Stamford, Conn. – Pitney Bowes Inc., a global technology company that provides commerce solutions in the areas of ecommerce, shipping, mailing, and data, today announced the global release of its first fast and adaptable chatbot platform, EngageOne Converse. Part of the EngageOne suite of customer engagement solutions, Converse is an intelligent self-service technology, designed to integrate data and location information into leading messaging software to help support the 55 percent of consumers who currently welcome customer support through chatbots.

In today’s digital climate, businesses struggle to keep up with consumer demand for instant and accurate support, any time. Consumers, especially Millennials, demand messaging options. Unfortunately, less than half of businesses are using messaging platforms to communicate with their customers.

EngageOne Converse is simplifying real-time communications for businesses to address this challenge. Using popular messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger, online web applications, or interactive PDFs for transactional documents, businesses can now automate conversations with customers to help them self-serve.

EngageOne Converse integrates with the wider portfolio of Pitney Bowes software and data, bringing additional functionality and possibilities to enhance the customer experience. A text-based conversation with the chatbot can be upgraded with Interactive Personalized Video from EngageOne Video. Similarly, conversational experiences can be enhanced by location data, demographic data, and other Pitney Bowes data products.

Take for example the telecommunications industry. Each day, providers are bombarded with hundreds, even thousands, of customer service inquiries. As a result, customers often wait on hold for long periods of time, and are commonly rerouted to multiple departments before their question is resolved.

With EngageOne Converse, a customer can instead type their question through their preferred messaging application, anytime they want—not just during business hours. The chatbot can provide the answer directly through the conversation, direct the customer to the exact support page online to answer their question, or direct them to other support options for a resolution. There’s never a wait time, and customers are routed to the right place the first time, quickly and efficiently.

In a billing use case, the chatbot may leverage EngageOne Video to provide the customer with an interactive, personalized video to explain a complex billing transaction. In a customer inquiry about new service or phone repairs, the chatbot may leverage Pitney Bowes location APIs to detect the customer’s location and provide a map of nearby retail outlets with driving directions. Similarly, online transactional documents, such as interactive PDFs, can be upgraded with contextualized chatbots to answer customer questions in real time, obviating the need to phone the call center.

Opus Trust Marketing’s acting CEO Rob Alonso said, “We’re using EngageOne Converse in two ways: firstly, for our own clients, so we can respond to them more effectively and dynamically. We can create engaging conversational experiences hosted on our website that direct our customers to the information they need, in real-time, answering queries on topics like epayslips, for example. Secondly, we’re extending our physical and digital product portfolio so our clients can offer EngageOne Converse to their own customers, helping them meet customer demand in an innovative and relevant way. Initial feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and we love that Marketing and Customer Experience staff can make ongoing changes to the conversation in a few minutes, not days or weeks, without relying on an IT team or a third-party vendor.”

EngageOne Converse has been built with user focus, so that any business professional can make changes to the chatbot at any time. Authorized personnel can go into Converse and update the solution, again ensuring customer needs are met in real time.

“Six of the 10 most used applications today are messaging applications. Consumers have spoken, and they have a preferred communication channel,” says Bob Guidotti, EVP and President for Software Solutions, Pitney Bowes. “Today’s empowered consumer expects businesses to meet them where they are. Businesses must recognize this and integrate technology capabilities that allow them to have immediate, data-driven conversations with their customers. EngageOne Converse is making this possible.”

EngageOne Converse is part of the Knowledge Fabric of Pitney Bowes, which helps clients surface relevant business insights by understanding the relationships between people, places, and things. Converse is a proof point of how software and data can be brought together to enhance business outcomes, namely improving decision-making, increasing customer engagement and reducing risk.

To learn more about EngageOne Converse, visit us online at: https://www.pitneybowes.com/us/customer-engagement-marketing/customer-interaction-management/engageone-converse.html.