The blog

Diegem, 20 december 2018 - BotBakery, gespecialiseerd in de combinatie van Artificiële Intelligentie, gebruikersinterfaces, personalisatie en gebruikerservaring bij de creatie van bots, creëerde in samenwerking met Ingenico Group, wereldleider in online- en mobiele betalingsoplossingen, de eerste Belgische telecomchatbot met een geïntegreerd betalingssysteem in Facebook Messenger. BASE, onderdeel van Telenet, is met de ‘Top-up chatbot’ pionier in het Belgische telecomlandschap om kaarten te herladen. BotBakery, onderdeel van Upthrust, een spin-off van The House of Marketing en de digitale implementatiepoot van Quanteus Group, zet met de telecomchatbot resoluut een stap naar de vertaling van veelbelovende digitale technologieën naar praktisch bruikbare toepassingen. Chatbots winnen aan populariteit op websites, Facebook Messenger en WhatsApp. Ze zorgen voor een win-win voor bedrijven en consumenten. Bedrijven ervaren een stijging in klantengagement, leadgeneratie, klanttevredenheid, ... Anderzijds biedt het consumenten een betere gebruikerservaring, 24/7 beschikbaarheid, een zeer performante personalisatie, ... Met de lancering van BASE’s Topup chatbot, ging BotBakery nog een stap verder. De e-commerce chatbot van BASE geeft klanten in drie verschillende talen de mogelijkheid om hun prepaidkaart in minder dan één minuut te herladen. Met dit einddoel in gedachten, ging BotBakery aan de slag.  Er gingen grondige technische analyses aan vooraf om na te gaan welke integraties nodig zijn om de verschillende functionaliteiten van de chatbot te laten werken. Een integratie van een oplossing van Ingenico garandeert de veiligheid van de betalingsfunctionaliteit. “De integratie van het betalingssysteem binnen Facebook Messenger zorgt voor een veel lagere drop-out van consumenten tijdens hun top-up proces en daarmee ook voor een hogere conversieratio,” vertelt Dennis Peeters, Master BotBaker bij BotBakery. Door de integratie van het betalingssysteem, is er echt sprake van ‘conversational commerce’.  Bovendien zal de bot de consument kunnen verderhelpen met FAQs en zinnen begrijpen en het passende antwoord formuleren. Heeft de chatbot het antwoord niet, dan kan een verbinding met de klantendienst gemaakt worden.

Diegem, 20 décembre 2018 - BotBakery, qui crée différents bots en associant l’intelligence artificielle, des interfaces utilisateur, les concepts de personnalisation et d’expérience client, en collaboration avec Ingenico Group, leader mondial des solutions de paiement intégrées en ligne ou mobiles, a mis au point le premier chatbot télécom belge doté d’un système de paiement intégré à Facebook Messenger. Ce nouveau 'chatbot de recharge' fait de BASE, une filiale de Telenet, un véritable pionnier des télécoms belges en matière de recharge de cartes prépayées. 

In this day and age, companies and brands are encouraged to exceed customer expectations by delivering personalized experiences. Hence, it's about time you change the title on your business card into 'experience maker'. There are many definitions, but this one sums it up perfectly: “A true experience maker is only happy when the customer’s life is made a lot easier”. Or as CMO Claire Cronin stated during the Adobe Summit in May 2018: “At Virgin Atlantic, we are memory makers and the customer is the compass.”

You are planning on throwing a B2B event, and you want it to be the ultimate experience for your audience. Clients, leads, influencers, whoever is invited, they have to be wowed. Well, that’s great, because experience is key for the marketing future and you are on the right track. But what could be a good as well as efficient approach for setting up this event behind the scenes? That’s right, start leveraging your marketing automation tool for events as well.

After graduating three years ago, I joined The House of Marketing as a consultant. Ever since, I’ve been supporting marketing teams in various businesses and industries. My passion for marketing reaches further than work hours: once I return home from my client project, I get behind my desk to practice my skills at another company - my boyfriend’s. He pursued his lifelong dream and founded his own black metal record label. How does a girl roll into something like this? Love, of course. As I’m an enthusiast for everything related to marketing and digital, it seemed nothing but logic to support my boyfriend in his passion. From setting up email campaigns to proposing e-commerce actions, I’m always looking for the next best thing to help him and his brand. 

Nowadays you can no longer go around growth hacking (or marketing, but we'll get to that later) – just ask Google. The internet is full of growth hacking articles, tools and tactics. If we take a quick look at the search volume on growth hacking, we see that it’s been getting an increasing amount of attention worldwide since 2012. Worldwide Google trends of the search term 'growth hacking'. The term growth hacking was first introduced by Sean Ellis in 2010. In truth, the practice has been around much longer. It helped companies like DropBox, Uber and AirBnB transition from budding startups to multi-million dollar enterprises in just a few years’ time. Much of it comes down to the use of resource-light and cost-effective tactics and processes of continual ideation, prioritization, testing and analysis – with a continuous focus on the one metric that matters most: growth. The term was first used in the start-up scene, where resources are scarce and where growth is the only way to survive. There’s a misconception, however, that growth hacking is only useful for startups. In fact, every company can benefit from it, although a minimum requirement is your product market fit. Growth hacking requires that you have a product that’s not just good, but that also matches the needs of who you’re selling it to. Once that’s in place, you’re good to go. How to get started with growth hacking? For more practical insights, we sat together with Nicholas D'hondt, growth expert at our new spin-off Upthrust, which answers the need for operational digital marketing talents.

This third part of our  3-piece article series based on an interview with marketing professor Koen Pauwels focuses on the “WHO”: Which skills should marketers have to be able to analyze their data?

There was no escaping last week: Black Friday was all over the place. From your mailbox to your social media feed, from the advertisements on Spotify to the promotions on Waze on your way to work – the promotional messages kept popping up. Most people, however, don’t even know what the tradition of Black Friday exactly stands for (watch the video below). So, we’re questioning whether we’re facing a phenomenon that is breaking out of its borders or if we’re just dealing with another sales label to justify early promotions. 

This second part of our 3-piece article series based on an interview with marketing professor Koen Pauwels focuses on the “HOW”: How do marketers use data analytics and how well are they using their tools? Indeed, today the market is filled with an infinite number of data analytics software and tools (e.g. Google Analytics, Marketo, Hubspot, Adobe, Marketing Cloud etc.) that help marketers better understand their customers and answer their needs. Let’s have a look at what Koen Pauwels thinks about it.

Today’s fast-paced, technology-driven society has drastically changed user expectations and led to a more demanding customer base. Businesses today face an entirely new set of challenges and expectations. Luckily, data can give you valuable insights into your customers and prospects. It’s now relatively easy to create a profile of your best buyers, their life-time value, their buying preferences, etc. With the help of data you can now understand, meet, and even predict your customers’ expectations. However, now that most businesses are driven by data, we see other challenges occurring. As tons of data are collected every day, it’s easy for companies or employees to drown in the sea of data they collect, or be intimidated by the pile of information coming at them. And how can we find the relevant data for the business question you want to solve? Moreover, how can your data team make sure the collected data is understood and thus used by everyone within your organization?