“Conversation design is critical to realizing the benefits of conversational commerce. Without design thinking, conversational systems can result in failures that frustrate customers, erode the expected ROI and possibly damage the brand.

Unfortunately, conversation design skills are scarce, and not readily transferrable from the widespread web and mobile visual design skills.

Before the recent rise of conversational interfaces, authoring dialogue and prompts was a niche skill in most enterprises, confined to Voice User Interface designers responsible for the IVR (Interactive Voice Response) system. To expand the pool of designers, companies have turned to practitioners in adjacent fields with experience with human dialogue and verbal communications, such as video game designers, copywriters and script writers.

Without access to these resources, companies will have to partner with specialist service providers, or build up internal design skills through trial-and-error.”

Read more from Patrick Nguyen, Chief Technology Officer at [24]7.ai to learn how to get started with conversation design using data-driven, tested methods.