Tag Archive for: virtual assistant

Conversational Commerce for Demanding APAC Customers

By Philip Chuck, Territory General Manager, Greater China

Effortless, Accurate, Seamless, Effective. When it comes to customer service, this is what customers expect. Yet putting the right technology, process and people in place to delight customers presents challenges for companies. This sparked insightful discussions during the 2017 Hong Kong Call Centre Association (HKCCA) International Symposium on 28 April.

One hot topic was the growth of conversational systems – chatbots and virtual assistants – in Asia Pacific. Creative Virtual Founder & CEO, Chris Ezekiel, addressed this in his presentation titled Taking Your Contact Centre into the Future with EASE. He talked about the changes contact centres need to make to meet customer expectations, including best practices for bringing together chatbots and virtual agents with live chat. He shared live examples of virtual assistants in action and demonstrated how a combination of virtual and real support can benefit both customers and contact centres.

His presentation received a positive response from Symposium attendees. In the region we were seeing the change to self-service happening separately from the contact centre which was creating new challenges for companies. Now contact centre professionals are coming to understand that virtual assistants can work together with contact centre agents. They are seeing the benefits of including these conversational systems as part of their overall customer service plans. APAC customers are increasingly reliant on technology and inclined to integrate digital and physical experiences. Joining together the contact centre with self-service channels is necessary for companies to create delighted, loyal customers.

Another key takeaway from the event was that chatbots are one of the technologies that can be realised early along the road of digitalisation. This is important for companies struggling to move forward with their digital transformation. No matter what industry they are in, organisations are seeing the demand for conversational channels from their customers. Chatbot technology enables them to create digital conversations with customers that are effortless, accurate, seamless and effective.

My thanks to HKCCA for hosting another great event! It was a pleasure to take part alongside our partner company Continuous Technologies International Ltd for a third year.

You can learn more about how virtual assistants can work together with contact centre agents by downloading the guide, The Future of the Contact Centre. If you want to learn how chatbots can help your organisation create conversational commerce, request a live demo.

2017 HKCCA Symposium

From Novelty to Proven Self-Service Tool: Creating the Best Virtual Assistant Solutions

By Chris Ezekiel, Founder & CEO

When I founded Creative Virtual over 13 years ago, virtual assistant and chatbot software was still very much in its infancy. We were a pioneer in the industry and over the years have played a key role in the development and adoption of this technology. It has been exciting to experience first-hand the evolution of these solutions from being considered a novelty in the early days to now being a tried and tested tool employed by large enterprises around the world for providing digital self-service.

Over the years, the ingenuity and dedication of the Creative Virtual team has enabled us to improve the conversational abilities of our V-Person™ virtual agents through advances in natural language processing and AI. We have also kept our finger on the pulse of changing customer expectations and responded with innovations in our technology to allow for flexible back-end integration, easier maintenance and reliable adaptive learning.

Becoming a world leader in virtual assistant and chatbot technology didn’t happen overnight, and is a direct result of the Creative Virtual team’s hard work and innovative thinking. That’s why it is an honour to be named ‘Best Virtual Assistant Solutions Provider 2017’ as part of the 2017 International Software & Cloud Services Awards!

Here are just three reasons why our virtual assistant solutions are recognised as the best in the industry:

  • Our virtual assistants are backed by a knowledge management, workflow management and business intelligence reporting platform, V-Portal™, which is a key differentiator in today’s marketplace. V-Portal provides tightly integrated editing, testing, workflow and reporting functionality to easily manage the flow of content and deployment of virtual agents across contact channels.
  • Our solutions are designed to be complementary to what organisations already have in place, to sit on top of existing infrastructure and integrate with existing systems. This enables companies to create highly personalised virtual conversations quickly and without lengthy or expensive development projects.
  • Our solutions have a proven track record of success and helping our customer organisations reach their customer experience and engagement goals. In fact, our very first customer is still a happy customer today! With proven contact deflection rates of up to 80% and reductions in average call handing time by up to 40% in the contact centre, our solutions are achieving ROI in less than 12 months. Our virtual assistants currently have over 50 million conversations per year, and that number is rapidly growing.

My thanks to the International Software & Cloud Services Awards programme for recognising the hard work and dedication of the Creative Virtual team and naming us the best in the industry!

To see for yourself how our best-in-breed virtual assistants can help you create personalised and seamless support experiences for your customers, request a live demo.

Knowledge Management + Virtual Assistants = Award-Winning Contact Centre Solutions

By Mandy Reed, Marketing Manager (Global)

In 2015 Motability Operations, a long time Creative Virtual customer, was recognised with the Innovation Award for Sustainable Culture as part of the Customer Contact Innovation Awards presented by The Forum. The judges selected Motability Operations because “their approach to knowledge management builds trust and supports effective conversations, getting it ‘right first time’, optimising call length and – above all – helping advisors give customers confidence.”

This year, The Forum has generously invited Creative Virtual to their annual flagship Customer Strategy and Planning conference, which culminates with the Customer Contact Innovation Awards gala dinner. Chris Ezekiel, Founder & CEO, will present a lunchtime showcase to demonstrate the technology behind Motability Operations’ award-winning approach to knowledge management. His session will focus on the powerful uses of combining intelligent virtual assistants with knowledge management and feature several live demonstrations of current customer implementations. He’ll cover breaking down information and departmental silos to create consistency, keeping content accurate with a feedback loop in line with industry best practices, and building confidence with customers while achieving top customer and employee satisfaction scores.

Creative Virtual’s innovative V-Person Contact Centre™ solutions bring together natural language virtual assistant technology with a powerful knowledge management, workflow management and business intelligence reporting platform (V-Portal™). Motability Operations, and their virtual assistant Ask Mo, is a great success story of how this technology can help contact centres reduce agent training times, keep content accurate and consistent, increase first contact resolution and optimise call length.

The Forum’s Customer Strategy and Planning 2016 will be held 25-26 April in Stratford upon Avon. Chris will present his Knowledge Management Showcase on Day 1 of the conference starting at 13:10. Creative Virtual will also be exhibiting and giving individual demonstrations as part of the Conference Expo on both days of the event. More information and the full agenda can be found on The Forum website.

If you aren’t able to attend the conference but would like to learn how the combination of intelligent virtual assistants and knowledge management can help your contact centre achieve success, please request an individual demo.