What is a Virtual Agent, and How Does it Work?

Introducing virtual agents into the customer service landscape is a great way for businesses to provide excellent customer service and improve customer satisfaction. A virtual agent (also known as an intelligent virtual agent, virtual chat agent, or software program) is a conversational artificial intelligence (AI) technology that utilizes natural language processing (NLP) and natural language understanding (NLU) to answer customer support requests. It is an automated virtual contact center solution designed to interact and respond to customer inquiries in real time, quickly resolving their problems or questions.

What is a Virtual Agent?

A virtual agent is a virtual customer service team that can handle routine customer support requests with the help of machine learning, interactive voice response (IVR), and virtual agent platforms such as Microsoft Teams. It is a computer-generated program that can understand and respond to customer inquiries using natural language (or, in other words, English). This virtual agent can help to streamline customer service activities and increase efficiency by handling routine or repetitive tasks such as tracking orders, providing information about products and services, troubleshooting and resolving customer problems, or answering frequently asked questions.

Benefits of Virtual Agent

Virtual agents’ several benefits make them an attractive solution to customer service organizations. These include:

Cost-effectiveness

Cost-effectiveness is the primary benefit of virtual agents. They can be deployed quickly and often require minimal maintenance so that businesses can avoid the high cost associated with hiring, training, and managing a human agent.

Time-saving

Virtual agents can quickly respond to customer inquiries and provide resolution in real-time, reducing the time customers wait in line for help.

24/7 Availability

Virtual agents can be available 24/7, providing customers immediate assistance even after business hours.

Improved Customer Satisfaction

Virtual agents can help to improve customer satisfaction by quickly resolving customer issues and providing a positive experience.

How Does a Virtual Agent Work?

A virtual agent uses natural language processing (NLP) and natural language understanding (NLU) to interpret customer inquiries and provide an answer. NLP is a branch of artificial intelligence that enables virtual agents to understand and interpret natural language. At the same time, NLU allows virtual agents to comprehend the context of a customer’s request or question.

The virtual agent then uses machine learning and AI technology to identify patterns in customer interactions and generate an appropriate response based on its knowledge. The virtual agent can then provide the customer with an answer or resolution to their request in real time, allowing businesses to provide a more efficient and personalized customer service experience.

Virtual Agent Use Cases

Virtual Agents for Customer Service

Virtual agents can quickly and efficiently handle customer service inquiries such as tracking orders, answering frequently asked questions, providing product information, troubleshooting, and resolving customer problems or complaints. This can help businesses to improve customer satisfaction by quickly responding to inquiries and providing an excellent customer service experience.

Virtual Agents for Sales

Virtual agents can also help increase sales and generate leads by providing customers with personalized product recommendations, virtual shopping assistance, or virtual product tours. This can help businesses to increase customer engagement and improve their bottom line.

Virtual Agents for Marketing Automation

Virtual agents can also be used for marketing automation, allowing businesses to create automated conversations that help to guide customers through the buying process and provide personalized product recommendations. This can help businesses to increase conversions and drive more sales.

Virtual Agents for Employee Support

Finally, virtual agents can assist employees by answering company policy and procedure questions, providing HR support, or helping employees with common tasks. This can help businesses to increase employee productivity and improve the overall efficiency of their workforce.

Setting up a virtual agent

Setting up virtual agents requires businesses to use platforms like Microsoft Teams, Amazon Connect, or Dialogflow. These platforms allow virtual agents to interact with customers using natural language processing and machine learning technology. Businesses can then set up virtual agents to respond to customer inquiries, resolve problems or direct customers to the appropriate human agent.

Training a virtual agent

Once virtual agents have been set up, they must be trained to respond correctly to customer inquiries. Virtual agents can be trained using interactive voice response (IVR) technology, which allows them to understand customer inquiries and respond with the appropriate answer or resolution. Businesses can also use virtual chat agents to assist with customer support requests and to provide virtual agents with additional training.

Testing a virtual agent

Once virtual agents have been trained, businesses should test their virtual agents to ensure they respond correctly and accurately to customer inquiries. Testing virtual agents can be done using virtual customer simulations, which allow businesses to test virtual agent responses in a simulated environment. This can help businesses identify any issues with virtual agent accuracy and ensure that virtual agents provide excellent customer service.

Responding to inquiries across channels

Businesses can also set up virtual agents to respond to customer inquiries across multiple channels, such as social media, web chat, email, or telephone. This can help businesses improve customer service by providing customers with more options for how they communicate with the business and allowing virtual agents to resolve customer issues faster and more efficiently.

In addition to virtual agents, businesses can use intelligent virtual agents that leverage artificial intelligence (AI) technology to understand customer inquiries better and provide more accurate responses. This can help businesses to reduce response times, improve customer satisfaction, and increase conversions.

Deploying a virtual agent

Once virtual agents have been set up, trained, and tested, businesses can deploy them to their contact center or customer support team. This can help businesses to automate customer service tasks and provide virtual agents with the necessary resources to respond to customer inquiries quickly and effectively. This can also help businesses to create virtual agents that can respond to customer inquiries in the same manner as a human agent. Most call centers nowadays look for ways to assist their employees with virtual agents that help with more general, repetitive tasks during calls or chat sessions with clients.

Conclusion

Virtual agents are a powerful tool that can help businesses to provide excellent customer service, automate customer support tasks, and increase conversions. Businesses should consider setting up virtual agents to manage customer inquiries, provide virtual assistance, and respond to customer inquiries across multiple channels. With virtual agents, businesses can provide customers with the same responsiveness and personal attention as human agents while streamlining customer service tasks and improving customer satisfaction.

FAQs

What is a virtual agent?

A virtual agent is a software program that uses natural language understanding and machine learning technology to interact with customers. Virtual agents are designed to respond to customer inquiries and resolve issues quickly and efficiently.

How do virtual agents work?

Virtual agents use natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning algorithms to understand customer inquiries and provide an appropriate response. Virtual agents can also use virtual chat agents to help with customer support requests and intelligent virtual agents that leverage AI technology to provide more accurate responses.

What are virtual agent platforms?

Virtual agent platforms are software programs that enable businesses to create virtual agents for their customer service teams. These virtual agent platforms provide virtual agents with the resources to respond to customer inquiries quickly and accurately and offer additional features such as interactive voice response (IVR) and Microsoft Teams integration.

What are the benefits of virtual agents?

Virtual agents can help businesses to automate customer service agents, provide virtual assistance to customers, and respond to customer inquiries across multiple channels. This can help businesses to reduce response times, improve customer satisfaction, and increase conversions. Additionally, virtual agents can provide customers with the same responsiveness and personal attention as human agents while streamlining customer service tasks.