Why We Founded Requesty
Sep 26, 2023
Conversations have always been the most powerful business tool. With advancements in sophisticated language models, the potential to automate and enhance these conversational processes has never been greater. It's tempting to view language models as the ultimate solution to customer interaction: they're fast, available around-the-clock, and never have a bad day at the office. But the reality is more complex. So, how do businesses strike the right balance between efficiency and empathy, automation and human touch? That's the problem we set out to solve when we founded Requesty.
The Rise of Conversational Interfaces
A New Era of Customer Interaction
Language models are revolutionizing many industries, taking the capabilities of chatbots, auto-reply systems, and interactive voice menus to new heights. While these earlier technologies were largely viewed as stepping stones to human interaction—the faster you could reach a person, the better—language models are changing that narrative.
AI Efficiency and Availability
These AI systems not only retrieve information more swiftly than a human can, but they also possess unparalleled patience. Best of all, they're available in limitless supply, eliminating the dreaded customer queue. As a result, from search engines to software development, the advent of easily accessible language models is causing massive shifts across products, companies, and entire industries.
Risks Beyond the Hype
This transformative potential has sparked a widespread "Fear of Missing Out". Companies are rushing to integrate these technologies into their operations, eager to gain a competitive edge. Yet, amidst this frenzied adoption, certain risks and considerations are coming to the forefront. Beyond the initial excitement of implementing language models, there are essential factors to consider for their responsible deployment, such as data hygiene, safety and ethics.
Losing the Human Touch
Value of Human Understanding
Humans bring a nuanced understanding to conversations that language models simply cannot match. They grasp the emotional undertones, recognize the significance of specific issues, and know when they've reached the limit of their expertise. Additionally, humans are adept at identifying business opportunities or threats during these interactions. Such insights often lead to actionable feedback that can be channeled to the right departments, thereby benefiting the organization as a whole.
A Broken Feedback Loop
Substituting human agents with language models disrupts this valuable feedback mechanism. While language models can deliver accurate information and emulate a company’s tone, they fall short in other critical areas. For example, they lack the ability to take appropriate actions based on the context of a conversation or to seamlessly direct customers to the right department—tasks that require far more than just well-trained algorithms.
Importance of Common Sense
Another crucial aspect missing from language models is common sense. In a human-led customer support or sales team, recurring issues or mentions of competitors are flagged for strategic action. Language models, however sophisticated, can't make such intuitive judgments.
Need for Human Oversight
This is why it's essential to maintain a level of human supervision, even if it's only at a high-level overview. By doing so, companies can combine the efficiency of language models with the nuanced understanding and strategic thinking of human employees.
The Missing Piece: Analytics
Power of Analytics
How can businesses harness the efficiencies of language models without sacrificing the invaluable insights offered by human evaluation? The answer lies in analytics. Analytics provide real-time insights into customer conversations, identifying quality issues, opportunities for better business, areas where your model should have been more empathic, and other relevant data points.
Flying Without Analytics
Deploying your language model without analytics, you’ll miss the times at which your customer is given the wrong solution. You’ll miss the opportunity to upsell to a customer who’s asking for more features that don’t exist. You’ll miss the reason why a particular customer segment isn’t converting into paid subscribers. You’ll miss the moments where it upsets your customers with bias or controversial statements. Operating a language model without analytics is like flying an airplane through a storm without radar—you might survive, but you'll miss crucial signals that could help you navigate safely and effectively.
Requesty
A World in Conversation
We founded Requesty because we see a world where more and more companies, products and services will communicate through conversational interfaces. Language is inherently natural for human communication—it's how we share complex ideas, learn from others, and do business. Now, every organization can leverage the power of conversation across their operations.
Controlled Efficiency and Deep Customer Insights
Requesty empowers you to build efficient conversational business operations while gaining unparalleled insights into your customers' needs and preferences. You're not just automating conversations safely; you're learning from them at a depth you've never accessed before.
Quick Implementation and Scalability
Our platform can be integrated with your existing solutions in just minutes. From the moment your customers send their first sentence, Requesty's analytics start providing insights. And don't worry about scale; our system is designed to handle millions of daily conversations without overwhelming you. It highlights the most relevant information, and provides you with data-backed suggestions for your next steps.