Employee Engagement Remains a Top Priority Alongside Customer Engagement for 2019

By Liam Ryan, Sales Director

Welcoming a new year often goes along with an ‘out with the old, in with the new’ mindset, but two things that are staying hot on companies’ 2019 agendas are customer engagement and employee engagement. This was glaringly obvious at the recent AI & Robotics Directors’ Forum: AI Enhancing Customer & Employee Engagement. From the delicious smoked salmon and cheese bagels served for breakfast to the final moments of the drinks reception at the end of the day, the event highlighted companies’ increased focus on improving engagement across the board.

Customer experience and engagement has been a top priority for most organisations for years, but improving employee engagement is a more recent addition to agendas. Organisations are coming to understand the benefits of providing better and easier support for employees. They are also coming to understand that many of the same digital tools, such as chatbots and virtual agents, that they are utilising to improve their customer experience can also be leveraged to improve their employee experience.

The event agenda featured presentations and panel discussions focused around practical uses of artificial intelligence (AI) in the customer and employee engagement spaces. I was joined at the event by Chris Ezekiel, Founder & CEO, who presented a morning session titled ‘Taking Engagement to the Next Level: Conversational AI for customers & employees’. He shared some insights into the expectations of customers and employees and then took an in-depth look at how organisations can bring everything together to centrally control a consistent, convenient and efficient experience for both customers and employees.

Using a single orchestration platform enables you to deliver consistent information and support across touchpoints and allows you to more easily engage users on the devices, channels and apps they are already using in their everyday lives through chatbots, virtual agents and live chat. For conversational AI to be effective, it must use a hybrid approach of machine learning and human input. The orchestration platform you put in place must allow you to manage that combination of humans and AI so you can deliver the best experience to users and maximise on your investments.

During his session, Chris shared a few live demonstrations to illustrate industry best practices. The best way to really understand how this all comes together is to see it in action, so if you weren’t at the event I encourage you to request a demo. Our team is always happy to arrange a time that works with your schedule so you can experience the ways conversational AI can help you improve your customer and employee engagement.

Our thanks to the AI & Robotics Directors’ Forum organisers for inviting Creative Virtual to take part in your last event of the year!

The Numbers Don’t Lie: An interesting evening with the Tech Track 100

By Rachel Freeman, Operations Director

Creative Virtual has been receiving a lot of accolades in the past few years and the challenge for a blog post is what to say to make each new title or award stand alone and special. We never want to be complacent, but our readers may be a little tired of hearing all the good news – or not?!

Making it onto The Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100 list at 72 was an honour simply because the numbers don’t lie and there is no judging panel doing the placements. The league table ranks Britain’s 100 private technology companies with the fastest-growing sales over their latest three years.

The Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100The 2018 Tech Track list was published in September – read our official announcement here – but attending the awards ceremony was an added wow factor. The event was hosted at The Brewery in London on 6th November and had 294 guests in attendance from the 100 featured companies and sponsors.

Myself, Chris Ezekiel (Founder & CEO) and Peter Behrend (CTO) were in attendance together, but once the canapes were scoffed and a group photo of us taken, we were seated at separate tables with the objective to get all attendees to mingle and learn more about the 100 companies on the list by sitting and speaking to different representatives.

People at my table represented various sectors including trucking, AI (that would be us!), HR incentive packages, insurance, bill paying and venture capitalists. The mood at the event was tingling with drive and achievement and it was a buzz to sit amongst such a varied group of companies – ranging from the altruistic helping people with diabetes to devising ways to make hair removal simpler!

The speakers were interesting and luckily didn’t drag on; the food was noticeably absent of rubber chicken which meant that dinner was quite tasty. Advice from the speakers was offered including: always listen to your customer, ask probing questions, put in the hard graft, don’t give up on your idea and be prepared for the unexpected. The Founder of Candy Crush (a former Tech Track list member before going public) was amongst the speakers, and I found it interesting to hear how unprepared they were for the success that came to them after several years of being on the brink of closure.

Had there been time to sit amongst all 32 tables in the room, I’ve no doubt there would be a cartful of stories and advice and impressive tales of success. The time that we did have was fruitful and dare I say a bit fun if not definitively interesting. It’s a recognition that differs from the others in that the numbers put us on the list and we are then given the opportunity to shine and explain our story… our story is also a great one and whilst three of us were there at the event, we were representing the strong team behind us across the globe.

Integrating the Right Customer Experience Technologies

By Liam Ryan, Sales Director

It’s impossible to talk about customer experience without also talking about technology. Companies and brands are looking to provide a complete omnichannel experience for those at a desk and on the move, deliver quality service and support to digitally-savvy customers and remain competitive as a growing number of contact channels gain popularity among consumers. All of those goals involve not only implementing, but also integrating the right customer experience (CX) technologies.

Earlier this month I attended CXtech, a new technology conference and showcase focused on what’s new, what’s working and what’s coming next in CX technologies. One major theme that came up repeatedly during presentations and my discussions with other attendees was that the truth about artificial intelligence (AI) is now been revealed after all the hype, myths and unrealistic claims. The CX industry is coming together in agreement that a hybrid approach is best – using a combination of AI and humans to deliver the best experience for customers. This is the approach we’ve always taken at Creative Virtual, and one that we’ve seen industry analysts and experts talking about more and more recently.

CXtech Chris EzekielChris Ezekiel, Founder & CEO, joined me at the event and presented as part of the ‘Digital Automation, Chatbots and Virtual Assistants’ stream. His session, Digital CX & the contact centre: AI, chatbots, live chat & knowledge management, was well-received by attendees. He talked about the essential components of AI-driven digital transformation in the contact centre and then showed them how organisations are already using our CX technologies through a series of live demonstrations, including one of our customer chatbots working on Amazon Alexa. It’s one thing to listen to someone talking about the possibilities of the technology; it’s another to actually see and experience the solutions working and delivering on those promises.

We had a mix of people from different areas of organisations – the contact centre, digital CX, marketing, etc. – stop by the Creative Virtual stand throughout the day, some expressing that Chris’ presentation showcased ‘exactly what we are looking for’. There was lots of interest in discussing how to support customers on social media and messenger apps like Facebook Messenger. I also spoke with attendees from organisations that aren’t part of the industries we typically see at these types of events, such as public and emergency services. This reflects the change we’re seeing in the CX market as a wider range of industries are feeling the pressures of cultural and digital changes.

Our thanks to the CXtech organisers for putting together a successful event. It was a day of great presentations and insightful discussions, and I especially enjoyed the salmon at lunch!

If you’re interested in learning more about AI-driven transformation in the contact centre, download our latest whitepaper A Chatbot for Your Contact Centre.

And if you’d like to see our chatbot, virtual agent and live chat solutions in action, be sure to request a live demo to arrange a personalised demonstration.

CXtech: Exploring Technologies that are Transforming Customer Experience

By Mandy Reed, Marketing Manager (Global)

CXtech, a new technology conference and showcase, is coming to London on 12 October. Co-located with AI & Robotics: The Main Event, CXtech will explore what’s new, what’s working and what’s coming next in customer experience (CX) technologies as companies are connecting with customers like never before. Previously a sponsor of the AI & Robotics event, Creative Virtual is pleased to be a partner for CXtech this year.

The event brings together thought leadership, innovation and current case studies covering a wide range of CX technologies. In addition to presentations from expert speakers, attendees will also have opportunities to take part in networking sessions and visit the Solutions Showcase to see demonstrations of CX solutions.

Chris Ezekiel, Founder & CEO of Creative Virtual, is one of the expert speaker at the event, presenting as part of the ‘Digital Automation, Chatbots and Virtual Assistants’ stream. His session, Digital CX & the contact centre: AI, chatbots, live chat & knowledge management, will address the essential components of AI-driven digital transformation in the contact centre. Chris will share live demonstrations of chatbot and live chat implementations and discuss industry best practices for implementing successful digital CX initiatives.

The Creative Virtual team will also take part in the Solutions Showcase, providing live demonstrations of our award-winning chatbot, virtual agent, live chat and knowledge management solutions. Be sure to stop by to see some of our current implementations in action and learn how we are helping brands implement these solutions to create seamless omnichannel engagement. We’ll also be sharing tips to help you build a business case for these CX technologies in your organisation.

You can find more information about CXtech and the full conference programme on the CXtech website. If you haven’t registered yet, be sure to use our promotional code CV295 to receive a £300 discount off the price of a single ticket.

If you aren’t able to attend the event in London but want to learn more, we’d love to arrange a personalised demo at a time that works for you.

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.

Showcasing the Perfect CX Power Couple: Humans & AI

By Mandy Reed, Marketing Manager (Global)

Move over Beyoncé and Jay-Z, George and Amal, Will and Jada. There’s a new power couple in town: Humans and Artificial Intelligence. While you’re not going to see them on the cover of a celebrity gossip magazine or walking the red carpet at a Hollywood premiere, the combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and humans is already making a mark on the world of customer experience (CX).

With the growing emphasis customers are placing on CX when making purchasing decisions and the growing challenge companies are facing when delivering service and support on more contact channels than ever before, this powerful new approach has arrived on the scene at just the right time. Humans and AI make the perfect power couple for meeting CX expectations – they both bring something to the table, learn from each other, support one another and build together.

On Thursday, 6 September Chris Ezekiel, Creative Virtual’s Founder & CEO, will feature the combination of AI and human input during the company’s sixth annual CRMXchange Technology Innovation Showcase webinar. He’ll give an inside look at bringing together humans and AI to provide quality self-service options, improve live chat and contact centre performance, and increase customer satisfaction scores. Through a series of live demonstrations, attendees will learn:

  • Best practices for implementing chatbots, virtual agents, and live chat to provide accurate and seamless omnichannel engagement
  • The benefits of centralising knowledge management and using a single orchestration platform to deliver consistent support across contact channels
  • Ways to leverage a hybrid of machine learning and human curation of content to reduce support costs while improving conversational engagement

Register now for Humans & AI: The Perfect CX Power Couple to see how organisations around the globe are already using the combination of humans and AI to provide successful customer service and how your organisation can leverage this new power couple to deliver a positive CX. Not able to make the live webcast? Don’t worry! A recording of the Tech Showcase will be sent to all registrants after the event.

Using Artificial Intelligence to Build Better Relationships with Customers

By Chris Ezekiel, Founder & CEO

The buzz and hype around all things artificial intelligence (AI) is pretty amazing as I’m sure you’ll all agree. It’s important for organisations to go beyond that buzz and really understand how AI can help them reach their business goals. CRMXchange’s recent Tech Tank roundtable webinar, Artificial Intelligence in the Contact Center, dug into this topic with industry research and live demonstrations. I was pleased to be able to join the expert panel and share insights into this topic.

During my presentation I shared how chatbots, people and AI are being used across organisations to create a seamless customer experience. The contact centre needs to be at the heart of these digital transformation projects. We’re in a world where knowledge management and how we learn from the way people interact with that knowledge is absolutely key. It’s a world where humans and machines work together, creating a hybrid of human curation and machine learning to support customers. This approach is being seen as best practice by industry analysts and consultants.

For some time now, we’ve been learning about how customer experience is a key differentiator in the marketplace. Recent research shows that the customer experience is still growing in importance for consumers when it comes to making their purchasing decisions. Industry experts are predicting a significant increase over the next two years in customer service and support operations integrating virtual agents and chatbots across engagement channels to help improve their customer experience.

With this in mind, where should your contact centre focus? During the webinar, I summarised three key areas:

  • Centralising knowledge management – Knowledge management is very important, and you need to ensure this integrates from a workflow perspective with all of the ways your organisation learns and delivers information. This creates enormous benefits in terms of efficiency, accuracy and consistency. Knowledge is always up-to-date with this approach and becomes a single point of truth.
  • Integrating chatbots and live agents – This creates a seamless customer experience, with humans and machines working in harmony. I showed this in action during my live demos.
  • Combining AI and human input – We’ve all seen the potential disaster if AI is left on its own to provide customer service. An infamous case is Microsoft’s chatbot that became sexist and racist as it learned from the way people were interacting with it. It’s important that the system you implement enables human moderation of the machine learning component.

What does all this mean for your contact centre? It allows agents to really concentrate on the more complex issues and move their focus from trying to retain knowledge to building better relationships with your customers. Your contact centre benefits from lower costs, reduced staff turnover and more engaged, skilled and happier agents.

If you weren’t able to attend the live webcast, I encourage to watch the Tech Tank recording on-demand to see my live demos of chatbots and live chat. The Creative Virtual team would also love to give you a personalised demo to show how this technology can help your organisation improve your contact centre performance and customer experience.

My thanks to Sheri Greenhaus and CRMXchange for hosting the webinar and to the other expert presenters from NICE Nexidia and CallMiner.

Training for the Virgin Sport 10k for RSPCA

By Maria Ward, Account Manager/ Knowledgebase Engineer

On Sunday, 15 July 2018 I’ll be joining nine other runners from Creative Virtual – Rachel, Andre, Dinah, David, Chloe, Tracey, Emma, Chris and Steve – for the Virgin Sport Westminster 10k. We’re running to raise money for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA). I trained for and ran the London Marathon on 22 April, so you would think that the 10k distance would not be an issue. Wrong!!!

Excuse Number 1: I suffered quite badly with blisters, the worst of which was the size of a planet (a small planet, you understand – like Pluto rather than Jupiter) on the ball of my foot! Walking was excruciating for many days let alone running!

Excuse Number 2: A two-week holiday and all the excesses that accompany it, and only two pitiful runs (during which my planet-sized blister re-opened) left me a good few pounds heavier and with considerably reduced fitness level.

Excuse Number 3: Post holiday blues led to post holiday binge-eating.

But enough of the excuses! The first few post marathon/ holiday runs have been hard. Legs so heavy it felt like gravity had been turned up a notch. Lungs struggling to supply my muscles with oxygen. Every step a thud and no bounce in sight.

10k for RSPCAWith just over a month to go, my foot is allowing me to run up to around 5 miles. I am now going to concentrate on trying to get that spring back in my feet in the hope that I can get somewhere close to my 10k personal best on race day. The rest of the team are stepping up their training too, going for group runs after work when possible, and we’re all reporting our progress on our group chat.

As for the fundraising, I have put some of my weird doodles up for sale (and some people have actually bought a couple!). We’re also selling old monitors from the office with all the proceeds going towards the RSPCA and using cute pictures of puppies to encourage our friends and family to donate.

This is the fourth time a group of Creative Virtual runners are doing a 10k in support of the RSPCA, and we’re excited to be raising money for such a worthy cause. You can sponsor us through our team JustGiving page or, if you’re in the UK, text CVUK55 with an amount of £1, £2, £3, £4, £5 or £10 to 70070.

C3 London 2018: Redefining customer care with conversational commerce

By Mandy Reed, Marketing Manager (Global)

On 8-9 May Opus Research will bring their Conversational Commerce Conference (C3) to London. Replacing the Intelligent Assistants Conference held the previous two years, this new event will explore conversational platforms and how organisations can unlock the power of machine learning, natural language processing and intelligent assistance. The conference features interactive panel discussions, industry case studies and networking opportunities.

Coined by Opus Research years ago, the term ‘conversational commerce’ has never been more important in the customer experience space than it is in 2018. Organisations are tackling the challenge of creating conversational engagement with digital customers across a wide range of contact channels. Advancements in chatbots and virtual agents have opened up powerful opportunities for using these tools to create conversations with customers.

Creative Virtual is sponsoring C3 London and lending our expertise in delivering intelligent conversational systems to the conference agenda. Rachel F Freeman, Operations Director, will be an expert speaker on the Demystifying AI – Enterprise Strategies for Digital Self-Service panel on Day 1 of the event. Having first entered the virtual agent and chatbot industry in 2000, Rachel will draw from her extensive experience building and implementing these solutions for organisations to discuss realistic expectations for artificial intelligence in the customer service space.

At the Creative Virtual stand, our team will be on hand to share live demos and success stories of organisations around the world already using our V-Person™ virtual agents, chatbots and live chat to deliver conversational customer care. Also stop by for insights and tips on building a business case for the technology in your organisation and how to approach implementing these solutions to create seamless omnichannel engagement.

You can find more information about the conference and the full agenda on the C3 London event website. Be sure to follow conference announcements and updates using #C3London.

If you haven’t registered yet and are interested in attending, contact us for a discount code to receive £200 off the conference rate.  And if you aren’t able to be at the event in London, we’d love to arrange a personalised demo at a time that works for you.

Mad Dogs and English People Go Out in the Noonday Sun… (and then some!)

By Rachel Freeman, Operations Director

Even 3 full days after London’s “hottest” marathon on record all of our legs still ache a tad. We’re part of those 40,000+ special (stupid?) runners who braved the heat and intense sunshine to conquer 26.2 miles.

Myself, Chris Ezekiel and Maria Ward were at the start line in Greenwich on April 22nd with varying expectations and high hopes for raising money for our selected charities. Whilst our virtual agents speak on behalf of their “owners”, I will not speak for my colleagues apart from that they ran superb runs in adverse conditions and raised money for Jewish Care and Marie Curie Hospice respectively. They both achieved personal bests at 3.43 and 4.04 and deserve a lot of kudos.

I am made of lesser athletic stuff and whilst I intended to simply “sub-5” and raise money for the RNIB (Royal National Institute of Blind People), the heat got the better of me and my keen sense of self-preservation kicked-in advising myself to walk/run after mile 13 as I felt as if I would faint soon after Tower Bridge. I “achieved” a PW (personal worst) at 5.30 but was delighted to have finished with a smile on my face and feeling fine – bar one blood blister and a bit of chafing on the arms due to the charity vest.

RNIB London MarathonThe atmosphere was wonderful – people lined most of the streets screaming our names as seen ironed on our vests. It was a perfect day to be a spectator – but not as optimal for the runners. Water stations were often jammed and I took full advantage of every shower and hose pointing our way. I’ve never had as much to drink at any race!

The route took us right through Canary Wharf and familiar territory for Creative Virtual marathoners due to various regular routes we took on post-work runs. I wasn’t exactly tempted to take a detour and visit the office, but I did give the office a thought as I ran down Cabot Square. We each had our own sights of crazy costumes but the ones notable to me were a suit of armour, several rhinos, a woman on stilts and a man dressed in full Victorian garb.

We all did it! The times varied widely but we all shared a commitment to finish and raise funds which was well accomplished. Yet… there is no rest for the wicked and trainer lacing starts again soon:

On July 15th, Chris, Maria and myself will join 7 more Creative Virtual team members (Andre, Dinah, David, Chloe, Tracey, Emma and Steve) to run the Virgin Sport British 10K through the centre of London in support of the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) – one of our favourite charities.

10K QuarkWe aim to raise £1,000 and hit the London streets that are so much a part of the soul of Creative Virtual HQ. This will be the fourth time a team of runners from Creative Virtual will take part in a 10k to raise money for the RSPCA.

Stay tuned for training and fundraising updates. You can sponsor us through our team JustGiving page or, if you’re in the UK, text CVUK55 and an amount of £1, £2, £3, £4, £5 or £10 to 70070.

Congratulations again to Maria and Chris on their impressive marathon runs and a big thank you to everyone who sponsored and supported me. I’m excited to turn my attention to the 10k in July. Go Team Animal!