What are Intelligent virtual agents and how are they impacting the contact centers?

Artificial Intelligence has already found its place in contact centers, assisting the agents. Contact centers have been using chatbots and other AI-driven technologies to ease customer interaction. The pandemic has once again brought the significance of ‘AI in customer interaction’ into the limelight.  With social distancing and remote working, many companies struggled to manage the flow of user calls without sufficient agents. Pandemic increased the crowd of consumers eager to find solutions and book tickets online. It would have been difficult to deal with this noise without getting help from digital intelligent devices like virtual agents and bots. Customers never want to wait through a long queue or keep pressing numbers. AI virtual assistants can make this look easy by sharing the workload and shortening the virtual queue. 

How Can Intelligent Virtual Agents Help?

A survey by Inference,  states that 71% of respondents agreed that intelligent self-service automation helped them remain agile during Covid-19. The same survey states that 34%  of their respondents plan to invest in voice-based virtual agents to improve customer service after the pandemic. 

AI automation has undoubtedly proven beneficial to be resilient in the time of crisis. With embracing the new normal, digital dependency has increased. This will lead to a spike in consumer requests and a self-service trend. People will depend on online services that emphasize personalized customer service. Contact centers can effectively use intelligent virtual agents to alleviate the traffic of calls and requests.

Virtual agents use AI, machine learning, and natural language processing (NLP) to recognize speech and replicate human-like conversations. Contact centers deal with low contact rates when users usually hang up or rate the calls badly. Many raise complaints against the rude approach or behaviour of agents. Intelligent virtual agents (IVA) can be helpful in increasing the ratings with fewer hang-ups and wastage of time. Virtual assistants with a robust knowledge management base will engage with the users which in turn increases the good reviews. 

According to Techhq, “If users add complex conversational flows and backend integrations over time, the virtual agent can handle advanced interactions related to the specific company.” Advanced conversational AI and machine learning enable more interactive virtual agents. Customers tend to approach with various needs like placing orders, tracking them, renewing their bank accounts, or more critical tasks. Interactivity helps in gaining customer trust and support. 

IVA extends the accessibility to 24/7 with reduced operational costs. The current system where people work on shifts to address customer issues can be stopped. Once this happens, it leads to less hiring and hence less labour cost. IVAs are cost-effective methods with maximum ROI. Mckinsey Global Survey 2019 mentions that 44% of companies said the adoption of AI has reduced costs. 

AI virtual assistants take the edge off of live agents while taking up the redundant tasks and sharing the long line of calls. Unlike human agents, virtual machines do not have feelings. This ensures more patience and less frustration from the user’s side. While AI handling the repetitive tasks, live agents can dedicate their time to more complex issues and calls that require empathy. 

Does AI Have a Future In Contact Centers

In one of its blogs, Accenture mentions 4th generation level virtual assistance. This will ensure personalized services adapting to the style of the customer to guide financial needs. AI which can interpret and predict from the customer’s voice. We are not far from here. 

The future of contact centers will have AI virtual assistants, dominating the customer care section. This will enable cost-effective business management with better customer satisfaction.