Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Virtual Agent Tips and Tricks: Using a Virtual Agent to Enhance Your Product’s User Manual

User manuals tend to have a love/hate effect on consumers. They are full of useful information and insider knowledge about the products, but it can be a headache having to read through it all to try and find one piece of information.  An example of a cumbersome user manual is for vehicles; hundreds of pages that are filled with so many terms, it is hard to find the information you are looking for. Cars are getting more advanced in today’s technology driven world, too, adding more capabilities to your car than ever before. But to figure out how to utilize these special features you have to find it in the manual and in some cases, go to a support site if you are having problems. 

Compared to car guides, phone manuals have continuously gotten shorter and shorter, with mostly the “common” features provided on a small flip book. Even though the physical user manuals have been cut down, the online versions of the user guides can exceed hundreds of pages, with no interactive and diagnostic features to aid your experience.

While these manuals don’t provide the most intuitive responses, a Virtual Agent can help enhance them to be more user friendly. Instead of handing consumers a huge book, a link to the Virtual Agent can empower users to to simply type in a question such as, “How do I connect my phone to my car?” and get an immediate solution without having to sift through many pages of information.  

Another example of how a Virtual Agent can be used is for registering a product. Typically, when a customer purchases software or any other computer related devices, the manufacturer encourages registration. That process tends to be tedious, informing you to do this and then click that. With a Virtual Agent, registering a product can be streamlined making the experience more interesting and interactive. Doing this provides consumers with that personal, interactive element they are expecting when seeking online assistance, while increasing the chances of repeat visits to the Virtual Agent in the future.

Would customer feedback surveys get better responses if they were part of a Virtual Agent interaction? Would you be more inclined to complete a credit card application through a Virtual Agent than through multiple screens of questions?  What are some other scenarios where an interactive conversation would improve a cumbersome experience? 

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