“Boker Tov” – and what does it have to do with bot engagements

Recently, I decided I want to increase human engagement and interactions, among people who get up early in the morning to perform any kind of sports (mostly runners).

I started saying ‘Boker Tov’ (“Good Morning”) to anyone who passes by on my morning runs, in hopes it will catch up and people would start saying ‘Good Morning’ to me first…

Surprisingly enough (and although most of the people in my area are considered friendly) – not many respond back. When I started analyzing why, I figured (after ruling out it was not my ‘super-speed’ that did not give them enough time to respond… ?? ) that this is an unexpected engagement for them and not many tend to respond to that (similar to some bots or digital assistance helpers that appear on many websites, where people do not always expect them to).

So, I decided to up my game, and throw in a smile while at it… and suddenly noticed that there is roughly 73.8% more chance (statistically speaking…) people would respond, if you smile at them while saying ‘Good Morning’. (Many smiled in response and some even greeted me back).

Come to think of that - smiling is a natural instinct that is ingrained in our DNA since birth. One of the baby’s first voluntary reactions is smiling back at people (even before they learn to speak) – so smiling, almost always, generates some type of a reaction.

So… when creating a bot engagement for your customers, have your bot ‘smile’ at them as part of the conversation – this can be as simple as a nice opening sentence to an answer, a sophisticated answer to a regular off-topic question, or even a photo or a funny GIF image. (Important! – Never try to fool people into thinking that there is a human behind your digital touch point, this would be a BAD experience, would create the wrong expectations about the conversation and would lead to dis-trust. A better experience would be, to perform a seamless hand-off to a human agent when needed)

Below is an example from one of my customers – 

And another example from Facebook, where I was looking for some information on buying a car, and at the end of the conversation – was greeted with an animated GIF that ended with the below.

The GIF had nothing to do with adding any inputs to the conversation, but just made me feel good and added to my positive interaction with the brand.

So… go ahead, make your bot smile to your customers (other than also providing real value of course...) – who knows, you may have a chance of increasing the chances they would continue the engagements, by 73.8%.... ??