Ground Breaking Year for noHold’s Artificial Intelligence Platform, SICURA®

December 26, 2019, MILPITAS, CA – As 2019 is coming to an end, we are happy to reflect on the milestones noHold was able to achieve this year. Here are a few of the major accomplishments:

• noHold launched several new AI offerings this year:
• Single Point of Search which provides companies that have multiple repositories of information, an easier way to find and efficiently deliver content to their customers.
• The HR Advisor, designed to help the HR staff of companies with a large or growing workforce. Employees can ask the Virtual Assistant a question and get an answer in real time. This leaves the HR department with more time/resources to handle the things that require human intervention.
• The Sales Companion – empowering sales teams to increase revenue and reduce sales cycles. This Virtual Assistant can be leveraged by the sales person, the sales manager, and the sales operations manager.
• noHold held its first AI symposium in Italy this summer. During this exclusive three-day event, attendees from all over the world joined together to receive personalized training and best practices by noHold experts.
• noHold has penetrated multiple new verticals this year including:
• Partnering with a financial institution that now utilizes Virtual Assistants for over 300 banks across the US.
• Also, deploying a Virtual Assistant for the Education space to more than 7500 Higher Education institutions.

“This year we have celebrated our 20th Anniversary, making noHold the most experienced company in the AI-based Virtual Assistant space. We couldn’t have done it without the support of our customers and the dedication of our employees,” said Diego Ventura, CEO and Founder of noHold Inc.

noHold Announces Sales Companion, the Virtual Assistant that Empowers Sales Teams to Increase Revenue and Reduce Sales Cycles

November 27, 2019, MILPITAS, CA – noHold is proud to announce its latest Virtual Assistant offering, the Sales Companion. Sales Companion is powered by noHold’s patented Artificial Intelligence platform, SICURA® and designed to help three different personas: The sales person, the sales manager, and the sales operations manager.

There are multiple advantages to the Sales Companion for the sales person. One is the ability to search for product information quickly, and easily forward that information on to prospects. This is not only convenient for the sales person, but it also improves the accuracy and consistency of the information being delivered to various prospects. Sales people can also leverage the Sales Companion to easily find arguments to handle objections, highlight competitive differentiators, search complex product catalogs, get assistance with the sales process itself, and find messaging templates.

Sales Managers also benefit from the Sales Companion Virtual Assistant by being able to communicate important messages to the team and encourage them to achieve their goals. It  also helps them make better use of material and techniques developed by marketing, and through metrics, managers can systematically capture what is most critical for their team.

For the Sales Operations Managers, the Sales Companion can be easily built and maintained because the Virtual Assistant is based on Artificial Intelligence developed by ingesting a single document to the noHold SICURA® QuickStart platform; no programming skills necessary.

Click here to see specific examples of how the Sales Companion can improve the sales cycle.

Diego Ventura, CEO of noHold, adds, “To ensure that the Sales Companion would be adopted by your team we focused on a few critical components. 1) An easy way for marketing and sales managers to communicate new opportunities to the team, 2) an easy way to capture what is important to the sales team and 3) an easy way to create and maintain the Sales Companion itself. Also, we designed flexible pricing that is proportional to the size of the team to guarantee ROI.”

noHold’s CEO, Diego Ventura, Invited to Speak at EDUCAUSE 2019

October 7, 2019, MILPITAS, CA – noHold’s CEO, Diego Ventura, is pleased to be speaking at one of the largest conferences for higher education IT professionals, EDUCAUSE 2019. The conference will be taking place in Chicago, Illinois on October 14^th to the 17^th. Diego, together with Borre Ulrichsen, CIO of Gonzaga University, will be presenting during the Lightning Round Session: Transforming the Student Experience. The session will emphasize the role Artificial Intelligence (AI) is playing in higher education. Attendees will learn about implementing, deploying, and adopting AI technology to help students and faculty help themselves, while improving the overall experience.

In 2018, noHold announced it had been partnering with industry leaders to provide Virtual Assistant technology for over 7,500 educational institutions. Since then, noHold has made great progress in the higher education space, helping new customers such as Gonzaga University deploy an AI strategy that has innovated the way they connect with their students and faculty on campus. Moving forward, noHold’s hope is to continue to empower Higher Education to leverage Virtual Assistant technology that will help students as they navigate through the college experience with 24/7 access to the information they need, from any device, resulting in success throughout their college career. College staff will also benefit by capturing actionable metrics, increasing self-service, while relieving faculty/staff to focus on critical projects that require human intervention.

“I’m looking forward to being part of EDUCAUSE this year, sharing lessons learned and best practices along with Gonzaga University. We plan to share student sentiment around Virtual Assistants as well as ideas on how to increase adoption. You can attend our Lightning Round discussion on October 16^th, and also find me at the Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise booth, number 1839.” – Diego Ventura, CEO of noHold.

For more information about the EDUCAUSE conference, and Lightning Round session, you can visit http://bit.ly/EducauseAI.

noHold, Inc. AI-based HR Advisor Makes it Easy for Both Employees and HR Teams.

 August 29, 2019, MILPITAS, CA – noHold announces its latest offering, the HR Advisor. This AI-based Virtual Assistant is designed specifically to augment the way employees are able to effectively interact with HR.

After interviewing an HR Director of a Fortune 500 company based in the Silicon Valley, noHold was able to understand some of the top challenges HR Directors face. One of her major pain points was figuring out, “How can we continue to service our growing, global workforce with the same staff, but with 4 times the work?” The HR Advisor addresses this challenge by using Artificial Intelligence to answer employee questions that typically congest the HR department. Some examples of the repetitive types of questions that can be automated with the HR Advisor include “Is my family still covered while I am away?” or “How much time do I get for maternity leave?”

The HR Advisor can be built in minutes, with no programming skills necessary. You simply take your current employee handbook and upload that document into noHold’s SICURA® QuickStart platform, which will automatically transform your employee handbook into a Virtual Assistant. Here is a short video clip that shows you the process and outcome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDU9g9ql0uE&feature=youtu.be

In addition to decreasing the amount of questions that take up a significant amount of time from your HR staff, another benefit of leveraging AI within the HR department is the advantage of being able to capture “Voice of the Employee” data. According to a national study on satisfaction at work, 75% of employees would stay longer at an organization that listens to and addresses their concerns. The HR Advisor is a great way for employees to provide feedback and employers to turn that feedback into actionable metrics. 

noHold is Hosting an Artificial Intelligence Symposium this Summer in Italy

June 27, 2019, MILPITAS, CA – noHold is excited to be traveling across the world to host its first AI Symposium. This exclusive three-day event will take place from July 17th to the 19th in Lignano Sabbiadoro, Italy.

Since 1999, noHold Inc. has successfully provided Artificial Intelligence solutions to businesses. As pioneers in this space, noHold experts will be sharing best practices in AI-based Virtual Assistants for the enterprise. During this event, attendees will explore how innovations in AI can benefit the enterprise, network with experienced Virtual Assistant professionals, as well as Fortune 100 companies that are using Virtual Assistants today. Some of the presentation topics will include strategies on building and deploying a world class Virtual Assistant, ensuring that security and compliance standards are implemented, strategic UI/UX design, and so much more. For more details on the symposium’s agenda, please click here.

Attendees can expect to:

• Receive personalized training and best practices by noHold experts
• Maximize your knowledge of the SICURA platform including not-yet-released technologies from noHold
• Experience an in-depth analysis of available AI technology through SICURA at no extra cost
• Learn how to maximize your virtual assistant’s ROI
• Build relationships with their colleagues in an idyllic setting

noHold’s CEO and founder, Diego Ventura, adds, “We are excited to share the experience we have accumulated over the past 20 years in this space with our customers and partners. It will be nice to do it in a global context and in the backdrop of Venice, one of the most unique capitals of the world.”

noHold Launches Single Point of Search (SPS) for the Enterprise

MILPITAS, CA, May 30, 2019 - noHold is proud to announce Single Point of Search for the Enterprise. This solution provides companies that have multiple repositories of information an easier way to find and efficiently deliver content to their customers.

Most companies have the difficult task of managing endless content from a variety of different repositories including knowledge bases, community forums, the web site, etc. Typically, each one of those repositories has its own Search capability, but none of them can search everything all at once. This paradigm presents problems such as having to duplicate content so it can be accessible in every repository, keeping each repository in sync with each other, and adding the appropriate tagging mechanisms that may be different for each repository.

Single Point of Search for the Enterprise eliminates these issues by putting a Virtual Assistant on top of all the repositories, so content may be found no matter where it resides. For example, if an end user asks, "How many employees does Company X have?" The Virtual Assistants knowledge base might not have that type of information, but the website should. In this case, the search tool would pull the answer directly from the website and still display it within the Virtual Assistants interface.

Here are a few specific features of Single Point of Search:

• Natural Language Processor & Inference Engine
• Ability to ingest existing documents
• Ability to crawl existing repositories
• Supports multiple languages (English, Spanish, Italian, etc.)
• Works over multiple channels making it available wherever your customer may be (Web, voice, Alexa, Google Assistant, etc.)

"Federated Search has been around for some years, but SPS adds two important features to it: a) the conversational style typical of Virtual Assistants and b) the ability of funding specific information within an existing document," said Diego Ventura, CEO and Founder of noHold, Inc.

A Customer Success Story: Virtual Assistant Thrives in Educational Institution

Preface: Back in 2018, noHold announced one of our customer in the education market started utilizing a Virtual Assistant to help with their expanding training platform. Here is a follow up on how the Virtual Assistant is performing.

A company that serves 7,500 educational institutions has created a platform. The platform is meant to teach skills in Networking, Programming, Cybersecurity and IoT. The platform provides faculty with a course layout and instructions to manage class logistics, while giving students a way to participate in the course. In the United States, over 7,500 institutions, 3,200 instructors and 135,000 students utilize the platform to date.

The popularity of the learning platform has grown tremendously in the last 5 years. Translating into an increase in support tickets to the Contact Center. To manage the increase in traffic the Networking Company has increased spending.

In an effort to better manage support tickets, reduce contact center spending and support a growing academy they looked to a Virtual Assistant to help students and instructors help themselves. The Virtual Assistant was designed with a persona, as well as, positioned as a first line of contact on the platform and website to encourage usage. The Virtual Assistant took 2 weeks to launch with the help of two engineers, a web master and one content specialist.

The Results

The Virtual Assistant went live in the first quarter of 2018 with an immediate 27% reduction in support tickets. As the year continues, each quarter has resulted in about a 46% reduction in Contact Center tickets. The reduction in tickets has resulted in a 70% ROI. The Virtual Assistant and persona associated with it have received an overwhelmingly positive review from students and faculty.

For more information on a Virtual Assistant's role in higher education, please feel free to contact noHold.

noHold, Inc. Implements a Virtual Assistant to Support HR Department of a Fortune 500 Corporation

April 30, 2019, MILPITAS, CA – noHold is excited to announce that a multinational manufacturing company has brought the power of automation into their HR department - a HR Virtual Assistant to answer employee questions. This Fortune 500 corporation manufactures goods and offers engineering services for a variety of industrial, commercial, and consumer markets. With over 75,000+ employees and more than 200 manufacturing sites worldwide, noHold is very pleased to be helping provide support for their internal departments.

The HR Virtual Assistant is a 24/7, AI-based tool that employees can leverage as a first line of defense when they have a question that would typically be directed to HR. This helps alleviate some of the repetitiveness that can congest the HR Department. For example, the Virtual Assistant is answering questions about company policies and benefits, employee training, business travel, and much more. If an employee is not able to get the answer they need, the Virtual Assistant makes it easy to escalate to a live person by providing the user with the appropriate contact information.

The Virtual Assistant only took two weeks to build and deploy. noHold provides metrics that are collected daily, making it easy to consistently improve the Virtual Assistant based on user input. Since adding or removing content based on those metrics can be done immediately, and without the need of savvy programmers, this company was able to expand the knowledge of their Virtual Assistant quickly. The Virtual Assistant is now helping employees not only with HR questions, but also IT, finance, and general facility related questions.

Diego Ventura, CEO and Founder of noHold, said, “The first version of the Virtual Assistant is now live. Plans for the future include the integration with back-office systems to personalize the experience. Employees will not only be able to ask ‘What holidays does the company observer?’, but also ‘How many PTO days do I have left?’”

About noHold, Inc.

noHold is a privately held company established in 1999 and is headquartered in Milpitas, CA, USA (Silicon Valley). noHold is the acknowledged leader in Web based Self-service solutions with a mission to deliver real answers to real questions – real fast. Simple to use, easy to implement and as close to human as you can get, noHold turns automated customer support into cognitive customer interactions. noHold customers include Cisco, Dell, McAfee and a host of industry leaders. More information can be found at http://www.nohold.com.

noHold Helps Simplify Life on Campus' Across the Nation

Artificial Intelligence is working to simplify life for students and teachers on campus! In today’s day and age, almost everyone is looking toward technology as a way to simplify some of the mundane or cumbersome tasks that need to be accomplish. For example, noHold conducted a student survey study and found that 3 out of 4 students on a college campus believe that a Virtual Assistant (Artificial Intelligence) would be a helpful resource they would use when they ran into some sort of problem or thought of a question they had. The 2-minute video clip below gives some real-life examples of just how students (and faculty!) are leveraging this type of technology to simplify their lives.

When implementing a Virtual Assistant correctly, it can increase enrollment AND reduce support cost all by simply providing the students and faculty with the tools they need to help themselves. noHold has created a datasheet that goes over general benefits, best practices, and features, as well as give a specific use case. The use case provides real metrics demonstrating how one University was able to increase First Contact Resolution, reduce Average Handle Time, and increase Net Promoter Score almost immediately after going live.

If you have any questions or feedback regarding noHold's Virtual Assistance for EDU, we would love to hear from you. Please contact us through the web at http://www.nohold.com/contact.html.

noHold update: Conversational Interaction Conference, Advisors, and AI Symposium in Italy

2019 is turning out to be an exciting year for noHold. Here are just a few of the events that have already happened this quarter.

1. In March, noHold sponsored a local conference, Conversational Interactions 2019. There, Diego Ventura, noHold's Founder and  CEO, had the opportunity to join the keynote panel discussion regarding best practices for building a Virtual Assistant, as well as speak about noHold's newest technology, NLP2X is a talk titled Using Conversational AI to get the most out of your Enterprise Database.
2. Gonzaga University became a new client, providing its students and staff with noHold's AI technology to augment the way technical support is handled on campus.
3. In addition, we announced a new advisor, Joseph Pinto, to noHold's Board.
4. We are also very excited to be gearing up for our first AI Symposium which will take place July 2019 in Italy! For more details on the AI Symposium, please follow this link: http://www.nohold.com/aiyouwillneverforget/

We look forward to sharing more updates with you related to Virtual Assistants and AI in the future. 

www.nohold.com

Gonzaga University Enlists noHold’s AI to Innovate the Way Technical Support is Handled on Campus

March 28, 2019, MILPITAS, CA – Gonzaga University is continuously looking to improve processes to enhance the support experience for students and instructors. Gonzaga needed a solution that would innovate the way technical support is handled on campus.

Gonzaga found noHold, a company that specializes in Virtual Assistant technology. Virtual Assistants utilize Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help users through a chat interface. Now, the Virtual Assistant allows Gonzaga University to:

1. Support students and instructors 24/7/365 from mobile phones, the school website, social media sites, and automated personal assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant 
2. Provide users with a first point of contact, so they can find the information they need without searching
3. Analyze interactions between students and the Virtual Assistant to improve processes
4. Create an effective solution that is within budget
5. Deploy an AI tool in 6 weeks with the help of noHold Professional Services and intuitive backend

In the first month, 71% of students providing feedback found the Virtual Assistant to be helpful, twice as effective as the average Virtual Assistant at launch. noHold and Gonzaga have also discovered what topics students are struggling with most, added QR codes around campus for easy access, and expanded the Virtual Assistant’s knowledge based on user interactions.

Lyle Spencer, Data Architect from Gonzaga University said, “When we decided to find a virtual assistant solution, we were fortunate to find a partner like noHold. The noHold professionals worked relentlessly to help us create and deploy a truly exceptional example of what a virtual assistant can be. noHold’s experience helping Fortune 100 companies and providing a low-cost deployment gave me confidence in not only the capability of their solution, but also confidence in their product. Since go-live, noHold has dedicated a project manager and developer that meets with us to weekly continue supporting and improving our virtual assistant. I feel this very much speaks to their commitment as a partner, not just another vendor.”

Diego Ventura, CEO and Founder of noHold, adds, “It has been inspiring to see the passion and care the Gonzaga staff feels for its students. They worked very hard to make sure the Virtual Assistant launched without a hitch and was adopted by the whole school.”

Click here for the full use case. 

Using Conversational AI to get the most out of your Enterprise Database

The conference is almost here! Diego Ventura, CEO of noHold, will be presenting on March 11 at 1:15 PM PST. He's talk is titled, "Using Conversational AI to get the most out of your Enterprise Database." Here is a short summary on the topic:

Most enterprises rely on powerful databases to manage customer relationships, inventory, HR information, etc. But gathering information from them is not always easy and often requires the use of predefined reports or the help of IT specialists.  What if you could simply say: "show me customers in California who have spent at least $500K in the last 12 months and that are non-profit".  It is now possible to create simple straightforward conversational interfaces on top of the databases that govern our lives.  The application of this technology is not limited only to the enterprise, but it can be used also by individuals while shopping, or booking the next vacation: "what laptops do you have with an i7 processor, that cost less than $1250 and with a 2.8Ghz clock?"

Diego will also participate in a keynote panel: Building a Digital Assistant or Chatbot on March 12th. For more details please visit, http://www.conversationalinteraction.com/program

Looking forward to seeing some of you there! 

noHold is Sponsoring AVIOS' Conversational Interactions Next Week!

Next week, March 11th and 12th, noHold will be sponsoring AVIOS' 2019 Conversational Interactions conference held in San Jose, CA. Diego Ventura, noHold's Founder and CEO, will be taking part in a discussion panel, as well as a keynote presentation. Here is a short message from Diego. 

If you are interested in attending, there are still a few coupon codes available. Please send an email to diego@nohold.com and we will be happy to share that with you. 

Hope to see you next week! 

Educational Institutions Leverage noHold's Artificial Intelligence to Improve Students' Experience

Just last year, noHold announced that over 7,500 educational institutes are using noHold's Artificial Intelligence to help students and teachers. noHold realized that the Education Market (such as Colleges and Universities) is really benefit from implementing a Virtual Assistant for their Students and/or Faculty. 

Here is a 3 minute clip showing just how colleges can leverage this technology to benefit their students. 

Also, it is not just the students who can take advantage. I would like you to see how the help desk at a top University  benefits from a Virtual Assistant. This is a quick read and includes a short case study: http://www.nohold.com/edu-datasheet.pdf.  I'm interested in your feedback - let me know what you think.
www.nohold.com

Virtual Assistant Usage to Increase in 2019

noHold, Inc. Welcomes 2019!

Happy New Year! As we all start getting back into our routines after what hopefully was a great holiday, I wanted to share a quick read from Forbes contributor, Bernard Marr, "5 Important Artificial Intelligence Predictions (For 2019) Everyone Should Read."

According to Forbes, this year we can expect to see many positive things come from the AI space. For one, AI use cases will continue to become more wide spread throughout different industries and sectors. Companies (in every industry) have seen the advantages to implementing an AI strategy. For example, when noHold first started creating Virtual Assistants in 1999, it was primarily for customer support purposes, and typically with the consumer electronics space. Just in the last year, we have seen AI adoption grow exponentially within the Financial and Educational industries. This just proves how versatile and commonly used Virtual Assistants are today. 

Also, this year we can expect AI user satisfaction to increase. As the technology continues to become smarter, more people will find AI-based Virtual Assistants to be useful. 

Here is an infographic found on ISG-one.com demonstrating that automation and AI usage is expected to triple in 2019. 

For more information on Virtual Assistants, and how your company can benefit from this technology, feel free to contact noHold here to schedule a call. 

Year in Review: Some of noHold's 2018 Accomplishments

2018 has been an exciting year for noHold and the Artificial Intelligence industry in general. Here is a recap of some of the top stories of the year.

1. noHold launches NLP2X, a new way to add a conversational interface to any repository of information. For example, SQL databases, excel spreadsheets, or any other proprietary data repository with an API. This new module was designed for non programmers, managers, and executives to query repositories of information without reporting tools or help from IT. 
2. This year, noHold penetrated the Educational market in a huge way. Over 7000 Educational institutes are leveraging noHold's Virtual Assistants to help teachers and students all 
3. noHold has continued to add more new features to its AI platform, SICURA, making it have more of a conversational feel. 
4. Most recently, noHold just announced we are compliant with some of the top industry standards including Cloud Controls Matrix, WCAG2.0, SOC2 and more. 

The Verge recently released their annual AI Index report which analyzes data and expert findings on the progress of the AI industry each year. Click on the link above to see how AI has progressed through 2018.

From everyone here are noHold, we want to wish you Happy Holidays! We are excited to see what is in store for 2019!

AI World Conference & Expo 2018

AI World is getting closer. Next week, thousands of attendees will gather to learn how to use Artificial Intelligence to build a competitive advantage. noHold's CEO, Diego Ventura, will be speaking at the conference about automating customer service and technical support in call centers. Below is a short message from Diego: 

Hope to see you there!
www.nohold.com

noHold's CEO, Diego Ventura, Will Be Speaking at AIWorld's Conference in December 2018

AIWorld's third annual conference and expo is right around the corner! Over 3000 business and technology executives from all over will be coming together in Boston, Massachusetts on December 3^rd through the 5^th to learn how AI has impacted, and will continue to impact the enterprise.

Diego Ventura, CEO of noHold, Inc., is honored to be invited to speak at AIWorld. His session is on December 5^th during the 2:05 PM time slot. With almost two decades of experience with Artificial Intelligence, Diego has become a pioneer when it comes to automated support and Virtual Assistants. At AIWorld, he will be joining a discussion panel talking about how to automate customer service and technical support in the call center.

noHold has help many companies reduce Average Handle Time at the call center, while maintaining excellent customer service with the use of Artificial intelligence. Check out the following resources for more detail:

• Business Case: Agent facing Virtual Assistant
• Be a Call Center Superhero
• Managing Peaks in Call Center Volume

3 Proven Advantages to Implementing a Virtual Assistant

Just last month (Sept 12)  noHold celebrated its 19th year in business. Since then, noHold has built over 1300 enterprise Virtual Assistants for Fortune 500 companies around the world. From the beginning the SICURA® platform was designed with business in mind. Making it one of the few Artificial Intelligence tools that can be managed and maintained without an engineer.  

Metrics prove that companies have seen great advantages from leveraging our Virtual Assistants such as:

• 52% deflection in traffic to the Contact Center from the website.
• 3.5% increase in sales the first month.
• 45% reduction in escalation to Tier 2 Agents.

We believe that noHold's pursuit of better service is the driving force behind the focus in its technology, and continuous innovation has been the key to producing Virtual Assistants that stand the test of time. noHold's CEO and Founder of the company 19 years ago, Diego Ventura, has earned a reputation as a pioneer within this industry. He has been invited to speak at a few conferences in the coming months such as AI World (December 2018) and AVIOS' Conversational Interactions (March2019). 

Stay tuned for more details about those conferences soon. 

www.nohold.com

Virtual Assistants: 5 things to consider when choosing the right technology

The Virtual Assistant (VA) market has grown exponentially in the past two years. This is an exciting time in the industry. Technology is improving daily and new methodologies for providing Artificial Intelligence are sprouting everywhere.

This brings a renewed need for identifying the right components of a VA technology. The following list was created based on the 17 years of experience noHold has in the AI and Virtual Assistant space.

Customer Experience

Addressing customer need is paramount. The people who purchase and use your product must be considered with the utmost importance. When choosing a VA technology, ensure a history of success by looking at long term customers. The amount of time that a customer has used a given technology not only indicates the customer’s appreciation of the experience, but also reflects the positive experiences gained by the ultimate end users - your customers. The more long term customers a VA provider has, the more likely they are to consider the customer first.

The second part of customer experience is to learn and cater specifically to your user base. This means utilizing methodologies like journey mapping to understand pain points for users and identification of where a VA can help. The user interface must also be flexible and meet the requirements of your users. That means mobile first, intuitive placement, clear position statements, and meeting the customer where they are - your website, Facebook, Twitter, and Google.

Scalability

You need a VA technology that is scalable. Handling hundreds or thousands of knowledge artifacts is imperative. Look for a provider that offers multiple import options and an easy-to-use set of authoring and editing tools so administrators can make modifications. Your ability to act fast on the content and information gleaned from the VA will ensure a higher degree of success.

The underlying resources need to respond to demand of the users - for example, automatically scaling with traffic spikes when a new product is released - is quite important too. Cloud hosting means your platform responds to demand without the need for human intervention. When your servers are in the cloud, you do not have to worry about planning and modifying systems to accommodate varying usage rates.

Administrators

Your customers come first and your platform administrators are just as important. They need tools and processes that enable them to quickly, accurately, and easily author new content, check reports, or deploy a new VA. Look for a technology that enables your people to become administrators, reducing any reliance on the vendor for providing content to your users. Look for a vendor who has SLAs in place that address customer questions within the same business day and who provides training certification for your employees, as well as continuing education services.

Reporting

Your VA must capture KPIs. Not to be confused with personally identifiable information (PII), but rather the type of experiences users have with the VA. You want to be able to identify with only a few clicks the top questions for a given day / week / month. You should be able to measure the number of answers the VA was able to provide, as well as the number that it couldn’t. You should be able to track clicking behavior to understand the information most interesting to your users.

Processes should be in place to move knowledge gaps through content drafts and ultimately approved solutions. Processes should be in place to track escalations - those users who couldn’t find an answer through the VA. These processes are important to help administrators as well as the overall customer experience. It is important to frame your VA as an entity that is in continually growing.

Compliance

Look for VA technology that meets a variety of compliance standards; like SOC 2, GDPR, and WCAG. Your users are concerned with security, privacy, and accessibility. Make sure you choose a VA provider that also prioritizes these things. The technology you choose should be low-risk for security vulnerabilities and should be protecting any user PII that is inadvertently collected. And if collected by design, for example to integrate with a CRM, the data should be collected with transparency to the user and transmitted securely. Your VA should follow guidelines that make it safe to use all over the world. And it should be accessible to everyone, regardless of whether they can see the screen.

For more a personal assessment visit www.nohold.com and contact us.