Meetings Blog Jul 17, 2017
You’ll have heard of Amazon Echo and Apple’s Siri. Almost certainly you’ll be familiar with Google Home. All of the biggest players are taking their own chatbot versions to market in a bid to get as much foothold as possible. ‘Smart homes’ are popping up all around the world and smart event planners have been jumping on board.
Let’s first look at the planning stage. Generating leads, promoting speakers and topics, communicating venue information and selling tickets are just some of the many simple tasks for modern bots and, although automated, these can be created to provide a very personal experience for your attendees. Just think what else you could be getting on with as these elements are removed from your daily schedule…and chatbots don’t need sleep!
At the event itself, the service continues for attendees as they ask: “What’s on next?” “How do I get to room X?” “How do I access the Wi-Fi? … the list is close to exhaustive and it’s all happening in real-time so always updated. Thereafter, being able to draw insights from a large group (importantly at a time that suits them) via surveys and then share easily accessible content from the event, and follow-up material brings the whole process full circle. Mobile devices have for some time now been the norm, so it’s now just a case of how we give our event goers new experiences.
Did you know that intelligent robots can even present to the crowd?
You only had to see the reaction of the guests at our NH Collection Madrid Eurobuilding hotel to know that a robot greeting and presenting adds a ‘wow’ factor. Putting a chatbot inside a walking, talking robot takes the experience to a new level and personalizing her to interact with attendees in a variety of languages is something that makes for many a post-event conversation.
As the technology develops, our imagination seems to be the only limit to what can be achieved…and that doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon. The use of the home recognition systems mentioned above will become more and more mainstream, with privacy and protection forming a key part. And where mobile apps have proved so successful to date, there is a move towards the bots integration into other platforms with a prime example being Facebook Messenger. Here, and in other interfaces, as well as the well of information available to interlink, the common occurrence of the app being deleted after the event – meaning you lose that direct engagement – is removed.
These newer and constantly developing platforms are providing users with tools that make creating a bot for your needs easier. With your input, plus an inbuilt AI, the bots learn from the interactions that take place allowing them to answer questions in various forms to provide the correct and specific answers – just think how many ways someone could ask where the toilets are! The use of messaging apps has eclipsed that of social networks in recent years and so that is where much of the development is expected to lie.
Whether it be providing you with ingredient information about the food on offer, preventing you from accidentally triggering an allergic reaction; presenting the next set of slides on stage; giving you directions; or offering you more details regarding the event, chatbots are your new ally. All you now need to do is think of the possibilities open to you in the management of your future events.
Always aiming to be ahead of the technology curve in the meetings and events industry, we at NH Hotel Group will be keeping a close eye on what next to surprise our guests with.
