When we started creating content at TARS, four years ago, we used to publish posts on pretty much any topic that came to our mind. Our reasoning was that if we found something interesting, our customers surely would too. We were wrong. While our content did well with other tech geeks like us, it didn’t resonate with the average marketers and small-mid sized business owners who were our target customers. At the core of our problem was our language. In our content, we spoke about chatbots as if ou...
Sep 11, 2020•46 min•Ep. 13
What does it take to run a successful SaaS startup? Lots of funding? A high valuation? That's what most people think, but it doesn't necessarily have to be the case. Since 2017, TARS has been part of the Upekkha Catalyst Accelerator, a startup accelerator at the forefront of the ValueSaaS movement, which aims to create capital-efficient SaaS startups that are not overly dependent on venture capital. As the accelerator gears up for its next cohort (which you can apply for here), we spoke with Pra...
Aug 28, 2020•41 min•Ep. 12
The most common complaint we hear when we ask people about their experience with chatbots is "they suck because they always make mistakes." This is undoubtedly true. We've all interacted with at least one chatbot that has said "sorry I can't answer that question yet." But what if I told you that these sorts of errors are actually a good thing! A few weeks back I spoke with Shane Mac, SVP of Marketing and Partnerships at Conversocial, and Shane introduced me to the idea of using "errors as intell...
Aug 14, 2020•37 min•Ep. 11
I've been in the chatbot game for almost 5 years now, and in that time, I've found that there is a single factor that differentiates the good chatbots from the not so good ones: The intention of the chatbot's creator. Now, I realize that this might sound like some holier than thou spiel about having the right intentions, but I'm being dead serious. A lot of people decide to build chatbots for their business for the sole reason that they see everyone else building chatbots and they don't want to ...
Aug 01, 2020•32 min•Ep. 10
What do filmmaking and chatbot creation have in common with each other? Quite a bit as it turns out! A few weeks back I spoke with Jason Gilbert , Lead Conversational Designer at CoCoHub , and multiple Webby award winner about his thoughts on conversational design and if there is one thing that I learned from talking with him it was that if you want to make a chatbot that users actually enjoy, then you should go to film school. On the surface, this might seem like a controversial statement to ma...
Jul 10, 2020•38 min•Ep. 9
Small business owners often struggle to engage their customers online and it causes their business to suffer. This week, we spoke to Mike McGreevy at ZoomOut Group, about how he is using chatbots to help solve this problem.
Jun 26, 2020•27 min•Ep. 6
Running a small business is not easy😅 You need to handle everything from sales to customer support to marketing all on your own, and unsurprisingly things can start to feel overwhelming pretty quickly🥵 Preston Martelly, and his agency Javalogix, are helping entrepreneurs ease this burden by taking digital marketing off their plate👍 We spoke to Preston about how he helps small businesses leverage chatbots 🤖 (and traditional digital marketing techniques) to capture more leads and grow their bu...
Jun 13, 2020•18 min•Ep. 5
This week, we spoke to Vivek Khandelwal from iZooto about how his team is helping marketers reduce their dependence on Big Tech through the power of owned audience marketing.
May 30, 2020•41 min•Ep. 8
Healthcare is one of those basic services that every person will need at some point in their lives. Unfortunately, the actual process of receiving healthcare services is often fraught with bureaucracy and friction, which makes an already stressful situation (being sick) positively unbearable. Fortunately for us, there are a handful of innovative companies working to fix this situation, and this week were lucky enough to speak with the founder of one of those companies. Bildad St. Louis is the fo...
May 16, 2020•44 min•Ep. 4
Recruitment is a notoriously bureaucratic process. Between the heaps of documents that recruiters need to collect to review an application, and the constant back and forth to schedule interviews, re-interviews and screening calls, companies have to invest an immense amount of time and effort into hiring new talent. In this episode of Tars Conversations, we spoke to Martyn Redstone, a recruitment expert, about how he’s using chatbots to simplify some of these processes and help companies grow the...
Apr 25, 2020•30 min•Ep. 3
When you think of cutting edge marketing campaigns, local government is certainly not the first industry that comes to mind. But that might be about to change! There are a handful of creators around the world working to improve the way governments convey their message to citizens, and we were lucky enough to speak with one such innovator. Collin Rainey worked with the Indiana State Government to revamp the way they communicate with small business owners in the state. In the process, he helped th...
Apr 11, 2020•58 min•Ep. 7
In mid-2018, after spending decades working at South Africa’s largest telecom provider, Dessie Moonsamy decided to strike out on his own, and start a digital marketing agency, DLTM Consulting, We spoke to him this week, to find out how he has successfully made the transition from climbing the corporate ladder to running his own business, and how chatbots have helped him stand out in a crowded industry.
Mar 27, 2020•52 min•Ep. 2
The DMV is notorious for its terrible customer experience, and one bot creator in Montana, Levi Worts, set about changing that by creating one of the largest and most effective government chatbot customer service systems in the world. We spoke to him to get an insight into the sort of value that the Montana DMV and its citizens are getting out of their TARS chatbots.
Mar 13, 2020•30 min•Ep. 1
