Latest Rep Updates

Winter is here. The rain and the cold are a great time to burrow in and get things done, so we’ve got a few updates to share—unless you live in the southern hemisphere, of course.

Let’s begin. We have a ton of updates and feature releases this month.

Optimized Conversational Search & Discovery

We know. Product search & discovery is a huge pain point, and we also know that most times, site search doesn’t do the job.

So we continue to optimize conversational search to recognize more natural language including misspellings, slang, and idioms. The benefit to you is a super engaging interaction with shoppers.

Here’s what I mean. Before, if a shopper asked:

I want to order an IPA beer

The AI would respond with:

Here’s what I found.

Not very ‘human-like’, is it? Now what if when a shopper asks:

I want to order an IPA beer

The AI responds with:

Sure, we have a wide selection of IPA beers available. Let me go ahead and show you the list of IPA beers we have in stock.

Not perfect, but not bad either. Again, this results from Vector Embedding and ElasticSearch working together to produce more human-like experiences. In the last newsletter, I went into more detail about this amazing technology.

Ultimately, we’re trying to eliminate everything robot-like and bring something more natural and contextual to the situation.

Rep’s AI Simulator, aka our Product Demo, can now scan catalog content

We get the importance of “trying before buying”, which is why we offer a 30-day free trial and a 60-day money-back guarantee.

With the initial launch of our AI simulator, the AI could only scan your website content and respond to questions specific to that.

Now, the simulator can scan your catalog, so when you ask questions, it will answer based on your store’s products.

So if you’re still on the fence or have friends you want to share Rep with, give the AI Simulator a try.

FAQs Overhaul

Add Custom FAQs on Conversations Page

To improve your AI’s performance, sometimes you might need to add custom FAQs. And if you’re taking some time to read conversations, which you can find here:

Then click on any shopper’s question, and a button will pop up: Add Custom FAQ, like so:

Then just type in the answer. We hope this helps you optimize your AI much faster.

Custom FAQs — you can now add hyperlinks or images

Speaking of FAQs, custom FAQs can now accept hyperlinks or images as part of the answer. So if text isn’t doing the job, send them to another page or just use imagery.

We also improved:

• The FAQ Suggestions UI has a cleaner work flow for you.

• The quality of suggestions has improved immensely.

• Consolidation of suggestions (if two questions are similar, they will get bucketed together)

• Only showing suggestions with over 2 occurrences (so if questions are a one-off, then they won’t get shown). The squeaky wheel gets the grease, as they say.

Take a look:

Custom Chat Widget Text

We received feedback from some merchants who want to customize the text on the chat widget, so here ya go:

AI Training — You can now download docs

Another merchant requested the ability to download the very files they uploaded to train the AI. You now have that power:

Multilingual Unlock

Now, when you launch your store, all your flows will automatically get translated into your store’s locale. Easy peasy.

Rep’s AI Helper

Now, whenever you click on the Help icon in the upper right corner, our AI assistant is there to help.

Its knowledge is based on the Rep help desk and should be able to answer FAQs regarding Rep. And when you ask questions we don’t have answers to, then, just like you, we can craft better responses in the future.

We’re still trying to come up with a better name for this, so if you have ideas, share them in the comments.

Remember, this is not your chat widget ;)

Before Rep, After Rep with Harney & Sons

Whew! That’s quite an update. Let’s finish with a before and after. Here’s Harney & Sons Fine Teas. They’ve been in business since 1983. I spoke with Emeric Harney about his experience with Rep, and the thing he shared a few benefits with me:

• Increased conversions by 250%

• AI handled 92% of customer questions satisfactorily

But more than that, Rep helped improve product discovery, showing shoppers products they probably wouldn’t be searching for in the first place.

You can read the full case study here.

Well, that’s it for this month. If you’re traveling, be safe out there and enjoy the holidays.

Talk soon.

Paul