Forrester Blogs » Category: virtual agents

Selecting The Right Virtual Agent Vendor For Your eBusiness

Posted by Diane Clarkson on the eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals Blog on November 18, 2011

Blog post info and actions

Blog post body

Diane Clarkson

What do Aetna, the US Army, L’Oreal, and the London 2012 Olympic Games have in common? Each of these diverse organizations has deployed a virtual agent.

Virtual agents are software services that provide automated assistance by simulating a two-way conversation with customers. And they have come a long way from Clippy the dancing paper clip. The technology has demonstrated its ability to achieve business benefits, including improving efficiencies by deflecting calls to the contact center, managing initial customer contact by collecting information to populate a service ticket, and heightening the efficiency of contact reps when a case is escalated to live help

Selecting the right virtual agent vendor can be a complex undertaking because it can have an impact on multiple functional areas, including eBusiness, business processes, IT, customer experience, and, potentially, legal and governance.

To help navigate this process, we have published a new report, Five Essential eBusiness Criteria For A Successful Virtual Agent Vendor Selection.

Unlike traditional keyword search, which focuses on words or word patterns, virtual agents use some form of natural language processing (NLP) that derives intent by utilizing complex algorithms. 

One of the questions that I am most commonly asked by eBusiness professionals is how to assess how well a virtual agent understands conversation. 

Read more

Categories:

What Should A Virtual Agent Look Like?

Posted by Diane Clarkson on the eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals Blog on March 9, 2011

Blog post info and actions

Blog post body

Diane Clarkson

Not all companies that offer a virtual agent elect to have an avatar. However, many companies choose to make cartoon, 2D or 3D renderings of a human to personalize the experience, support the brand, and reinforce the conversational nature of the interaction.

 But what should an avatar look like? Here are some considerations for eBusiness professionals who are designing a virtual agent avatar. Your avatar should:

  • Resonate with your audience. Pam Kosta, CMO at VirtuOz advises, “It’s key to make the user feel like this is someone they can get help from.” Marketing & Creative Services Manager at Next IT Jennifer Snell agrees, “When it gets right down to it, if your consumers don’t like it, they aren’t going to trust it or use it.” Here are two examples of avatars designed to appeal to their respective audiences: The Army’s “SGT STAR,” which reaches 18- to 22-year-old potential Army recruits, is a 3-D animation while AT&T’s “Charlie” looks warm and caring, with a vague ethnicity and age to appeal to a broader demographic base.
  • Have a look that reflects your brand. Sometimes a company has a prominent brand persona like the Michelin Man. Though less common, others may take elements from their logo. Most frequently, brand will influence what an avatar is wearing, hair style, etc. For example, a brand appealing to a younger segment should choose edgier clothing, while a conservative brand should dress its avatar in a more button-down fashion. eGain suggests companies model their avatars after their spokesperson in other media.
Read more

Categories:

Is A Virtual Agent Right For Your Web Site?

Posted by Diane Clarkson on the eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals Blog on August 30, 2010

Blog post info and actions

Blog post body

Diane Clarkson

One of the questions I'm frequently asked by clients is if virtual agents are a good idea. Many of us have had frustrating interactive agent experiences over the years (recall Clippy, Microsoft’s animated paperclip that launched a thousand parodies).

Times have changed, and I think virtual agents are worth taking a look at. Today’s virtual agents can guide consumers through your Web site while answering questions effectively and conversationally. 

As virtual agent technology continues to become more sophisticated — features such as integrating with enterprise systems like shipping and delivery or CRM availability on mobile devices — virtual agents will continue to take on more complex customer service issues.

One of the benefits that I think is really compelling is that if a consumer escalates to live help, the transcript is pushed to the call rep, reducing call resolution times and sparing customers the annoyance of having to start from the beginning to explain their problem.

These features matter for many reasons. Here are two big ones.

Read more

Categories:

Do Your Customers Want To Telephone You For Service?

Posted by Diane Clarkson on the eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals Blog on April 6, 2010

Blog post info and actions

Blog post body

Diane Clarkson

I was speaking with clients today about their views on telephone customer service. One believed that his customers liked calling the call center to solve problems with a “human touch”. His colleague countered that telephone customer service is simply too expensive to be giving away that “human touch”.

I think they are both correct. And they are both incorrect. Why? Because I believe one of the most common customer servicve misperceptions is that customers prefer to telephone you.

It’s true that the most commonly used customer service channel is the telephone. According to Forrester’s North American Technographics Customer Experience Online Survey, Q4 2009, 69% of online consumers used the telephone to speak with a customer service agent (followed by 55% who emailed customer service and 55% who used a company’s Help or FAQ section.)

It’s also true that telephone customer service has the highest satisfaction compared to other online customer service channels, at 69%. Only 60% of people who used email for customer service were satisfied and 56% of those who used Help or FAQ’s.

These are compelling numbers. But do they mean that people want to call? Or do these numbers mean that alternative online customer service channels are absent or lackluster?

Here is another compelling number: 72% of US online consumers prefer to use a company's Web site to get answers to their questions rather than contact companies via telephone or email; roughly half this group strongly prefers self-reliance.

Read more

Categories: