New technology adoption often boosts business performance and competitive advantage. However, some customers may be hesitant to use it initially. Regular communication can be very effective at helping them overcome any resistance and building acceptance.

We developed this guide to offer you practical strategies and tactics (including FAQs, templates, and promotional strategies) for communicating your franchise’s use of the Smart Answering voice AI solution.  

Smart Answering is a custom AI-powered voice assistant that answers all calls, eliminates hold times, and answers your callers’ questions fast.

This guide will:

1. Assist your business in gaining customer buy-in to Smart Answering 
2. Provide effective strategies for communicating with your customers
3. Include sample communications and templates you can use immediately

Communicating with End Customers

Regular communication helps to raise customer awareness about Smart Answering, address any concerns, and provide tips and ideas for how to use it. You might also encourage customers to try it by offering promotions. A 15% discount to the first 50 customers that set up an appointment using Smart Answering, is one example. Choose the cadence that aligns with your communications style, whether that’s a weekly newsletter, periodic social media, or introductory or promotional emails.

Distinguish Voice AI from Older Systems

Many of us have scars from past encounters with voice answering systems like IVR. Your customers may also have these memories when they hear voice automation, and many will automatically try to punch a button to get to a human. Let them know that voice AI is different.

How is SoundHound Voice AI Different?

Our voice assistants use advanced techniques like natural language understanding that enables them to understand words in context and to process speech in realtime. This also allows voice assistants to accurately understand complex queries and respond intelligently, so customers feel positive about the experience. A few of our franchise customers told us that their customers felt that sense of awe when experiencing a unique, game-changing technology for the first time.

Educate Customers About the Benefits of Smart Answering

Here are key points to consider in your communications :

• Get answers faster Smart Answering picks up quickly. No more hold times.
• Consistent information delivery Receive accurate, up-to-date information with every call.
• Better service in-store When Smart Answering handles the phones, our staff can serve you faster. 
• Just speak naturally  Smart Answering’s voice AI technology understands the human voice. 
• Need a human touch? Just ask, and you’ll be transferred to our staff immediately.

Examples and Templates

Use these templates and examples or modify them for your business.

1. Social media posts

2. Emails

3. In-store posters or signs

Get Feedback

Use your existing survey and feedback mechanisms to gauge customer sentiment so you can make adjustments to the voice assistant. Questions you can ask in the survey include:

• How was your experience using our new AI voice assistant?
• What were you trying to accomplish? Were you successful?
• Did you have any difficulties using the voice assistant?
• What did you like?
• Any suggestions to improve it?
• If you liked it, would you be willing to provide a review of your experience?

Smart Answering Features

Features	Descriptions
Customizable greeting	Easily create and modify the opening greeting
Information queries	Hours, locations, parking, and more
Send SMS link to callers	Link callers to pages like scheduling, pricing, and policies
Lead capture via SMS	Automatically ask and capture contextual information from caller
Transfer call to a phone number	Enable callers to reach specific people or departments
Analytics of calls received	Dashboard displaying key caller topics, answer/transfer rate, and SMS acceptance
Call and SMS history	View calls and SMS in chronological order
Knowledge Base	Editable location with merchant information and queries that the AI uses to engage callers
Knowledge Meter	Automatically assesses Knowledge Base completeness
Multilocation scalability	Easily expand locations as needed using a unified dashboard

Learn More

We hope the ideas in this guide are helpful. Please reach out if you wish to speak with a support person.

You can also find answers to common questions in the Smart Answering Support Center.