On 4th April 2012, Creative Virtual hosted an enlightening webinar with Forrester Research, How Virtual Agent Innovations Can Benefit Your Mobile, Web, Call Centre and Social Channels. The event was a huge success with a turnout of over 100 attendees from around the world. The event was hosted by Forrester Research analyst Diane Clarkson and Richard Simons, CEO of Creative Virtual USA.
Richard Simons gave attendees a glimpse into the evolution of Creative Virtual’s V-Person™ technology and how it applies to the principles Diane Clarkson articulated about Virtual Agent technology in general. “The interest in our technology has grown exponentially,” Simons enthused.
The first highlight of Simons’ presentation was the revelation of V-Portal™, Creative Virtual’s new content management tool, which enables content to be shared across mobile, web, call centre and social channels. Simons explained that the system was created in response to increasing demand for Virtual Agent technology, accompanied by a growing desire of customers to be able to manage more of the content themselves, within their organisation.
“This is really what we believe to be the most advanced multi-channel Virtual Agent knowledge management system available today, and it can be hosted by us, in the cloud or hosted on-site,” stated Simons.
Simons’ presentation also featured an introduction of Creative Virtual’s Smartphone (iPhone and Android) solution that uses HTML5 (no app download necessary). This mobile Virtual Agent is platform independent, offers personalised content and is able to listen and talk to the customer using speech recognition and voice. Other important points made in Simons’ presentation included recent Creative Virtual deployments at E*TRADE and Autodesk, the use of Virtual Agents in company call centres (not just company websites), and the consolidation of Virtual Agent content across multiple channels.
Clarkson pointed out that online commerce has grown rapidly over the past couple of years. “In 2007, just more than one third of North American consumers were shopping online. Within 3 short years, 60% of North American consumers are shopping online.” This fact alone makes a strong case for Virtual Agent technology. Clarkson went on to explain the boom in social media as an avenue for customer service, the advantage of natural language processing to provide relevant answers (as opposed to search), and the need for a seamless transition between customer service channels (such as Virtual Agent, Live Chat and Callback). To demonstrate these points, she used examples of Creative Virtual’s implementations at Verizon, O2, National Rail Enquiries and Intuit.
Overall, the webinar was informative and provided insight into Creative Virtual’s V-Person solution and the latest developments in Virtual Agent technology. Creative Virtual would like to thank everyone that attended and participated. If you missed the event and would like to view the webcast, please visit our website.
