According to my buddy and fellow author, the marketing cyborgs are coming. Some are already here. But forget those sci-fi images of your marketing robots running amuck, like HAL in Arthur Clarke’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” (“I am afraid I can’t do that direct marketing project, Dave.”).
Don’t fear the robots.
“Typically, many small business leaders are not interested in using marketing robots yet for three reasons: expense, lack of expertise, and a touch of fear,” says author Dana Borowka. “All of these will be overcome. As the price of robots continue to fall and functionality continues to rise, the robot marketing employees are coming. The jump in productivity will demand it."
Dana Borowka is a hiring expert. He says the answer to the lack of expertise and fear problems is to hire the right employees to help manage your marketing robotics.
“Without a doubt, a tough challenge for small business managers with robots will be consistently hiring quality people to take care of the robots,” he says. “These devices will need to be set-up, programmed, monitored and repaired. No benefit comes without a price.”
For full disclosure, I helped Dana and Ellen Borowka edit their new book, Cracking the Business Code. The Borowka's firm, Lighthouse Consulting Services, LLC, provides a variety of services, including in-depth work style assessments for new hires and staff development, team building, interpersonal and communication training, career guidance and transition, conflict management, workshops, and executive and employee coaching. I met them when I helped edit their first book, titled Cracking the Personality Code.
What Exactly Is a Marketing Robot?
The International Organization of Standardization (ISO) sets a standard for what constitutes a robot. ISO defines an industrial robot as being an "automatically controlled, reprogrammable, multipurpose manipulator" that is "programmable in three or more axes."
However, a robot is more than a mere programmable machine like a Mr. Coffee. According to Majid Abai, Chief Sherpa of the IT and robot consulting firm The Abai Group, to qualify as a robot requires a mechanical component and some level of intelligence.
Abai says a true robot includes “the capability to add analysis to its tasks, not just serving as an automatically operated machine that replaces human effort.” Therefore ATM machines are not robots that replace bank tellers, and not because they do not resemble human beings in appearance or perform functions in a humanlike manner. A device that automatically performs complicated and often repetitive tasks is not what Abai would call a robot.
Marketing Jobs for Robots
Robots are best applied in any fixed and repetitive task where the work involved is predictable and routine. The Borowkas predict fast food workers, tax preparers and cashiers soon will be replaced by robots in the future. Here are just four ways small business will use marketing robots:
1. Website Content Creators and Copywriters. The Los Angeles Times uses robots to report on earthquakes: the organization relies on an algorithm that pulls in data on magnitude, place and time from a US Geological Survey site. NPR has reported on the use of robot sportswriters producing coverage of games. According to The Guardian, we here at Forbes.com already use an artificial intelligence platform provided by the technology company Narrative Science to generate automated news from live data sets and content harvested from previous articles.
2. Customer Service and Marketing Reps. Why outsource to India when you can use a home-grown robot instead? Technology companies produce robots to demonstrate new devices or inventions and to create a sense of innovation and progress. Robots are part of interactive displays at trade shows where they compete with more traditional marketing tools for attendees' attention.
3. Call Center Staffers and Outbound Callers. Every business needs some form of telecommunications infrastructure to communicate with suppliers and customers. Robots can simplify a business' call center and handle incoming phone or Internet traffic to keep the phone lines open and running smoothly. Already automated calling robots place prerecorded calls, including appointment reminders and customer satisfaction surveys. Likewise, an automated call center uses a programmable interface to greet callers and direct them to the appropriate information or department.
4. Trade Show Entertainers and Performers. Another class of robots used in marketing are those that entertain audiences, like at a trade show. Robots and robotic displays already appear in storefronts, in theme park attractions and in television and film programs. Some of these robots are skillfully crafted to resemble real people while others represent fantasy figures or mechanical robots from a fictional world.
How to Hire the Right Robot Handlers
Hiring the wrong people to handle the robots will create many problems: reduced time to market, a loss of market share, higher turnover rates among productive marketing humans on the payroll, lost management time, lost customers to the competition and the tremendous opportunity cost of unmet sales goals.
To improve any hiring decision, the Borowkas preach that companies need to crack the personality code by using robust personality testing.
“Personality tests are a standard recruiting practice for many branches of the government and military, as well as many Fortune 500 companies when assessing potential hires for key or critical positions,” says Dana Bowroka. “This is not guesswork or an untested science.”
The Borowkas advise when hiring robot handlers to cultivate top performers through a three-step process: assess candidates with an in-depth work style and personality assessments, screen candidates for behavioral tendencies, and manage more effectively based on behavioral styles.
“The goal is to base your hiring and managing decisions on the best data that can be collected about the best personalities to work with the robots,” says Dana Borowka. “The same you do for any employee.”
