Challenge: How to strengthen the brand-consumer relationship in the most innovative way
As a Toyota sole agent in Indonesia, PT Toyota Astra-Motor is operating as a distributor and importer of Toyota vehicle in Indonesia. With a commitment to contribute to the nation and society through the marketing of quality products and services, PT Toyota Astra-Motor has become one of the market leaders in Indonesia automotive industry.
With their growing number of consumers, PT Toyota Astra-Motor felt the urge to strengthen the brand-consumer relations in a more effective and efficient way. They realized that it’s crucial for businesses to catch innovative trend and technology to be early enough to maintain success brand-consumer relations in the long-term. From a couple of years, AI chatbot has emerged as the most followed trend and Toyota wanted to adapt and implement this new platform. The challenge is, a chatbot is a machine that tends to be cold and impersonal. Thus, the company needed help to bring the human touch to the chatbot and create engaging chatbot experiences to life.
Solutions: Create a well-defined chatbot persona and relatable conversation
To tackle the challenge, Toyota tapped Suitmedia to create digital communication strategy through persona creation and conversation design. To create an effective persona creation for the chatbot, we believe in the power of data. We began our steps in creating a persona for the chatbot by doing consumer research and collecting their data so we can create a chatbot character that resonates with the audience’s character. We collected data about Toyota’s new and existing customer and even the non-customers which is included in the target market. We tried to understand what kind of information they really need. We want to know them like our own family and we want to speak in their language.
Based on the result, we understood that Toyota’s customers need a virtual assistant who is caring and reliable, able to provide meaningful, insightful, and up-to-date answers to their questions about Toyota. Thus, we position the Toyota chatbot as a reliable friend who is comfortable to chat with about Toyota products and services.
To make it more relatable to users, we create a name and visual figure based on its core character and positioning. The name of the chatbot we created is TARRA (Toyota Interactive Virtual Assistant), a female virtual assistant who has an active personality, a little boyish, yet she talks in a warm, friendly, and polite manner. She is now can be contacted through LINE and Facebook Messenger.
Besides creating a persona, we also designed conversation flow and response messages. To create a greater sense of connection and loyalty to the brand, the chatbot speaks in understandable language to a wide range of users. We also made the language more casual to make it more relatable to users’ everyday language.
Through the chat rooms, TARRA is able to offer the newest promotions to the users as well as helping them in finding the most ideal car based on their lifestyle, helping them to buy it, giving informative tips for taking care of their Toyota and booking service. When you thought it cannot get any better, the users can interact with TARRA wherever and whenever they want. She is a friend that you can reach out 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
TARRA has been succeeded in gaining higher engagement with targeted users. She also reaches a higher number of audience. This allows Toyota to collect data about their customers to know and understand them better so that the company can give back to its customers through information and innovation.
