In early 2020, the COVID-19 crisis struck almost every part of the world; organizations were engulfed with questions from worried customers. However, these organizations also handled their challenges, such as staying connected with their employees in a remote work environment. They needed to ensure the well-being of their employees for improved productivity, customer service, and stability of all business functions, especially during the crisis. As the world continues to fight the pandemic, effective communication, collaboration, and increased productivity have become the need of an hour.
Intelligent technologies such as virtual agents or advanced chatbots play a vital role in creating a collaborative work environment during these unprecedented times. Besides, these intelligent agents help drive business value such as HR automation, customer support, service desk management, which can be lifesavers in difficult times.
Companies looking to accelerate and respond to a crisis should look no further and start using virtual intelligence agents. Before we dive deeper into the benefits of virtual agents, let's understand what it means.
What is an intelligent virtual agent?
An intelligent virtual agent is an automated presentation of a customer support representative. It's a software program that uses artificial intelligence and scripted rules to provide electronic service or guidance.
Organizations often use these intelligent agents in their customer service functions to answer routine queries, fulfill standard requirements, and handle simple problems. Here, we will explain how these agents can be beneficial to keep employees up and running while they are working remotely. Eventually, it's their productivity that'll directly impact the customer service.
How can virtual agents accelerate crisis response?
1. Crisis Communication
In these uncertain times, businesses often receive a considerable amount of messages at a phenomenal rate through multiple sources. Intelligent virtual agents can answer relevant FAQs and bring crucial information across various channels – email, social media, web or mobile chat, IVR, etc. Some repetitive queries related to policies, public health information, remote work, etc., can be answered anytime.
Virtual agents are significant not only because they answer employee FAQs but their way of conducting human-like conversations. It's something recommended when people are isolated in these challenging times.
2. Streamlined internal operations
With each passing day, organizations might need to amend some corporate policies or internal processes, such as reporting process, leave management system, etc. Once the companies deploy a virtual agent, they can constantly update it to enable the new workflows. This way, organizations don't need to have new multiple applications or siloed procedures.
3. Improved productivity
Consistent productivity is the critical aspect of remote work. Several IT helpdesks and HR teams struggled to manage this unusual surge in issues and requests in the initial stage. Employees were being kept on hold for hours before the problems were resolved. In these kinds of situations, intelligent chatbots act as the prime support to address low-value and repetitive issues. Chatbots are available 24 hours a day and can handle mass requests simultaneously. If the chatbots can't resolve the queries, they can be handed over to the human agents.
It'll enable the IT staff to focus on proactive and productive tasks. Similarly, employees don't have to wait for hours to get their queries answered.
4. Better communication
Virtual agents can update employees about the changes in a company before employees look for the information. They help in scheduling alerts and push notifications, keeping employees informed about the business' state. Therefore, companies can build employee trust and help them focus on their work without bothering about the situation.
Conclusion,
Ease of implementation and scalability are some leading factors for the adoption of virtual agents during this crisis. Organizations can continuously update their capabilities to solve emerging challenges posed by the pandemic. All the individual benefits will help organizations deliver a better employee experience and improved customer service with more consistency.
