FrontdeskAI, developer of artificial intelligence (AI) assistants for location-based businesses and franchises, today announced plans to make its family of phone and web-based AI assistants available to healthcare provider and specialist location-based retail markets. The expansion follows the rapid adoption of FrontdeskAI AI assistants in the health and wellness market where the company has achieved an 87% uptick in new customers year-to-date, including 100% increase in franchise customers and 160% increase in customers from the fitness sector. There are now several hundred companies in the health and wellness market using FrontdeskAI assistants to automate and improve front desk processes and customer engagement.
It is estimated that poor customer service costs franchise businesses $74 billion each year. Many franchises and location-based businesses that rely on appointment-based products and services for revenue, struggle with a negative impact on their brand and profitability as a result of front desk staff turnover, an inability to efficiently answer the flow of incoming customer calls, and slow follow up on sales leads. FrontdeskAI assistants solve these challenges and deliver an average of 25% increase in revenue.
Commented Srivatsan Laxman, FrontdeskAI CEO & Co-founder: “While the big global technology companies are trying to build AI assistants that will work in the mass consumer market, we are laser-focused on solving the specific business problem of front desk efficiency and productivity for location-based business. This has resulted in AI assistants that deliver on the promise of better customer engagement, increased productivity and efficiency, and improved top and bottom line. Healthcare providers, such as dentists and specialist retailers such as pet-grooming and automotive after-market services, face the same front desk challenges that we are solving in the health and wellness market. We are excited at both the growth potential and our ability to solve the front desk business challenges of customers across multiple industry sectors.”
Unlike many AI assistants and all chatbots, FrontdeskAI solutions combine a set of proprietary algorithms, a proprietary database of B2C natural language interactions and knowledge graphs, together with human-in-the-loop feedback to create bespoke, human-like interactive conversations with customers. FrontdeskAI assistants understand context and can correlate customer questions so that they respond to customer calls while constantly learning and improving their engagement. As well as improving customer service, FrontdeskAI assistants deliver a rich source of information and reporting about customer requirements, preferences and usage patterns so that businesses and franchises gain a deep understanding of their business and potential missed product and service opportunities. They also provide real-time updates around new appointments, cancellations and rescheduling to front-of-desk staff to improve their efficiency and productivity.
To help support and facilitate market growth, FrontdeskAI has expanded its executive bench strength with the appointment of Eric Weeden as Head of Sales, increased headcount across sales, marketing and engineering departments, and opened a satellite office in Southern California. The company also introduced a partner program to expand integration with market-specific business management SaaS platforms.
The global intelligent virtual assistant market is expected to reach $11.3 billion by 2024, registering a compound annual growth rate of 31%, according to IMARC Group.
