Intelligent Virtual Agents

Staff WritersArtificial Intelligence (AI)Sales & MarketingSales Engagement

By STS Staff Writer On Nov 25, 2022

What is an IVA?

Are they helpful to my business?

How do they operate?

Is there a risk that they will take away jobs from humans?

IVAs (Intelligent Virtual Assistants) are AI-powered tools that can engage with a consumer and resolve his or her query like a human. Honestly, IVAs are ultra-sophisticated versions of a chatbot. They can understand the concern and respond using NLP without any need for extra programming.

In a nutshell, IVAs are tools emulating human interaction to perform certain tasks, which are simple and repetitive. Such AI-based technologies help humans to save time.

Can IVA help my business?

In this digital world- IVAs are being used extensively in customer support automation, for instance, to create automated emails, social media conversations, or chats. An IVA in your company can act as the first line of defense for your organization’s customer support team.

IVAs are important for your business because:

These virtual assistants can deliver exceptional customer experiences.
They increase the efficiency of your customer service team.
They can improve your agents’ KPIs.
Mitigates agent’s frustration and churn.
They offer 24*7 support.

IVAs do not harm human jobs in any way. They, in fact, help employees to complete the redundant tasks in no time so that employees can focus more on strategic decisions.

Top-rated IVAs

1. Conversica

Conversica is one of the leading intelligent virtual agents in the world and it is building the world’s largest AR-based workforce leveraging conversational AI. The platform tries to make every conversation as personal as it can. The tool is helping various brands to attract, acquire, and grow revenue across the entire customer lifecycle.

The tool offers omnichannel AI assistants that communicate with humans and it is always a two-way dialogue in real-time with buyers to improve productivity, increase performance, and ultimately hit the revenue targets.

2. Ultimate

Ultimate is another leading virtual assistant agent helping brands across the world to drive their customers support with the help of artificial intelligence. The tool’s virtual agents leverage natural language processing and automate customer conversations and repetitive processes. With Ultimate, brands can trigger excellent customers’ support experiences 24*7 with the help of email, chat, and socials.

The tool is a perfect solution for better customer support and it has partnered with all leading CRM providers such as Zendesk, Genesys, and more.

3. Hyro

Hyro is one of the most popular IVAs around and it is the world’s first adaptive communication platform working with AI virtual assistants. Hyro helps brands increase their engagement with customers and bring more efficiency to the organization.

The tool features plug & play conversational AI and a natural language automation platform empowering enterprises to share their messaging across all the valuable platforms like emails, chats, social media, and more.

4. Exceed.ai by Genesys

It is a great option for brands looking for conversational marketing. The AI assistants of the platform work alongside the sales teams and engage with every lead that comes through. The smart assistants attend to every inquiry and qualified the leads at scale in real-time similar to humans.

When the qualified leads are ready to talk to a sales assistant, the tool directly loops in sales and books the meeting. With Exceed, you never miss a qualified opportunity.

Most of the above-mentioned tools are used by top brands to cater to their daily customer concerns. Here are a few examples of IVAs enabling customer support activities:

1. Finnair

Finnair started using IVAs after phase 1 of the covid-19 pandemic. When the query volumes from customers surged to 900%, the company realized a need for a system to respond immediately. The company implemented Ultimate’s IVA for chat automation. IVA could directly connect with customers in real time.

2. Pockit

The virtual agent of Pockit helped the company to reduce its email backlog by 90%. Pockit is a UK-based fintech company, which faced a massive mail backlog, and their responses spanned for weeks. By adding a successful IVA tool, they could revert to more than 12,000 emails a month.

3. Elite Sportswear

The company was able to maximize its outreach through its entire list of contacts using Exceed.ai. They also marked an increase of 6% in revenue in the first 6 months.

Wrapping up

As more and more businesses are going online, the sales and marketing teams must cater to the ever-growing demands of customers online. In such a case, automated customer support is quickly becoming a go-to solution.

If you have not thought of using an IVA, it is time to do so.