu style
prompt in DTMF—for customer service, press
1, billing, press 2—or a directed dialog prompt
“You can say customer service, billing, or track
an order.” make sure you have an option for
“It’s something else” or “It’s none of these.”
5. User is distracted and misses the question.
• Solution: repeat the prompt verbatim if it is short.
If it is a longer prompt, repeat the question and
model the expected response.
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6. User is presented with too many menu options
and they are struggling to remember the right
option. For example, “If you’re calling for billing,
sales or service, say service. To place an order,
track an order, or return an order, say orders.”
• Solution: simplify the menu, make sure there is
a “something else” option, or change to a natural
language menu. Offer a repeat option if you have
to use a long menu.
7. Turn-taking issues. Some users may try to
respond before the virtual assistant is finished
asking a question.
• Solution: make sure a prompt is not bargable
while it is still playing.
• Check the prompt timeout settings. Are they
too long or too short? Are other users having the
same problem? Is the user attempting to give
information that is not intuitive? For example,
a long membership or product number.
8. You’re just not sure why the users are having
an issue.
• Solution: if multiple users are having trouble in
a specific place in the virtual agent, listening
to calls will provide rich insight into why this is
happening. Are they saying something we’re
not expecting? Are they trying to correct the
information that has been played for them?
For example:
Virtual Agent: You said, 7 8 1 2 0, is that right?
User: No, it’s 7 8 9 2 0.
In this instance, we may only be listening for
“yes” or “no”. Adding additional intents for self-
correction may solve the issue.
9. Sometimes users can’t recover from turn-taking
issues, or just don't want to play nice with the
virtual agent.
• Solution: in instances like this, it is important
to route the user to a human agent before they
become unnecessarily frustrated with the virtual
agent. A last-ditch question may be in order
if the virtual agent has not been able to get any
information with which to route the user:
10.
11. “To get you to the right agent, I just need
one more bit of information.”
“To get you to the agent who can best help
you, I just need to know…”
12.
13.
If you already have at least one routing detail,
just transfer the user. You should be able to get
them to the right agent. Don’t make them wait.
Remember, sentiment analysis tools can be used
to route your customer to a human agent faster
if anger is detected.
“Implementing an “I want to talk to an
Agent” intent is a good idea. This allows
escalations when the customer is not
obtaining the desired answer.”
— JAVIER RAMIREZ, AI SPECIALIST, TALKDESK
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VI. Behavior modeling
When presenting a natural language menu, it is helpful to give
examples of what the user can say.

For example:

“How may I help you? You can say things like, “I need help
with an order,” “my discount code isn’t working," or
“I’m having problems with my <BRAND> credit card.”

The caveat here is that some users will think they can only
say those things, so it may be helpful to use different examples
in retry/fallback prompts, or rotate the initial prompt so that
it plays with different examples.

25
VII. Watch out for priming
Priming is a psychological phenomenon
in which exposure to a stimulus influences
how the user responds to another
subsequent related stimulus.
Sometimes users may say something they have
heard in an earlier prompt later in the virtual agent
interaction. If this happens often, and with a large
number of users, it may be helpful to add that
phrase to the intents— with associated handling—
in later prompts.
For example: If large numbers of users are doing this, tune the
application to listen for those utterances and add
Virtual agent: Your tracking number is 345127, handling to accommodate. Tools like Talkdesk AI
again, that’s 345127. You can say repeat that, Trainer, part of the Talkdesk Retail Experience
check another order, speak to an advisor, text me Cloud, can help with that.
that, start over, or I’m finished.
Customer: Check another order.
Virtual agent: What’s your order number?
Customer: Start over.
The prompt, “What’s your order number,” made
no mention that the user could say “Start over.”
The user simply heard it earlier in the interaction,
the user was primed and believed they could say
it again to produce the desired result.
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VIII. Keep SMS messages short
As a general rule, keep your messages short.
Users don’t like to read long messages.
Where possible, send only one message.
SMS regulations vary by country. Be aware that
certain characters may be forbidden in some
countries, for example in China the letter N is
banned. Also keep in mind that some countries
prefer using WhatsApp instead of SMS.
Know the region’s character limits, which vary widely
by country and language, and try to stay within those
limits. Sometimes multiple messages may arrive in
a different order than how they are sent. Because
of this, try to write messages so that they will make
sense when read out of order, or include numbering
at the beginning of each message so the user knows
the reading order.
Mobile network carrier differences may impact
message delivery time.
• Some users can’t get SMS messages sent during
a voice call. When you’re designing a voice
application that collects information by SMS,
always offer an “out” on the voice side of the
interaction. For example, “I’ve sent a text. It may
take a minute or two to get to your phone.
If you don’t get the text say “I didn’t get it.”
Most of the time, a user doesn’t care which modality
is used in an interaction. All they care about is
whether their problem was solved. Mixing modalities
has become more the norm, given how people use
their phones.
If you are sending knowledge base articles to a user
by SMS or another messaging app, like WhatsApp,
ensure that the link takes the user directly to the
requested information.
Avoid writing SMS prompts like an IVR. For example:
“Text 1 for billing. Text 2 for customer service.”
Better to say
“Text BILLING or CUSTOMER SERVICE.”
Users are used to seeing the response commands
they need in an SMS interaction written in capital
letters. For example,
“How can I help you? CHANGE, CANCEL, or CHAT.”
27
If you are designing an SMS virtual agent that uses
a company’s existing VA/IVR infrastructure, build
an additional grammar for words.

Because SMS and messaging apps are visual,

be sure to use correct spelling and grammar
in prompting.

Because of the 160 character limit, using good

grammar can be challenging. Abbreviations can
be used where appropriate TY, Y, N. Numbers
may be used in rating scales:

“How satisfied are you? 1 = not at all satisfied,

5 = completely satisfied.”

Dates and times can also be shortened.

“Your appointment is 2/15 at 9:30 a.m.”

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Final notes
To ensure your voice and chatbots are operating
at peak performance, leverage Talkdesk AI
and CX analytics tools to monitor the following:
• Are your customers being routed correctly?
• Are their utterances being recognized?
• Have you added new products and services
to possible customer intents?
• Are they calling more frequently about a specific
product or task?
• Are you seeing any correlation between customer
intent and channel of choice?
• Are your customers failing at a certain point
in the call flow? Where in the journey are they
getting frustrated?
• Are your customers saying unexpected things
in unexpected places? Learn from this to retrain
the model if needed for better recognition.
• Are they hanging up before resolution? If so, why?
And what are they doing next?
• Are they giving a different call reason in the virtual
agent than they give when they reach an agent?
• What is the resolution rate by channel, by topic
or intent?
• What topics or intents usually require live agent
support?
• Are there intents that are better off using IVR
just for authentication but passing the
conversation directly to a live agent?
29
• What are your resolution times by topic or intent?

• What are your resolution times by channel?

• How satisfied are your customers with each

of your channels?

• What feedback are your customers providing

about your bots?

• What is your customers’ sentiment during

their interactions with your bots?

• How are you sharing the insights from your

voice and chatbot conversations to the rest
of your organization?

• What commonly asked questions can you

add to the live chat menu?

• Are you keeping your bots’ scripts aligned

with your live agents’ scripts?

30
Conclusion
Even the best-designed conversational AI requires care
and feeding. With continued monitoring and maintenance,
you can increase customer self-service rates, and satisfaction,
while reducing interaction handle time, wait time, live agent
escalations, and cost per contact.

Let us help you in your journey. Request a complimentary

meeting with the Retail Team at Talkdesk.

BOOK NOW

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About the authors
Dawn Harpster is a senior conversation architect
at Talkdesk. She’s obsessed with crafting frictionless
user experiences and loves to simplify customer
problems with intelligently designed conversation
flows on virtual agents. In her personal time, Dawn
likes to hike and read popular science. She is also
a professionally trained jouster.
DAWN HARPSTER
Conversation Architect
Talkdesk
Génesis Miranda Longo is the head of retail
and consumer goods marketing at Talkdesk.
Outside of Talkdesk, she works in influencer
marketing with brands like Aerie and Express.
A proud Zillennial and compulsive shopper,
Génesis would much rather speak to brands through
digital or video channels than to send an email
or listen to elevator music on hold. Chat and voice
bot PTSD have made her passionate about working
with brands to identify opportunities for change,
develop best practices, and help craft a strategy
for unified customer journeys.
GÉNESIS MIRANDA LONGO
Retail Expert
Talkdesk
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