Virtual assistants – a new phase of customer experience
The Digital era compels many companies to maintain continuous connections with their customers until the resolution of their queries or issues. As a result, with customer service as a top priority, the ideal customer experience allows consumers to communicate via the channel of their choosing while keeping the context of interactions intact. A limitless firm has a new operating system that incorporates a shift in thinking as well as the increased embrace of emerging technology. The conventional tethered and physical workflow is morphing into interactive customer communications through various digital channels.
The role of virtual assistants (VA) is developing as businesses adapt to the Omni Channel experience which is increasingly being expected by their end customers. Though VA first appeared in the 1960s with ELIZA and IBM’s Shoebox voice-activated calculators, this technology is now emerging as the go-to solution in the realm of customer experience.
Virtual assistant application
A traditional VA may be conceived of as an application that responds to a user’s voice or text command and does the work at hand. Emerging VA, on the other hand, are programs that integrate the use of artificial intelligence, robotic process automation, natural language processing, and machine learning to extract information and complicated data from conversations in order to comprehend and process them.
Structured data with standardized rules can easily adapt to RPA solutions whereas unstructured data with less application of standardization utilized Cognitive automation, a VA is a next-level combo that can extract information and complicated data from a conversation using a voice and text-based interface.
VA algorithms develop the capacity to construct data models that detect and adapt behavior patterns by merging past data. With the inclusion of historical data, preferences, and other user information on a regular basis, a VA can answer difficult queries, offer suggestions and predictions, and even start a discussion.
Pre-programmed VA, which are more rule-based, with logic mapped out with a logical next step for various answers users might ask, are giving way to more complex and dynamic AI virtual assistant, which can be divided into two categories: NLP virtual assistants and machine learning virtual assistants. As a result, VAs are becoming smarter by ditching automated chats and becoming more participatory, as seen by one of the most popular products on the market, Google Home, which knows each user’s voice and issues a secure ID to each. The trend is also emerging to integrate different VA, which can provide enhanced functionality to consumers and end-users.
However, there are certain privacy issues with AI-enabled VA that gather and retain user data indefinitely for better upgrades and user experience; this may be mitigated with strict data privacy rules from the corporations that provide this technology. After all, technology is a double-edged weapon that must be handled with caution.
Virtual assistant as a new colleague
VAs have a chance to build a new digital workforce that will supplement human talents while also benefiting B2C and B2B-end customers. VA technology may be efficiently applied to external customer-facing use-cases using Conversational AI and cloud-enabled services, assisting enterprises in meeting the demands of digital natives and growing omnichannel digital contact with Omnichannel digital VAs.
At the same time, with employee experience also becoming increasingly important in the delivery of holistic Total Stakeholder Experience, VAs are playing an increasingly important role in enabling employees to perform their tasks with much more accuracy, speed, and efficiency. These assistants are used in a variety of formats including conversational text, guidance coaches, and even as “co-listeners” to a voice conversation and then providing guidance based on inferences derived from a vast database of previous interactions and persona-based profiling.
The next frontier in CX and EX definitely involves a significant role for VA available through a variety of interface formats!
