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What is a virtual agent?
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Virtual agents (sometimes confused with chatbots) are mainstream these days. Most websites and apps have one. They’re the messaging-app-style window that pops up in the corner of your screen and sends you a greeting. But what exactly are they?
Basically, they’re virtual agent software that follows specific rules enabling them to provide answers to customer questions. The level of complexity of that ruleset determines how intuitive a conversation with the relevant virtual agent will be.
Nearly every chatbot works this way, running off selected scripts to answer common queries. However, by adding AI, you can move beyond this basic communication into something more detailed.
What is a virtual agent?
So, what’s the definition of a virtual agent? Well, it’s more complex than a chatbot, and makes use of technology like machine learning and natural language processing (NLP). This allows it to be an active participant in conversation, acting more like a human.
Virtual agent vs. virtual assistant
Virtual agent services differ from virtual assistants, so make sure not to confuse the two. The key difference is that virtual assistants are human agents while virtual agents are software.
A virtual assistant is a remote employee that handles tasks assigned by their employer. Some of those tasks might include:
- Scheduling appointments and managing calendars
- Making travel arrangements
- Taking and transferring phone calls
As mentioned earlier, an intelligent virtual agent is automated software that can respond to a customer’s query. They’re often presented as chatbots on websites, although they’re far more advanced.
Let’s look at the differences between chatbots and digital virtual agents.
Chatbot vs. virtual agent
As mentioned, chatbots are much simpler than virtual agents. For instance, if you ask a basic chatbot to track your order, it might just see “track my order” and send you to the appropriate webpage.
An intelligent virtual agent will take your order number and find the relevant information for you before asking if there’s anything else it can help with.
These days, chatbots are relatively well-equipped for common queries and even some more complicated questions. They’re relatively easy to implement and often at a lower cost.
If you only need something to deal with basic questions, gather customer information, or schedule a call-back, then chatbots can do the job.
Natural Language Processing
Virtual agents, however, can actively understand what a customer is saying rather than scanning for certain phrases. They can grasp intent and provide personalized responses. If you want to use technology for troubleshooting, account management, or more in-depth tasks, then they’re a much better choice.
However, AI isn’t magic. AI virtual agents are only as good as the datasets they’re trained on. This is both a good and a bad thing.
The good news? You can train them off your particular customer base, and they can develop through use. The bad news? If you don’t have a decent dataset, they’re functionally useless.
Types of virtual agents
Virtual agents work as customer service representatives, personal assistants, and more.
Let’s take a look at the common types of virtual agents:
Virtual voice agents
Virtual voice agents assist your customers by interacting with human-like speech. Think of popular voice assistants such as Siri or Alexa. A virtual voice agent can handle customer calls in place of a contact center agent.
They can even be used to make outbound calls for things like payment notifications or appointment reminders.
A virtual voice agent simply asks the caller, “What can I help you with today?”.
Thanks to natural language understanding (NLU), virtual agents interpret speech and find solutions. If a call seems too complex, the virtual agent will rightly escalate the call to a human representative.
Intelligent IVR
Intelligent IVR agents do much more than traditional interactive voice response. They take incoming calls and route them to the quickest solution. Callers get to avoid the monotony of listening to recorded menu messages and pressing buttons to make a selection.
Intelligent IVR doesn’t necessarily have the chops of a virtual voice agent. However, it still improves customer service. Customers also get faster call routing since they can simply state what problem they want to solve or what department they want to connect with.
End-to-end virtual voice agents
An end-to-end virtual voice agent solution is one in which the vendor provides full service. They handle implementation, onboarding, monitoring, maintenance, and other processes. You work with the service provider to integrate virtual voice agents into whatever systems and business tools you desire.
For example, you could integrate virtual agents into payroll and other HR components. Employees who have questions about pay or benefits can get human-like answers 24/7.
Integrated virtual agents
Integrated virtual agents are built-in to enterprise tools such as cloud contact center solutions. Many of these virtual agents offer powerful capabilities that far exceed one-size-fits-all offerings. These AI-powered agents are bespoke for the apps you use.
For example, RingCX’s no-code virtual agents powered by Google Dialogflow allow companies to create voice and digital channel bots that deliver comprehensive customer support 24/7.
These virtual agents are able to handle routine customer questions, freeing up time for your team to answer more complex queries.
How the technology behind virtual agents works
Virtual agents make it simple for your customers to get answers to questions. However, there’s little that’s straightforward about the technology behind them.
Machine learning enables large language models (LLMs) and other cutting-edge technologies to evolve.
Decades of AI development and huge advancements in NLP have narrowed the boundary between humans and machines.
Don’t worry about virtual agents taking over just yet. There are plenty of lackluster options out there. Others are chatbots or IVRs masquerading as virtual agents.
For these AI embodiments to work properly, they must be fed huge volumes of data and be built for purpose. If you want virtual omnichannel customer support agents, then you need a fully integrated platform like RingCX.
Virtual agent capabilities
Virtual agents have come a long way since the primordial, rules-based chatbots. There are now an array of impressive capabilities your contact center can benefit from:
Natural language understanding (NLU)
NLU is the technology that powers the ability of virtual agents to understand what customers and team members are saying.
A natural language understanding model gathers data and improves over time as long as the training data is high quality. Poor-quality training data can prove to be just as problematic as a limited amount of training data.
Conversational AI
Virtual agents use conversational AI to convey understanding and useful information to users. Whether it's your customers or your team members, AI provides human-like responses with audible speech.
RingSense AI is available across the RingCentral platform, improves customer experiences and unlocks customer insights. It also provides AI-powered coaching tips that help your team deliver consistent, successful pitches, boosting your win rate.
Sentiment analysis
Not all human voice communication is based on the words we speak. Live sentiment analysis is a must for virtual agents to dig deeper and understand the true meaning and motivation of each speaker.
For example, the phrase “that sounds okay.” could mean the customer is happy, content, or disappointed. It depends on the inflection of their voice and the context surrounding the response. Effective virtual agents can parse these details and make inferences.
Sentiment analysis provided by RingCentral enables users to detect the tone of conversations and identify any opportunities or issues and respond accordingly.
Task automation
Virtual agents can be set up to take care of tasks such as payment processing or call summaries. Task automation saves your team time by deflecting calls from live agents and offering customers rapid service.
RingSense AI’s conversation intelligence reduces after-call work by up to 20% with post-call transcriptions and real-time AI summaries that enable agents to follow up on tasks more effectively.
Omnichannel agents
You want a virtual agent that can meet your customers on multiple channels, including live chat and phone calls. Such agents require the ability to read and write in human-like language. Omnichannel virtual agents help relieve your support reps and meet your customers on their preferred channels.
Platforms like RingCentral also enable your team to work from a single pane of glass when deploying, implementing, and interacting with virtual agents, improving their effectiveness.
Integrations
Many virtual agent solutions can integrate with other tools in your tech stack. Connecting to business applications allows the AI to gather and analyze data that helps you gain new insights. Additionally, virtual agent integrations can improve performance and productivity.
For example, you can integrate RingCentral with your CRM or ticketing system. Once the data is connected, our AI-powered virtual agent accesses customer records. The agent uses this information to handle calls more efficiently, providing 24/7 customer support.
Uses of virtual agents in contact centers
Virtual agents excel in contact centers where they can reduce the workload of your team and manage early communications with customers. Three key areas to implement them are as:
Customer service agents
Virtual agents shouldn’t replace your live chat agents, but they’re an invaluable addition to any customer service team. Many queries that customer service agents deal with are relatively routine:
- What’s the status of my order?
- What’s your return policy?
- One of my items is damaged, what can I do?
- When will this product come back in stock?
- Can I update my account details?
All of these can be answered by a virtual agent in real time. Conversational AI allows the responses to feel more natural. This means that routine queries no longer require one of your team to write an email response or engage in a lengthy phone conversation.
Instead, they’re resolved through the virtual agent. Customers go away happy, and employees have more time to deal with in-depth questions.
Live agents for IT support
Just like customer service, an IT helpdesk will have to deal with lots of routine requests. Password resets, software updates, and basic troubleshooting can all be handled through messaging a virtual agent.
Even for more complicated questions, a basic chatbot or AI-powered agent can take details and create a ticket. Once again, this improves customer satisfaction due to fast responses and frees up your IT staff from having to work on these mundane tasks.
Agents for lead generation
Virtual agents and chatbots can also help your sales department by assisting with lead generation. They provide a quick way to capture user information and work out their intentions.
By having a virtual chat agent take details such as name, email, and reason for contacting, you have enough information for your sales team to start pursuing a lead.
Benefits of virtual agents
Implementing a virtual agent has lots of benefits for customers and employees. Some of the main benefits are:
1. Available 24/7
Providing customer service 24/7 is challenging for any business. You either need to employ enough staff for round-the-clock shifts, outsource to call centers in other timezones, or provide limited hours.
However, with a virtual agent, you can have something available all the time. As mentioned, virtual agents can answer most routine questions. For more difficult queries, they can schedule a call-back or email from a human agent.
While scheduling may not give an immediate answer, it still leads to increased satisfaction as the customer knows they’ve been heard.
2. Reduce pressure on human agents
The drive to constantly improve customer experience can put a lot of pressure on customer service agents. Often, staff are torn between wanting to provide in-depth personalized service and wanting to get through as many tickets or calls as possible.
By triaging requests through a virtual agent, you can reduce this. Staff no longer need to spend time on basic, simple problems, reducing the amount of requests they have to handle. While that means the questions that do come through are more complicated, they can spend more time answering them.
Using an AI virtual agent is a great way to improve employee satisfaction and customer engagement.
3. Gather actionable data in call centers
Virtual agents can also help you build up a pool of actionable data from the customer interactions they handle. Combined with other uses of AI and natural language processing, this data can be analyzed to produce helpful insights.
Expect to see answers to the most common questions, information about what products have the most issues, and the main complaints or compliments you receive.
You can also gather information on when people contact you, where they’re contacting you from, and how long the average conversation lasts.
This information can be used to build up a self-service knowledge hub, further reducing the amount of communication you receive. Not only that, but remember that actionable data means improved business decision-making.
4. Artificial intelligence constantly improves
Since many virtual agents are built using machine learning, they have the capacity to continuously improve. Combined with natural language understanding, this means that as their dataset grows, they grow in capability as long as they have access to high-quality data.
The more interactions an intelligent virtual agent has, the more information it has to work from. It will become better at ascertaining tone and intent. Not only that, but it’ll grow more familiar with what questions are asked of it and be able to provide better responses.
5. Improved customer experiences
Providing excellent customer service is vital to running a successful business. Virtual agents can help provide this by:
- Providing personalized answers
- Automating routine tasks
- Reducing wait times/time spent on hold
- Allowing customer service agents to spend longer on each case
The video below shows how the company 24 Hour Tees has benefited from using RingCentral to optimize its customer experience.
Key performance metrics for virtual agents
In order to keep track of whether or not you’re reaping the rewards of virtual agent software, it’s possible to monitor key performance metrics.
You can monitor the performance of your virtual agents in much the same way as your human agents. However, AI learns and grows in different ways than the rest of your team.
Key performance metrics to monitor for virtual agents include:
- Intent recognition rate: How well does the AI recognize user intent? Do callers often become frustrated, telling the agent, “No, that’s not what I asked?” or something similar?
- Percentage in-scope: The proportion of calls that fall within the scope of implementation. This helps determine whether your implementation is effective or being used in the right business areas.
- First contact resolution (FCR): What percentage of customers have their issue resolved on the first try? FCR assesses the ability of AI agents to solve problems and also direct calls to the right human reps.
- Containment rate: How successful your virtual agent is at solving issues without any human involvement. High containment deflects lower-tier calls, saving your human agents for complex tickets.
- NPS/CSAT: Net promoter score and customer satisfaction surveys track the virtual agent experience.
Things to consider when choosing a virtual agent
Every virtual agent is built differently. Some excel in different areas than others. It’s vital to know what to look for when choosing the best virtual agent for your organization.
Consider the following when choosing a virtual agent platform:
- Conversational interface: An intuitive interface is built for sales and customer service. It's also programmable by your IT team.
- Automations: What can the virtual agent automate? Can it simplify workflows by taking over repetitive tasks?
- Customization: Can the solution be tailored to your needs or your audience? Does it offer enough flexibility to work in multiple environments?
- Integrations: Does the platform integrate with your CRM and other existing business tools? Does it include an open API that your development team can use?
- Deployment: What technology is required to deploy your virtual agents? How long does it take, and how much onboarding will your team need to benefit from using virtual agents?
- Accuracy of responses: How effective is the virtual agent itself? What’s its quoted success rate, and what case studies or customer success stories back the data up?
Supercharge your customer experience with the help of virtual agent software
Adopting virtual agent software can bring numerous benefits to your business, providing your customers with help whenever they need it—without you needing to spend time or money on hiring staff who work around the clock.
Your customer satisfaction rate will increase thanks to customers receiving the help they need when they need it, meaning they’ll be less likely to spend their hard-earned cash with your competitors instead.