Why a float center requires a highly personal chatbot

The wellness industry has always had an interesting relationship with technology. Consumer products are probably the most obvious example: I’m not the only one with a closet full of formerly cutting-edge exercise devices. (Anyone need a NordicTrack?) Today, I don’t leave home without my Fitbit or my phone, which contains no fewer than seven wellness-related apps. Because wellness regimes are so personal, these tech advancements make it easy for users to tailor health and wellness activities to meet their specific needs.

In the tech world today, chatbots are squarely in the spotlight, establishing themselves as a unique part of the customer experience and enabling all types of businesses to connect with their customers. Some have even gone so far to put apps on notice — citing chatbots’ popularity among teens and what that might mean for the mobile medium “as we know it.”

A big part of that popularity stems from the message-first lifestyle that most consumers under 30 (and many over 30) currently lead. Text and chat are leading forms of interpersonal communication — actually making the job of chatbots easier because it feels so natural.

Perhaps this answers the “why now” surrounding a tech that is a few decades old: Bots no longer feel like a substitute for spoken word. They are the real thing because that’s how we interact with each other today.

For businesses, chatbots are popular because they provide automated personalization and convenience to the customer — two key qualities that any successful engagement program must deliver. Major brands are great at doing this, and many have seven-figure innovation budgets to develop these initiatives. But Main Street doesn’t have that luxury. While most local businesses tend to be really great at customer experience, they often lack mobile/digital prowess.

At Flok, most of the businesses we work with have a similar goal: extend their local flavor into the mobile space without losing anything in translation. This challenge is faced by all, but can be particularly daunting for a specific wellness business: Flotation Centers.

Staying afloat

For the uninitiated, the practice of flotation involves immersing oneself in a warm pool of epsom salts in a sensory-deprivation tank. The environment is designed to look, sound, feel, and smell neutral so that your brain can take a break from the constant barrage of data it handles every day.

Flotation businesses have been gaining traction with consumers over the past few years, in part thanks to public figures like Joe Rogan, Elle Macpherson, and Wayne Rooney citing the practice as helpful for both mental and physical recovery. As a business, float centers are a particularly interesting case for mobile consumer interaction because of how personal and intricate the relationships with the customer can become.

“Flotation is a very personal business. First of all, you’re naked,” explains Kalyn Wolf, owner of Cloud Nine Flotation in Tucson, Arizona. “Today, I’m seeing someone who has been considering a float for a few weeks. She’s claustrophobic, but something is calling her to come here.”

The one-on-one nature of mobile messaging makes perfect sense for such a personal business — and this is a critical aspect to consider when building chatbots for this category. A business that involves this degree of deep customer interaction has a different set of needs than the typical mega gym or fitness studio. Any mobile communication must convey the same sense of trust and support that is such a core part of the business.

And this extends beyond flotation. Most local businesses will tell you the same thing: We’re not the same as the chains. We know our customers’ names, and we want to preserve that as best we can in the mobile-first world.

Flotation center chatbots will need to handle some of the most common questions — like how the water is filtered, how long floats last, or if it’s OK to fall asleep in the tank. But beyond the basics, questions might get more complicated, involving meditation and altered states. At Flok, we handle these intricacies through human-assisted A.I. that essentially puts the bot on the front lines of customer engagement, starting conversations and managing responses, but loops in the business owner/manager (affectionately referred to as “the human”) when the bot doesn’t know the answer.

Overall, Wolf thinks that mobile communication has changed the game not just for float centers, but for all businesses.

“It’s way more structured [today],” she says. “When I started my first float center in 1987, there was no internet. There were no podcasts or spokespersons. Everything we did was TV, radio, and print. The tech was much simpler.”

In the long term, messaging platforms and their bots have the potential to play a browser-like role for consumers in interacting with brands — especially for younger, digitally dependent consumers who view message-first relationships as the norm. For local businesses who make up the backbone of our economy, it’s not something that can be ignored.