The Hotel Industry is a Natural Fit for Virtual Agents

By Courtney Schreier, Marketing Manager, Americas

Creative Virtual USA is very excited to announce a new pilot program for a top hotel chain. The chain selected us based on our strong V-Portal™ offerings, which can enhance the customer experience by empowering customers to self-serve from the device of their choosing.

Booking travel arrangements and accommodation has been a continually changing process over the last decade or more. As an example, my parents used to visit a brick and mortar travel agency to get us tickets to visit Disney World. The signs displayed in their windows used to be exotic full color shots of happy families traipsing through sunny and sandy vistas. I passed that same travel agency just the other day and was shocked to see it was still in business – albeit barely. The shop looked defeated, with a window display adorned sparsely with only a school room blue globe sitting forlornly next to a snow globe. Nothing else was displayed. Despite seeing this relic of my former past in such a sad state, it made me realize how much easier things have now become – I can now book everything from the comfort of my own home, perched rather precariously over a laptop with a steaming coffee at 4 AM, debating whether I want Vermont or Jamaica as a travel destination for New Year’s. What I especially love is the ease of it all – the simplicity of self-service. I like getting these things done on my time, not during the restrictive hours of a store, hours that I’m probably working.

From here, the next stop looks simple. Using virtual agents to help with travel seems like a natural fit. I’m excited to think that having an account with one of the top hotel chains will allow me to benefit from personalized help throughout the process, help I can get while travelling, all from the touch of my mobile phone. I am also excited to have a virtual agent assist me with the booking and reservation process, helping me to redeem my reward points and also to help me sort through all the available promotional offers. Booking travel should be as seamless an experience as possible and I personally believe that using a virtual agent creates that optimal customer experience that travelers crave.

Diwali Celebration in Creative Virtual’s India Office – with the Founder & CEO!

By Rajkumar Mehra, Head of V-Portal Development

Sparklers last only a few seconds, but the legend has lived for millennia. After the long war, when Lord Rama returned to Ayodhya, the city was dressed up with lamps and flowers. Diwali marks the return of the king and the Ramayana still remains India’s most enduring legend. Diwali or Deepavali means “row of lamps” in Sanskrit. The festival marks the triumph of light over darkness. Clay lamps, or diyas, traditionally filled with mustard oil, are lit and placed around the entrances to homes and offices on the night before the new moon, which this year was on Thursday, October 23.

The festival of lights reminds us of the festive season of joy, splendour, enthusiasm and happiness. This year it lit up the mood of the members of the Creative Virtual family in India due to the presence and enthusiastic participation of Creative Virtual Founder & CEO Chris and his partner Julie.

The celebration started off with teams enthusiastically decorating their prearranged vicinity; Creative Virtual’s office in Bombay was decorated with lot of energy by the team in a very short time, everything from flower garlands to lanterns to festive lights were used and teams spared no effort to enliven the festive spirit. The workplace was decorated with ribbons, lanterns, balloons and lights.

Diwali BChris and Julie had just returned from their trip to North India (Chandigarh-Amritsar-New Delhi-Agra-Jaipur-Shahpur-Udaipur) and readily came to office in spite of being tired – and dressed up in tradition Indian Kurtas too!!!

Chris shared a lot of anecdotes from the trip, the amazing places they had been to and their experiences with the traditions and local cultures. Chris described the surreal experience he had while visiting the Golden Temple, it was really great of him to take part in certain important rituals as well. Visiting so many different places and interacting with local persons gave them a good glimpse of life in India and they had to say – Incredible India!

Chris and Julie lighted the traditional lamps (diyas) and these were then placed at the entrance of the office – to welcome prosperity in their lives, homes, workplaces! Chris and Julie also lighted a couple of sparklers and really kick-started the celebrations.

Diwali C

Diwali DDuring Diwali, it is customary to give employees sweets and gifts for Diwali – it is considered inauspicious for employees going home empty handed during Diwali. Chris kept the tradition alive and well!

All Creative Virtual employees present in India were given delicious Kaju Katlis and a gift that they can use at their homes and remember as well for a long time. Chris and Julie jointly and very humbly distributed the sweets and gifts to everyone on the team.

This was followed by a relished team lunch, enjoyed by all. Chris and Julie bid good bye to the team and thereafter continued with their last leg of the trip. It was a wonderful celebration and a pleasure to have Chris and Julie join us in the festivities.

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 Happy Diwali!

Creative Virtual Attends First Ever Intelligent Assistants Conference In San Francisco

By Reg Johnson, COO, Creative Virtual USA

Sponsored by Opus Research, the first and groundbreaking Intelligent Assistants Conference was held recently in San Francisco. The conference focused on the technological development of the intelligent assistants and the growing number of enterprises which view intelligent assistant technology as an asset capable of adding meaningful business value.

This one day event in San Francisco featured a diverse group of industry analysts, industry pioneers and case studies presented by Fortune 500 companies which have implemented intelligent assistants and are currently reaping the benefits.

The benefits of intelligent assistants were found to include:

  • Better customer experience across channels
  • Ability to deploy the right solution for digital channels (critical and sometimes a matter of survival)
  • Ability to provide a rewarding self-service experience 24 hours per day
  • More than simply a technology able to deflect questions from live chat agents
  • Ability to access knowledge across the whole company
  • The technology has developed into the mainstream market and is no longer “just for early adopters”
  • Positive customer feedback has led to the Intelligent Assistant being promoted to the front of the support webpage in some organizations

The conference highlighted the importance of creating a world class customer experience, right at the heart of what Creative Virtual strive toward. This is evident in the successful deployments already realized by our clients. Our intelligent virtual agents have been proven to create opportunities for customers to easily self-serve across any channel. V-Portal™, our knowledge management system, is key for many of our clients to achieve great information transfer across a large company, as well as working to integrate with back-end CRM systems. To find out more about V-Portal and how our innovative technology could help your business, contact us for a demo now.

Research Natural Language Help Systems Before You Buy

By Courtney Schreier, Marketing Manager, Americas

Researching extensively online before making a purchase is becoming more and more commonplace. Perhaps you wish to make a small purchase such as the latest bestseller, or a large purchase such as a car.  Comparing several options before making a decision is not only useful but can be viewed instantly at the click of a mouse. Consumers are turning to their peers as well as experts alike in record numbers for objective reviews on a range of items before making a purchase, whether a toaster, a photocopier for the office, or even a gift.

So why should it be any different with a Natural Language Processing (NLP) Help System?

Realistically, it shouldn’t be – although it might be challenging to know where to get started. Creative Virtual has therefore assembled and published a new reference on the website: Purchasing Checklist: Top Five Key Points to Consider Before Purchasing, Implementing and Maintaining a Natural Language Powered Help System. This Purchasing Checklist serves the purpose of outlining the various features of NLP systems, including the functions they excel at and also which functions they are not so suited to.

These guidelines also catalogue what to look for in a vendor of such a system, as well as how to best implement and deploy such a solution. To read the full reference, click here.

As part of our new look, we at Creative Virtual have been excited about sharing more information about our technology. We’ve recently added lots of new reference materials to our website, so that people can easily access and learn more about our solutions. For more information on NLP systems, please contact us.

Victory: Powered by Virtual Assistants

By Courtney Schreier, Marketing Manager, Americas

Creative Virtual has achieved great success with one of our clients, a large US Bank. Our V-Person™solution currently deployed by this enterprise bank has done so well that we have considerably improved upon their customer satisfaction ratings.

Why is that?

  • The V-Person solution has proven itself to be incredibly adaptable to security regulations.
  • Creative Virtual offers advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) help systems that understand complex questions and user intent.
  • The solution has also proven to be scalable enough to handle the volume of conversations from one of the largest US Banks.
  • This virtual assistant now handles more than a million conversations with customers a month.
  • Advanced Voice-of-the-Customer reporting has allowed the bank to manage and handle major customer concerns such as data breach issues in real-time.

This deployment has done so well we have just created a new customer success story for our website.  To read it in full, click here.

Across the globe, Creative Virtual has proven to be a top-tier provider of virtual assistant technology for the financial services industry. Our virtual agents bridge the gap created by traditional banker’s hours, allowing customers omnichannel access to their banks around the clock. To check out one of other virtual agents in action at the Commercial Bank of Dubai, click here.

Please contact us if you are interesting learning more.

What do banks need to know about customer experience in the mobile-first era?

By Courtney Schreier, Marketing Manager, Americas

Last month, Mark Schwanhausser, Director, Omnichannel Financial Services at Javelin Strategy & Research and Richard Simons, CEO of Creative Virtual USA sat down to discuss how changes in technology are changing the way we bank during a webinar hosted by Creative Virtual.

Mark outlined many of the most common reasons customers choose to switch banks, such as excessive fees and unsatisfactory customer services. He also made recommendations advising banks to target particular segments of the population for new products and services based on their high level of engagement with both financial institutions and different digital channels. Mark also asserted the need to move past reactive banking and aim for proactive banking, thus creating a better customer experience for banking customers.

Richard showcased some of Creative Virtual’s own virtual agents, including several which are currently in deployment by financial institutions. What’s especially notable about our virtual assistants is their ability to provide personalized information to customers on authenticated pages. They can also be used to generate more revenue, based on prompting customers about buying things they’ve previously looked at, or based on their current products and services.

To watch the webinar in full, click here.

Providing a Superior Omnichannel Customer Experience with Virtual Assistant Technology

By Chris Ezekiel, Founder & CEO

Happy CX Day! Today we celebrate great customer experience and the professionals who make it happen. A successful omnichannel customer experience strategy requires a combination of a dedicated, knowledgeable team and innovative technology (read more about that here), and it’s great to have a day set aside to bring attention to that.

Last week I presented a webinar titled Providing a Superior Omnichannel Customer Experience with Virtual Assistant Technology as part of CRMXchange’s Technology Innovation Showcase series. As the title suggests, I addressed the many ways in which virtual assistant technology can be, and currently is being, used by organisations to deliver an exceptional anytime, anywhere experience to customers.

After a few slides, I jumped into my live demonstrations as quickly as possible to give attendees a real look at the power of natural language virtual assistant solutions. This technology has evolved into powerful and flexible Smart Help tools which provide accurate and consistent support across contact channels, including web, social, mobile, contact centre and kiosks. With endless options for integration—live chat, call back, community forums, site search, ‘how-to’ videos, real-time data feeds, personal account information—customers receive a seamless, end-to-end experience.

What really sets Creative Virtual’s V-Person™ (virtual assistant) technology apart from other solutions is our bringing together of natural language virtual assistants with knowledge management, workflow management and business intelligence reporting into one powerful platform. This platform, V-Portal™, gives organisations the ability to bring content together in one tool, create and deploy intelligent virtual assistants across contact channels, and gain better insight into customer behaviour with advanced conversational reporting.

My thanks to CRMXchange for hosting this webinar and for having me back as part of the Technology Innovation for a second year! If you missed the live event and want to see V-Person and V-Portal in action, you can view a recording of the webinar here. If you attended the webinar (thank you!) and want to see more of our technology, you can request a live, personalised demo.

Image courtesy of pakorn at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Self-Serve Technology Install includes Integration that Decreases Perceived Customer Effort

By Courtney Schreier, Marketing Manager, Americas

A leading software company is now live with Creative Virtual’s V-Person™ self-serve technology. We are very excited to announce this system install, which includes an integration to a major cloud-based CRM system. This kind of deep integration is something we believe could benefit a wide range of companies, since it would empower their end-users to do so much more on their own, thereby increasing their satisfaction.

By leveraging back-end integration capabilities, our solution now handles more than 65% of trouble ticket volumes for this software company that were previously handled by live resources. This includes checking customer information, validity of license requests and also issuing activation codes. Our solution can also submit tickets for users who are unable to obtain new codes online.

The ability of V-Person to handle more than 65% of trouble tickets is huge. This translates to fast, intelligent and labor-saving solutions for our client. The client is then able to focus their live resources on more complex issues, cutting down on end-user frustrations that previously resulted from a slow turnaround time in getting a response for complicated issues.

This is a fantastic accomplishment for the team at Creative Virtual. This is a really clear demonstration that a fully-integrated V-Person is highly flexible and our natural language processing (NLP) is strong enough to understand customer requests and facilitate back-end processes. As a result, the need for human-to-human contact is eliminated, reserving live interactions for only the most complex of issues. This particular deployment is also key because it showcases our integration capabilities with a cloud-based CRM system. Our solution enables end-users to self-serve online in mere seconds, compared to previous manual processes that took days and as a result, customers perceive much less effort in getting their issues resolved. V-Person provides a smooth customer experience and as part of our available solution packages, is truly the cornerstone in providing smart help.

Intrigued by the idea of a smart help? Please contact us to request a live demo of our technologies.

Next Up: Join Javelin Strategy & Research in a webinar with Creative Virtual USA

By Courtney Schreier, Marketing Manager, Americas

I am excited to announce that on Thursday, September 18th, Javelin Strategy & Research group will join Creative Virtual USA in a webinar specifically geared towards financial services. The webinar will include discussions on how to personalize banking in the mobile-first era and how banks and other financial institutions can become more “proactive,” rather than “reactive” in the way they deal with customers in the era of self-service omnichannel banking.

Mark Schwanhausser, Director of Omnichannel Financial Services of Javelin Strategy & Research will speak with Richard Simons, CEO of Creative Virtual USA during this webinar. Mark will present current trends in smart technology banking, based on the research his firm has developed. Mark will also be offering some new recommendations for how banks can strategically ensure they are getting ROI from their self-service technologies and which segments should be targeted for the most effective and profitable reach in terms of omnichannel banking. Richard will share examples of successful virtual agents deployed by banks all around the world and how Creative Virtual’s technology has allowed banks to provide personalized service to their customers. This webinar will be a great opportunity for the audience to see how virtual agent technology is the perfect solution to many of the challenges posed to banks today based on the ever-changing demands of their customers based on channel preferences, perceived customer effort and receiving answers to their questions in their natural language.

Audience members will also have the opportunity to submit their questions in advance of the webinar. Register here to ensure you don’t miss out on attending this webinar!

Driving Revenues with Virtual Agents: Use Cases and Scenarios

By Courtney Schreier, Marketing Manager, Americas

On July 30th, Creative Virtual USA aired a live webinar entitled “Increasing Revenue with a Virtual Agent.” We were fortunate to have Executive Consultant and Former Gartner Research Director Johan Jacobs as our speaker. Richard Simons, CEO of Creative Virtual USA also joined the webinar to discuss examples of virtual agent use cases. The webinar concluded with a roundtable, which included some questions submitted by registrants beforehand.

Johan discussed three commerce and three support scenarios where virtual agent technology can help to close a sale.

The three commerce scenarios included instances where a VA can reduce abandoned online shopping carts, can optimize live chat support by gathering key customer data and can support an internal agent by gathering and sending appropriate content from a web interaction to a live agent.

Also discussed were support scenarios that can convert to sales with the assistance of virtual agent technology. These included instances of a user with a support need such as increasing their internet speed, which can result in a sale. Another example is driving advertising based on what a customer is asking a VA about, such as credit cards, loans, cable plans, etc. Finally, the support of an internal agent by a VA in a support scenario can also result in the driving of a sale.

Creative Virtual’s V-Person™ technology has successfully allowed some of our clients to increase their revenue streams by some of the aforementioned use cases, especially in the support environment, where a sale is not always a primary factor for deploying a virtual agent.

This webinar is now available for on-demand viewing here.