Tag Archive for: chatbots

Hot Off the Press: The Chatbot Buyer’s Guide for 2023

By Chris Ezekiel, Founder & CEO

Chatbots and conversational AI have been gaining acceptance as essential pieces of successful customer service and employee support strategies. If your organisation doesn’t have at least one of these solutions already, it’s likely you are planning to deploy one soon or are exploring the possibility of adding one to your 2023 strategy.

Unfortunately, as adoption of this technology is increasing so is the oversaturation of the market with poor performing chatbot products. Now many live chat, CRM, and contact centre vendors are attempting to jump on the conversational AI bandwagon with their own ‘add-on bots’. This is creating both confusion for buyers and a starker divide between vendors selling add-on bots and vendors that are true conversational AI specialists.

What makes a chatbot vendor a conversational AI specialist?

A conversational AI specialist is a vendor whose core product is their conversational AI platform. It’s not just something they have tacked onto another product offering to take advantage of the growing interest in chatbots. They have an established history of delivering successful virtual agent and chatbot solutions.

A conversational AI specialist has a focus on creating successful self-service experiences through tightly integrated and personalised conversational engagement. Their technology uses artificial intelligence (AI) to improve solutions in an accurate, reliable way that gives organisations full control. They are driving conversational AI technology forward with dedicated development teams and innovative deployments.

If a CRM, live chat, or contact centre vendor you are already working with suggests adding their own chatbot to your contract, it can be tempting to quickly accept as an easy way to meet growing demand for self-service. However, it is very important that you take the time to properly evaluate their solution and how it will work for your organisation.

If you are considering the purchase of an add-on bot – or any conversational AI solution, for that matter – you should first ask yourself the following questions:

  • Am I looking for a chatbot that will deliver high rates of self-service resolution and containment to reduce my support costs and alleviate pressure on live agents?
  • Am I looking to deliver a personalised self-service experience that goes beyond just a basic FAQ bot?
  • Am I looking for a platform that fits with a composable business approach and can easily integrate with my current backend systems so I can respond to market changes with agility?
  • Am I looking for a solution that offers me scalability, flexibility, and lots of customisation?
  • Am I looking to deploy a solution that will deliver long-term self-service success?

Did you answer YES to any of these questions? Then you need the brand new Chatbot Buyer’s Guide: Benefits of Collaborating with a Conversational AI Specialist.

This comprehensive 2023 guide takes you through the key differences between a solution from a conversational AI specialist and the most common add-on bots on the market today. It also includes a quick comparison chart to help with your evaluation and purchasing decision.

Unless you’re someone working in the conversational AI space every day, it can be extremely difficult to know exactly what questions to ask when comparing chatbot products. That’s why expert guidance is so important for making a smart purchasing decision. Differences in how AI is implemented, the types of self-service experiences that can be delivered, typical pricing structures, and compatibility with composable business models are just a few of the areas covered by this guide.

Download your copy of The Chatbot Buyer’s Guide for the expert insights you need to get your 2023 conversational AI journey off to a good start. Whether you start by reading the in-depth explanations of each key chatbot capability or immediately jump to the quick comparison chart at the end, this guide will help you create an informed evaluation process for a smart purchasing decision.

If you’re interested in learning more about working with a conversational AI specialist, the experienced team at Creative Virtual is always ready to arrange a live demo and consultation session.

The Chatbot & Virtual Agent Experts Have Spoken: Experience Matters

By Rachel F Freeman, Operations Director & Laura Ludmany, Knowledgebase Engineer

Whitepapers are designed to be plain-speaking and informative documents spanning an array of subjects. At Creative Virtual, whitepapers are not created too often as they hold a special place in our repository of resources since they offer information that stays valid for a much longer time than other documents. We write them as valuable reference points which can be reviewed when required.

We take great pleasure in introducing this newly created whitepaper from Creative Virtual as it has a lot of straight talk about one of our favourite subjects: user experience in the realm of self-help tools. The insight and intel our Guide to Selecting a Virtual Agent or Chatbot Vendor: Forget the Technology & Focus on Experience contains spans the width and breadth of the company: sales, marketing, technical and not least the operations team, some of who contributed by submitting their hottest and most relevant tips.

Where else can you find a paper that consolidates industry understanding and expertise from a group of people with a combined 83 years of experience in a field that has only been viable, commercially, for about the past 20?!

In addition to contributions from both of us, the whitepaper also includes insights from Claudio Chico, Rachael Needham, Len Power, Maria Ward, Rob Foster, Peter Studd, Ridhi Mathur and Mandy Reed. We drew from our extensive experience in the virtual agent and chatbot field to explore six areas of experience that are necessary for success. For example, we touch on the importance of skill in building a strong business case, integrating with other systems and technologies, creating the right user experience and identifying future developments.

We were so glad to contribute to this guide as it really brings the whole team closer to the readers. Having that personal touch makes a difference and helps to make the technology as well as industry jargon and terms more understandable. Having to choose a self-service solution can be a daunting task – there are so many industry-specific, and often even provider-specific expressions (which usually all mean pretty much the same thing!), that during your search, you might just feel even more confused than before you started. Demo calls might have the same effect, especially if you need to pass on the gained information to your team.

It helps to have clear, short and objective guides to help with your selection process – our 7-page long whitepaper is a perfect example of this. AI tools don’t need to be complicated and overwhelming if you go with the right team who can make things simple and easily understandable for you.

For example, we’ve found in our personal experience that as we go through the deployment and content curation processes clients, especially those who are new to self-service solutions, often find somewhat abstract our third area covered in the whitepaper: Experience with building and deploying successful solutions. To them, customer behaviour analysis and conversation flows are mysterious things and so they find it difficult to identify and deliver complex user journeys.

For an experienced virtual agent team, this is a typical case when a picture, or in this instance one demo flow, is worth a thousand words. Once we create a prototype flow for our customers, they are able to visualize their content flows and get quickly into the swing of things, supplying us new journeys and loops proactively. This is the sort of invaluable consultation experience you will receive when you work with the right virtual agent vendor.

The right team will also help you with analysing your virtual agent or chatbot’s usage to help you identify some quick wins. For example, for a new project we’ve been recently working on, our analysis enabled us to suggest creating new structured conversation flows by linking together existing content. This meant the client did not have to provide any new content, yet the user experience and their specific KPIs (key performance indicators) were improved significantly. It is personalised recommendations like this that enable you to get the most from your self-service tool, and that only happens when you work with a provider that builds a close relationship with your company and team.

virtual agent & chatbot guideWe encourage you to take a look at the tips and nuggets of wisdom from a dynamic and accomplished group of people on the Creative Virtual team who know their stuff and are happy to share it. We hope you find it useful as reference as you consider self-help tool options and providers. We may be a little biased, but we firmly believe you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better and well-informed source!

Download your copy of our Guide to Selecting a Virtual Agent or Chatbot Vendor: Forget the Technology & Focus on Experience right now! Don’t forget you can always request more information or your own expert consultation by contacting us here.

Tips for Deploying AI Chatbots & Virtual Agents

By Chris Ezekiel, Founder & CEO

Chatbots, smart help, virtual assistants, virtual agents, conversational AI – there are lots of names for this automated, self-service technology being used today. Regardless of what you call it, the objective for including it as part of your customer service strategy is to deliver quick, easy access to information. How to select and deploy the right technology to do that for your organisation was the focus of the webinar I recently presented with Engage Customer.

In the webinar, Tips for Deploying AI Chatbots & Virtual Agents, I talked about some key questions to keep in mind when adding one of these solutions to your customer experience (CX) strategy. You want to ask: How can I ensure my chatbot or virtual agent is:

  • Providing accurate and personalised information?
  • Creating a positive and seamless experience?
  • Using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in a reliable way?
  • Able to grow and expand with my digital strategy?

Deploying a solution that enables you to integrate with other systems and knowledge repositories is crucial to success. You want a solution that is backed by an orchestration platform that allows you to bring together all of the content sources and manage the natural language processing (NLP), intents and machine learning to keep the conversations flowing in a seamless, personalised way across customer touchpoints. You also want to be learning all the time from these conversations in such a way that the human content owner works alongside the machine learning component to provide the best possible customer experience.

I am a great believer that the best way to really understand the technology and why these questions are so important is to see the technology in action. During the webinar I shared a series of live demonstrations of solutions currently deployed for companies in the telecommunications, financial services and travel sectors. I selected these examples because they showcase how the technology is being used across a variety of customer touchpoints and with various integrations to deliver customised, seamless experiences.

To help companies get started with selecting a new chatbot or virtual agent – or finding a solution to replace a poor performing tool – I ended my presentation with four important tips:

  1. Work with an experienced vendor
  2. Select a reliable technology
  3. Look for flexible integration options
  4. Evaluate the orchestration platform

I went into detail on each of these tips and shared some specific questions to ask during the evaluation process to ensure you are deploying a technology that will work for your specific goals and use cases. It’s important to consider how the solution not only fits with your immediate plans but how it will evolve and grow with your company and strategy.

My thanks to Steve, Katie, Dominic and the entire team at Engage Customer for hosting this webinar! You can watch the webinar recording on-demand to see the demos and find out more about my tips and best practices for deploying AI chabots and virtual agents.

If you want to learn more about Creative Virtual’s experience and technology or are interested in arranging an individual workshop, contact us here. The Creative Virtual team is ready to help you get started on your successful virtual agent strategy.

Fifteen Years & Counting: Navigating the chatbot, virtual agent and AI revolution

By Chris Ezekiel, Founder & CEO

As we celebrate our fifteen year anniversary, I wanted to share with you some of my thoughts on founding and running Creative Virtual.

In those early days, we were focused on winning deals as the plan from the outset was to grow the company organically; although the objective was always to create a global company; so many companies fail or are sold before getting to that point; and it’s a testament to our amazing team, that we have become a global leader. It’s an honour to lead such a great team!

People come and go within organisations of course, and that’s healthy for both the company and the people. However, there becomes a core backbone of people that make up the fabric – the culture – of what Creative Virtual stands for: passion, innovation and quirkiness are at the heart of everything we do. And the people become the DNA and vice-versa.

There’s also ups and downs of course; growing any business isn’t linear! We’ve certainly had our bumps along the way. People often ask me how I make the tough decisions and how I relax. We all have our own ways – for me it’s a recipe of: spending time with friends and loved ones, running, watching West Ham, physics, snowboarding, photography and art.

I took up running about five years ago, and really enjoy the energy it gives me; I find that being in good shape physically makes a big difference mentally. It also allows me to contemplate and to think about things differently. I find doing completely different things – like painting, which I’m absolutely useless at! – really helps one to switch-off from business. And speaking of DNA…West Ham is in my DNA…so there’s no escape from that as any football supporter will know! It’s another great way, for 90+ minutes, to switch-off from everything else! Spending time with friends and loved ones helps me to put things into perspective – as does my love of physics! Snowboarding gives me my adrenalin rush!

I also love travelling around the world and spending time with our people, customers and partners. It’s an absolute joy working with our great people and some of the world’s leading organisations.

We have been fortunate over the years to win many awards, and it’s so delightful when our customers win awards too. Our customer, Transport for New South Wales, won an impressive three awards for their RITA chatbot during 2018! In 2017 we were honoured with The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise: Innovation. I couldn’t be more proud of what our team has achieved, and it was beyond what I had dreamt for Creative Virtual. Going to the Palace and meeting the Queen, Prince Philip and other members of the Royal Family was incredible. And being a five-year award, we celebrate our fifteen year anniversary in its continuing glow.

Having been a leading company in the establishment of the virtual agent market – and developing best practices in terms how virtual agents, live chat, artificial intelligence (AI) and knowledge management work together to create world-class customer experiences – there is still much more to do as organisations transition from the centralised contact centre model to one where the customer is at the centre of the universe. Helping organisations navigate through this has as much to do with the expertise of our people as the actual technology; and with such an experienced and dedicated team I know we are on the right path to remain at the forefront of the chatbot/AI/contact centre revolution!

Being an optimist by nature, my way of keeping my feet on the ground is to keep in mind the words of the late Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”

Here’s to the next fifteen years and the new challenges that lie ahead!

C3 San Francisco 2018: Enabling conversational commerce for customer service

By Mandy Reed, Marketing Manager (Global)

On September 12-13, Opus Research will bring their Conversational Commerce Conference (C3) to the Four Seasons Hotel in San Francisco. Following on from C3 London held in May, the event will explore conversational platforms and how organizations can unlock the power of machine learning, natural language processing and intelligent assistance. The conference features case studies, industry use cases, and a series of interactive, topical panel discussions.

Creative Virtual is a sponsor for C3 San Francisco and will be lending our expertise in building and deploying conversational systems to the conference agenda. Scott Tompkins, VP of Sales, will be an expert speaker on the ‘Achieving the Right Balance in Conversational AI’ panel on Day 2 of the event. This session will address the important discussions organizations must have around human involvement in automated solutions and the best ways to implement machine learning and chatbots.

Members of the Creative Virtual team will also be available at our stand to share live demonstrations and success stories of organizations around the world already using our V-Person™ virtual agents, chatbots, and live chat to optimize their conversational customer care. They will also be discussing tips on building a business case for this technology in your company and best practices for implementing solutions to create seamless omnichannel engagement and build better relationships with customers.

You can find more information about the conference and the full agenda on the C3 San Francisco event website. Also, be sure to follow conference announcements and updates on your social accounts using #C3SF2018.

If you haven’t registered yet and are interested in attending, contact us for a discount code to received $200 off the conference rate. If you aren’t able to be at the event in San Francisco, we’d be happy to arrange a personalized demo at a time that works for you.

A Complete Omnichannel Experience for Those at a Desk and on the Move

By Liam Ryan, Sales Director

In my nearly 11 years with Creative Virtual, I’ve worked with organisations across all sectors looking to implement successful virtual agent solutions and have seen the industry and the technology change massively. As the number of communication channels have grown and customers have become more digitally savvy, virtual agent technology has also become more advanced and sophisticated. Today companies are using these solutions to increase engagement through natural language conversations and are seeing all the usual benefits that you’ve heard associated with chatbots and virtual agents for years – an enhanced user experience, improvement in CSAT scores, reductions in calls to the contact centre and lower customer service costs.

Yet, as I explain in my recent Executive Interview with CRMXchange, the benefits go beyond that with today’s solutions. Chatbots and virtual agents can now provide a complete omnichannel experience for those at a desk and on the move. By being able to linkup channels – web, mobile, Facebook, messenger apps (like Facebook Messenger and WeChat), voice assistants (like Google Home and Amazon Alexa), etc. – companies are benefiting from delivering a consistent, accurate and seamless experience that’s available to customers 24/7.

It’s important that companies looking to implement a virtual agent fully explore the benefits of deploying the solution across multiple contact channels using a single knowledgebase. This then needs to be a central consideration during their selection process. Many virtual agent and chatbot solutions on the market today don’t have this capability which means you end up with a stand-alone tool on a single communication channel and an even more disjointed customer experience.

In my interview I also talk about the benefits of using self-service virtual agents for employee support, particularly for internal service desk and HR support, and how working with an experienced vendor like Creative Virtual can help an organisation get the most from their virtual agent. I discuss why human moderation of the machine learning component of chatbots is essential and the effect the explosion of media hype and buzz around artificial intelligence and chatbots has had on the industry.

Read my full interview for more and request a live demo to see Creative Virtual’s technology in action. My thanks to CRMXchange for the opportunity to participate in their Executive Interview series!

Overcome Language and Culture Barriers with Chatbots

By Philip Chuck, Territory General Manager, Greater China

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to attend the annual Asian Financial Forum (AFF) in Hong Kong with our partner HKT. The forum brought together some of the most influential members of the global financial and business community to discuss developments and trends in the dynamic Asian markets.

The two-day forum featured over 100 international speakers sharing insights into the event theme “Steering Growth and Pioneering Innovation: Asia and Beyond”. On Day 2, HKT sponsored a session on “Business Transformation along Your Belt and Road Journey”. This session discussed megatrends in global business development and how companies can accelerate their growth in overseas and mainland China markets through transformation and the effective use of various infrastructure and ICT services.

Björn Gülsdorff, Creative Virtual’s Chief Business Development Officer, joined me at the forum and gave a presentation on chatbots as part of HKT’s Belt and Road session. I asked him to share his thoughts with me after the event:

The One Belt One Road initiative is one of greatest business initiatives of our time – and as ours is the time of globalisation, that is to say: in all times. In this undertaking, Hong Kong is a central element for all sorts of reasons. So, when entering the plenary hall of the Asia Financial Forum 2018 in HK, I wasn’t surprised to find the stage taken by an executive board member of the German Federal Bank in discussion with Group CEO of HSBC (among others in that league).

The event nicely mixed the big picture with more workshop-type sessions about the very next steps and what this means for the individual business. I think it is fair to say that many companies see a big challenge in this new outward facing and more connected way for China to do business in the world. Being the world’s workbench and garden was much more clear-cut and even easier in a way.

So, we had a packed room and an eager audience in our session on “Business Transformation”. Flanked by two great co-speakers I shared some ideas how virtual assistants and chatbots can help businesses to grow across countries, time zones and languages without jeopardizing their customer communications. Thankfully, I could do this in English (and listen to Chinese speeches), because the organizers provided real time translations via headsets – what a great service! My only “problem” was that I had to scratch the artificial intelligence (AI) part of my speech because Professor Daniela Rus, Director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, had just explained in a key note how much manual work it takes to get machine learning right. Regular readers of our posts will immediately picture me nodding heavily for the entire 45 minutes. What really struck me at this conference, was the nearly unanimous view that technology will be key, but shall support people, not replace them. In short, the financial services sector in this part of the world is ready for virtual assistants and a hybrid approach of human and machine labour.

For me, the forum really showed that chatbots and AI are no longer just areas of study or something for companies to research. In the Finance sector, organisations are now taking action and making this technology a real part of their digital initiatives. Deploying a chatbot in different languages breaks through the barrier of initial customer engagement in doing business in “One Belt One Road” countries.

We are delighted to have engaged HKT as our partner to promote Creative Virtual chatbot solutions in Hong Kong. HKT is one of the largest suppliers of high-end Omnichannel Contact Centre solutions in Hong Kong, where chatbots are increasingly being used for improving customer engagement, and for expediting customer services. Together, HKT and Creative Virtual shall deliver outstanding customer engagement solutions, combining the strengths of both companies. We are looking forward to that.

Our thanks to HKT for inviting us to take part in AFF 2018 and to the event organisers for putting on a great forum. To learn more about how chatbots and virtual agents can help you overcome language barriers and grow your business, request a personalised demo.

Asian Financial Forum

Chatbots in Action – Creative Virtual at CCW 2018

By Björn Gülsdorff, Chief Business Development Officer

The end of February is Call Center World time, Europe’s biggest “international conference and trade show for innovative customer dialogue”, now in its 20th year. (Congratulations!)

Whilst chatbots and artificial intelligence (AI) made it to the stage last year already, they have now become one of the major topics of the show and I am excited to have three speaking slots with our partner sogedes.

Excited and a little bit nervous: Since last year, the AI hype cycle is said to be past the “peak of inflated expectations” and having started the descent into the “trough of disillusionment”. Looking at what some people did promise and how they boasted about the “intelligence” of their solutions, that is a well-deserved set-back, but there is always the risk of an overreactions and buyers turning their back on technology altogether, just because of too high expectations. I will learn it the hard way, I guess, whether they have embraced the pragmatic (and working) hybrid approach already or not. My recent speeches in places as diverse as the Financial Forum in Hong Kong and the Service Desk Forum in Mainz, Germany give me hope, but you never know.

I am also looking forward to CCW 2018 because the world of call centres is comprehensively covered. It is the perfect place to see how virtual agents do (and must) fit into a customer communication strategy, how they can support agents best – “collaborate”, I should say – and which backend systems to integrate with. I’m also interested to hear where newer channels like messenger platforms (such as Facebook Messenger) are fitting into contact centre strategies. Could they be replacing AI as the most hyped topic?

In any case, it will be three challenging and inspiring days (from February 27 to March 1, since you ask) at the booth with sogedes and my colleague Katrin Zieren (Hall 3, Booth E8-E10). I am looking forward to that.

If you’re attending, be sure to catch our “Chatbots in action” presentation on Tuesday, February 27 at 11:30 in Hall 3 – International Plaza. We’ll also be showcasing chatbot solutions on Wednesday at 15:10 and Thursday at 13:00 in Hall 1 – TeleTalk-Demoforum. There’s more information and the full agenda on the CCW 2018 website.

If you can’t attend but want to learn more, request a live demo to see our chatbots in action.

CX in 2018: Digital Transformation Means Combining Humans and Chatbots

By Mandy Reed, Marketing Manager (Global)

For years there was much more talk about digital transformation than any actual changes for many organisations, but that’s starting to change. More and more digital transformation projects are getting off the ground, and 2018 will be an important year for understanding the reality of the changes needed and putting plans into action.

During a recent roundtable event Econsultancy found that for many, digital transformation programmes are all about survival. Organisations are ‘trying to disrupt ourselves before being disrupted by others’. There is a fear of being made obsolete and digital transformation is a way to head off bankruptcy, particularly for those already struggling or less profitable than their competitors.

Yet well-established and profitable organisations are also moving forward with these types of programmes, particularly when it comes to customer experience. In Hong Kong, some of the biggest banks are launching smart chatbots as a way to serve tech-savvy customers as part of their digital transformations. The corporate banking unit of HSBC, Hong Kong’s largest bank by assets, launched the very first chatbot of its kind in the city. Chatbot Amy is an important part of their innovative digital banking experience and allows customers to get answers quickly and easily.

I recently read an article predicting that 2018 will see AI-enable chatbots providing a better customer experience than human-to-human chat exchanges. I would argue that in some cases they already are. While I disagree with the authors on that point, I wholeheartedly agree on their insistence that customer service chatbots should have human ‘escape hatches’ which seamlessly pass users over to a human.

When it comes to customer service and engagement, digital transformation means combining humans and machines. Organisations that ignore the importance of the human element or try to rely on pure artificial intelligence (AI) are going to see their initiatives crash and burn. Chatbots can be brilliant additions to digital engagement strategies but they need to be implemented in the right way and with the right expectations, like HSBC Hong Kong’s Amy.

One thing that has held back digital transformation efforts is coming to grips with the reality of implementing plans, which is often very different than expected. It’s important to work with an experienced, expert team – particularly when it comes to customer service chatbots. Don’t rush to deploy any old chatbot just to be able to say you have one. Be strategic about it as part of your overall digital customer experience transformation. Know how it can best serve your customers and how you want to integrate it with other support options such as live chat. The whitepaper Virtual Agents and Chatbots and Avatars – confusing or what! gives some key features to look for when selecting a chatbot for customer support:

  • Personalisation – Can the chatbot be integrated with personalised account information?
  • Consistency and Accuracy – How will the chatbot help me keep my customer experience consistent and accurate?
  • Seamless Experience – Can I integrate the chatbot with other channels and support options?
  • End-to-End Support Journey – Can the tool bring together virtual and human support channels?

As you embark on new digital transformation initiatives to improve your customer experience this year, ensure that you examine them in context of your overall strategy and customer needs. And don’t overlook the importance of combining humans and machines, live agents and chatbots to best serve your customers and reach your CX goals.

A Look Back: 2017 in Review

By Mandy Reed, Marketing Manager (Global)

The end of 2017 is quickly approaching and so, as has become our tradition, it’s time to take a look back at Creative Virtual’s year. To say this has been an exciting and busy year for us, our customers and our partners would be an understatement! 2017 will go down as one of the most important years in Creative Virtual’s history, so let’s take a look at some of the year’s highlights.

Queens Awards for EnterpriseBy far our biggest company announcement came in April when we were officially recognised as the winner of The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise: Innovation 2017! The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise is the UK’s most prestigious business award for British companies, and we were recognised for innovation for our V-Person™ and V-Portal™ technology. Over the summer, our Founder & CEO, Chris Ezekiel, and CTO, Peter Behrend, attended a Royal Reception at Buckingham Palace for the winners and got to meet Her Majesty the Queen and several other members of the royal family. In September, the company hosted our official award ceremony and celebration, bringing together Creative Virtual team members from around the world, customers, partners and a variety of other guests in London. Mr Leslie Morgan OBE DL, Deputy Lieutenant of Greater London, presented our award on behalf of the Queen, and Jim Fitzpatrick, our local Member of Parliament (MP) for Poplar and Limehouse, also said a few words.

Creative Virtual was recognised by a variety of other awards programmes this year as well, being named ‘Best Customer Service Solutions Provider 2017’, ‘Most Innovative Customer Support Tool: V-Person Live Chat’, and ‘Best Virtual Assistant Solutions Provider 2017’ among others. We were also a proud part of the APPEX Omnichannel Catalyst which took home the Outstanding Performance in the Catalyst Program award at TM Forum Live! 2017.

Two individual members of our UK team were recognised by independent awards programmes this year for their contributions to Creative Virtual. Rachel F Freeman, Operations Director, was a finalist in the Women in IT Excellence Awards in the category of ‘Hero of the Year (SME)’ for demonstrating excellence in her support of others and going beyond the call of duty to achieve a business goal. And I was honoured to be named ‘Best CX Solutions Business Marketer – UK’ in the 2017 Business Woman of the Year Awards for my success in driving brand recognition, thought leadership and lead generation activities. It was certainly a big year for award wins for us as a company and individually!

While we enjoyed celebrating – and walking the red carpet! – this year, we were also busy sponsoring and hosting industry events and delivering thought leadership presentations in 11 different countries – India, the United States, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, France, Luxembourg, Singapore, Germany, Australia and Hungary. Our fifth annual Technology Innovation Showcase webinar (Chatbots, Virtual Agents and Your Contact Centre) with CRMXchange had a record-breaking number of registrations, highlighting the huge surge in interest in chatbots, virtual agents and artificial intelligence (AI). You can still watch that webinar on-demand, as well as our most recent webinar AI, Chatbots & Live Chat: Separating Truth from Myth.

While there has been a marked increase in interest in chatbots and virtual agents this year, there’s also a lot of confusion, unrealistic expectations and false promises being perpetuated in the marketplace. We drew on our expertise to share a realistic view of AI and chatbots in the customer space in our whitepaper AI, Chatbots and Virtual Agents: The Threat to Mankind and the Contact Centre. Founder & CEO Chris similarly tackled this topic in a column for CMRXchange, Are Chatbots, Virtual Agents and Artificial Intelligence Threats to Your Contact Centre?. Chris also shared his expertise in interviews with ReadITQuik and The Wharf Newspaper, and Mike Murphy, CEO of Creative Virtual USA, shared his thoughts on the industry in a CRMXchange Executive Interview. Following on the heels of our launch of V-Person Live Chat last year, early in 2017 we created a new video showing how you can combine self-service virtual agents and human-assisted channels to deliver a fully integrated support experience.

This year we welcomed a number of great organisations to our expanding Global Partner Network. Our V-Person Family continued to grow throughout 2017 with new virtual agent and chatbot deployments across the globe in a variety of languages, and our collaborations with current customers resulted in new features and functionality being added to existing installs. This year Motability Operations’ award-winning ‘Ask Mo’ and National Rail Enquiries popular ‘Ask Lisa’ virtual agents both celebrated their 10th birthdays. REST Industry Super’s virtual agent Roger played a part in two award wins for them this year: ‘Best Innovation Super Feature’ in Money Magazine’s Best of the Best Awards and ‘Best Fund: Innovation 2017’ in the Chant West 2017 Super Fund Awards.

As he does every year, Founder & CEO Chris took the award for most travelling as he once again flew around the world visiting with the Creative Virtual team, partners and customers and taking part in a number of different events. In November, he also added a new job title to his CV, taking on the role of monthly technology columnist with The Wharf Newspaper.

I hope you’ll take a few minutes to check out our 2017 in Review photo album on the Creative Virtual Facebook page. We’ve compiled shots from our official presentations and events as well as our fun group activities and award celebrations – everything from Founder & CEO Chris meeting to Queen to him taking a pie in the face during our fundraising efforts for the RSPCA. There will still be more photos to come, so be sure to like our Facebook page so you don’t miss any.