The Benefits of Internal Virtual Agents

by Jessica Cody, Marketing Manager

Virtual Agents are a great resource for customers, providing excellent customer support as well as marketing products and increasing sales.  But the benefits of a Virtual Agent go beyond customers; they can also serve as a great tool for your company’s employees.  Virtual Agents are being used by many companies for internal purposes, including payroll support and call center assistance.

For a big company with many employees such as Verizon, a central resource for common internal issues saves a lot of steps for employees trying to find answers.  One of these common issues is payroll concerns.  Often times, issues such as these can be resolved easily before a supervisor’s assistance is required.  In 2009, Creative Virtual implemented an internal payroll Virtual Agent for Verizon employees as a go-to resource for anyone that needs payroll support.

The internal system is split up into multiple business units.  Commonly asked questions the payroll Virtual Agent receives include: “How much vacation am I entitled to, and how much have I used?” and “I didn’t receive my paycheck, what should I do?”.

Another excellent internal use for Virtual Agents is call center assistance.  The call center Virtual Agent reduces the number of clicks for the call center agent to find a soluask mo 31tion for the customer.   Content for the call center Virtual Agent can in many cases be duplicated from the customer-facing Virtual Agent, with additional content and further features added to help agents answer callers’ questions.  The benefits of a call center Virtual Agent include:

  1. Speeds up the training process for call center agents.
  2. Decreases average handling time (AHT) for calls and reduces the number of calls per customer.
  3. Uniform support across all channels.

One company that has had much success with utilizing a Virtual Agent in their call center is Motability Operations.  They have implemented 3 versions of their V-Person™ Ask Mo:

  1. One on their website for customers.
  2. One for dealers, providing them with information on cars as well as scooters.
  3. One specifically for their call center, which helps guide their advisors to the right solution for the customer.

With these solutions implemented, Motability has all of their customer relationship management bases covered.