How to design voice assistants for South Africans

South African languages pose quite a challenge to voice assistants. The country recognises 12 official dialects, but these subdivide into many regional, cultural and colloquial accents. Most South Africans speak more than one language, further colouring their speech....

Women can thrive and grow in the BPO industry

One of South Africa’s biggest challenges is creating employment opportunities for people from previously disadvantaged communities, particularly its youth and women. By Lizelle Strydom, MD of CareerBox Africa And, while our thoughts turn to the empowerment of...

Repetitive conversations don’t have to be expensive

In any contact centre, there are some calls (both inbound and outbound) that essentially boil down to saying the same thing over and over again. These repetitive conversations cover everything from human resources functions (such as people calling to ask how much...

Chatbots set to dominate customer service channels by 2027

A survey conducted by Gartner has found that chatbots will become the primary customer service channel for about a quarter of the world’s organisations by the year 2027, having evolved over the past decade into a critical technology component of a service...

What if you could speak to an AI you actually like?

If your mobile phone is due for an upgrade, you probably know already. Maybe you love tech and have been eagerly anticipating getting your hands on the latest offering from your favourite manufacturer. By Ryan Falkenberg, co-CEO of Clevva Maybe you’ve noticed...