Hillary Black On Creating Better Bots And How To Get Hired To Design Them

In this episode of Interview With An Expert, Jenn Etchegary sits down with Hillary Black, a conversation designer, marketer, content creator and speaker on all things conversation design. She is a co-founder and head of marketing at Mav, the AI SMS assistant, and the founder of ConversationDesignerJobs.com, the first and only job board created specifically for conversation designers, that uses AI to match candidates with hiring managers based on their unique skills. Before her career in conversation design began, she spent a decade in social media building brands and creating content for companies like Vine, Beats by Dre and the University of Michigan. Hillary is incredibly passionate about supporting and growing the conversation design community, and helping people all over the world become conversation designers, create better bots and get hired!

Episode Summary

• We discuss what a conversational designer is and what role they play in the conversational AI application. As well as where to go to hire the right conversational designer.
• Hillary breaks down how she become a conversational designer and the resources available to help you train your new hires. She also breaks down what backgrounds to look for when hiring for this emerging role and how to be realistic in your job search.
• Jenn and Hillary go over marketing with chatbots and where they are the most effective when you are working with repeated processes.

Episode Highlights

• [00:43] We discuss how Mav is helping other companies with SMS
• [02:50] We discuss how important marketing copy and conversational design is with SMS
• [03:22] We discuss what a conversational designer is and their role
• [04:49] We discuss training a conversational designer
• [07:25] We discuss hiring a conversational designer and what to look for
• [10:32] We discuss tools to help conversation designers check their work
• [11:34] We discuss hiring conversational designers, the roles & the why
• [18:53] We discuss how important it is to provide SMS chatbot marketing
• [21:00] We discuss where chatbots are the most effective
• [23:02] We discuss from a lead standpoint which industries are using leveraging chatbots
• [26:03] We discuss where Hillary sees the future of chatbots and their evaluation

Resource List

Paperbacks:
Conversations with Things: UX Design for Chat and Voice - Rebecca Evanhoe 

Courses:
Voice Tech Global
Conversational Design Institute
UX Writers Collective

Conversational Design Tools:
Facebook Community
Botmock
Botsociety
VoiceFlow

Hiring Tools:
Conversational Design Jobs

Connect with Hillary:
Website
LinkedIn
Twitter
Instagram