Conversational Commerce and Magento 2: Breaking new ground with Facebook, Alexa, and Slack

Conversational Commerce
and Magento 2
Breaking new ground with Alexa,
Facebook and Slack
Conversational Commerce: Magento, Facebook and Alexa | October 2016 1

@philwinkle
github.com/philwinkle

@magetalk

somethingdigital.com/careers

What is Conversational
Commerce?
(C12L)

What is it not?
C12L is not about shopping online in a chat bot. It is
about creating opportunities to engage with customers
in an asynchronous way

So then what is Conversational Commerce?
— Conversational, when done well, is assistive
— It is engaging
— It is helpful
— It creates value

C12L Commerce
This is not a new concept. "Bots" have been around for
ages. What is new is that we can now interact with them
outside of our traditional desktop computer contexts.

We shouldn't be repurposing
APIs for every medium. Each
medium excels in its own
particular niche given its
audience.

— Not for all contexts
— Alexa: Store Insights / Administration
— Slack: Developer Support
— Facebook: Consumer

Why not Alexa for purchasing on Magento?
— API could be used, so it's possible
— Purchase decisions are hard
— Predciated on choice
— Search and browse is impossible via spoken word
— Write one API, use it many places...

Why would we want this?
— We're moving away from Visual UI
— Spoken word is the fastest way to communicate
(send)
— Written text is the fastest way to consume

We're becoming increasingly
distracted

What kind of change does this mean for businesses?
— Change of jobs and expertise
— Fewer creative arts, more communications
— Call trees replaced by chat trees
— Asynchronous, on your time === 24/7

Obvious commerce applications
— Beyond the purchase:
— Status, update, cancel, replacement
— Reorder
— 1-click, ephemeral

Challenges

Challenges
— Fragmented APIs mean lots of boilerplate code to
interact with your store capabilities
— For Magento this is likely REST API
— Different UIs mean different skillsets

Technologies

— Alexa
— Facebook
— Slack

Alexa
Upside:
— Robust API
— Geared toward commerce (future)
— Rapid dev
— 3rd party consumer
— FREE (Raspberry Pi)
— BYOL(anguage)

Alexa (cont.)
Downside:
— Physical devices (right now)
— Lower adoption with dependence on physical devices

Thankfully
— Serverless.js
— Alexa App on Node.js

Developer boilerplate without Alexa App:
exports.handler = (event, context, callback) => {
try {
console.log(`event.session.application.applicationId=${event.session.application.applicationId}`);
/**
* Uncomment this if statement and populate with your skill's application ID to
* prevent someone else from configuring a skill that sends requests to this function.
*/
/*
if (event.session.application.applicationId !== 'amzn1.echo-sdk-ams.app.[unique-value-here]') {
callback('Invalid Application ID');
}
*/
if (event.session.new) {
onSessionStarted({ requestId: event.request.requestId }, event.session);
}
if (event.request.type === 'LaunchRequest') {
onLaunch(event.request,
event.session,
(sessionAttributes, speechletResponse) => {
callback(null, buildResponse(sessionAttributes, speechletResponse));
});
} else if (event.request.type === 'IntentRequest') {
onIntent(event.request,
event.session,
(sessionAttributes, speechletResponse) => {
callback(null, buildResponse(sessionAttributes, speechletResponse));
});
} else if (event.request.type === 'SessionEndedRequest') {
onSessionEnded(event.request, event.session);
callback();
}
} catch (err) {
callback(err);
}
};

With Alexa App:
'use strict';
var rp = require('request-promise');
var alexa = require('alexa-app');
var app = new alexa.app('sample');
var options = require('config');
app.intent('SalesVolumeIntent', function(request, response) {
options.uri = 'http://c12l.philwinkle.com/index.php/rest/V1/admin/sales/totals/today';
rp(options)
.then(function (res) {
response.say("Your sales for today are currently " + res.grand_total + " dollars");
response.send();
});
return false;
});
exports.handler = app.lambda();

Siri
Upside:
— Billions of devices (literally)
— Soon in our ears (thanks Airpods)
Downside:
— Swift / App dev focus

Implementation details

Alexa Taxonomony

Utterances
Utterances is the phrase that maps to an intent to
process a request
CheckStoreOnline is my store online
CheckStoreOnline are you online
CheckStoreOnline if it is online
CheckStoreOnline status
CheckStoreOnline current status

Intents and Slots
An intent allows you to map a phrase or phrases to a
static function
CheckStockLevel how many {item} are in stock
CheckStockLevel how many {color} {item} are in stock
CheckStockLevel how many {item} do I have
CheckStockLevel how many {color} {item} do I have
CheckStockLevel what is the stock level of {item}
CheckStockLevel what is the stock level of {color} {item}

Skill
A skill is a group of utterances which represent common
functionality. Essentially, an "app", for Alexa.

Serverless = Stateless
Because Alexa runs Lambda functions it is inherently
stateless. State can be stored either
- as a long-running session with multi-step question
and answer workflows
- stored in DynamoDb for later retrieval

Magento 2 REST APIs

Interesting endpoints to consume for logged-in
customers:
Quote REST API:
GET /V1/carts/mine
GET /V1/carts/mine/items
GET /V1/carts/mine/payment-methods
GET /V1/carts/mine/selected-payment-method
GET /V1/carts/mine/shipping-methods
GET /V1/carts/mine/totals

Use tokens for customer-
authenticated REST

Generate a token:
/rest/V1/integration/customer/token

Example:
curl -X "POST" "http://c12l.philwinkle.com/index.php/rest/V1/integration/customer/token"
-H "Content-Type: application/json"
-d $'{"username":"philwinkle@gmail.com", "password":"asdf;lkj1234"}
'

Get cart totals:
curl -X "GET" "http://c12l.philwinkle.com/index.php/rest/V1/carts/mine"
-H "Authorization: Bearer 3g43lph2w0lcfh6719ltaa0fiml6sma1"
-H "Content-Type: application/json"

Things that help
— Having an Alexa Device
— https://echosim.io/
— Testing tools in AWS Lambda Available
— Testing tools in Developer Portal
— Paw / REST testing tool

Facebook Messenger

Messenger
Messenger's approach is vastly different and is
essentially the same experience as creating a

Upsides
— Fit for commerce
— Cards
— Long interactions
— Initiate / Push
— Customer Matching (phone #)
— Can use any language
— XMPP should be familiar

Downsides
— XMPP is limiting, requires persistence
— We emulate more human-like qualities via text so we
have to fake interactions and pauses

Top 3 tips to creating engaging bot experiences1
1. Don't be dense
2. Have a vibe
3. Speak, don't print
1
GARY LEVITT, YOLA; VENTUREBEAT SEPTEMBER 2016

1. Don't be dense
Bad:
Me: help.
Bot: I can help by answering simple questions about
how Chatbot works. I’m just a bot, though! If you need
more help, try our Help Center for loads of useful
information about Chatbot...
```

1. Don't be dense
Better
Me: help.
Bot: Help is here, Gary!
Bot is typing…
Bot: Ask me a simple question.
Me: how to I blah blah blah?

Don't be dense
1. Constructing a concise chronological narrative helps
reduce denseness. When content is in little chunks,
it’s easier to process.
2. When your chatbot provides the right forms and
buttons at the right time, it can outperform its visual
interface counterpart.
3. Combining concepts or distinct sets of details in one
response causes mental static, and should be

2. Have a Vibe

Have a Vibe
1. Break up your communication into parts based on
their functions: actions, greetings, goodbyes,
thankyous, updates, loading, processing, intros,
descriptions, notifications, etc.
2. Pick one or two parts and — while keeping all other
parts neutral, concise, and direct — make that part a
little zesty or animated.

3. Speak, don’t print
In short, emulate typing and build in pauses. You can
split-test engagement based on pause time for a more
data-centric approach.

Messenger Differentiators

Messenger Differentiators
The key differentiators for Messenger are:
— A robust interaction platform:
— Card types
— Media
— Video
— Interaction

Downsides
— No discernment of "intent" like in Alexa
— Developer left to parse intent from AI human
language engine

Intent generation

Welcome screen

Rich cards

Prompt / Push

Push a message
Your package has shipped
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{
"recipient":{
"id":"USER_ID"
},
"message":{
"text":"hello, world!"
}
}' "https://graph.facebook.com/v2.6/me/messages?access_token=PAGE_ACCESS_TOKEN"

Q&A

Thank you!

Conversational Commerce and Magento 2: Breaking new ground with Facebook, Alexa, and Slack

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