A Look Back at noHold's Top Stories of the Week: July 14 - July 18

As another week is wrapping up, lets take a look back at some of noHold's top stories of the week...

1. Check out this video of a Virtual Agent in Action

2. noHold announces their efforts in the charitable initiative, Virtual Volunteers!

"Over the past year or so, noHold has been working on a charitable initiative called Virtual Volunteers. A Virtual Volunteer is a Virtual Agent aimed to provide nonprofit organizations with a self-service solution that will guide users to answer their own questions, quickly. Our mission is to serve as a Virtual Volunteer for your organization. This means working to help your cause provide real answers to real questions in a fast and efficient way. Our goal is to fill the overall need of getting accurate and important information to your audience."

Click here to ask Vint a question!

3. Increasing support and service revenue with the help of a Virtual Agent. 

A company in the consumer electronics industry leveraged their Virtual Agent to help get their customers the services they need, while increasing revenue for the company.

"Humans are programmed to reject typical forms of advertisement, but everybody still appreciates a helping hand when they are trying to solve a problem." 

-noHold, Inc. 

Does your company leverage self-service to generate revenue? How do you offer the right services at the right time? 

4. Throwback Thursday: Here we talked about the evolution of movie robots, and the evolution of the brains behind the robots, Artificial Intelligence. 

                                                                                                                   

To conclude this week, I want to share with you some pictures I stumbled across of this years best photos taken from a drone. I'll leave you with a couple of the top pics. Cheers!

Photo Credit

Photo Credit

www.nohold.com

The Secret to Reducing Average Handle Time While Maintaining an Excellent Customer Experience

Here is a business case of one of the top security software companies in the industry. They were interested in reducing Average Handle Time (AHT) for call center agents, reducing churn, and reducing second tier escalation  by 35%. Check out the slideshare below to find out how implementing a Virtual Agent into their Call Center helped them to exceed their expectations. 

To learn more about Virtual Agents in the Call Center click here. 

A Global Stock Transfer Company Reaches Huge ROI With Virtual Agents

A few weeks ago noHold posted a blog about The Most Commonly Used and Most Effective Virtual Agent Solutions. We talked about the monthly value card of a leader in the PC industry and the metrics they report on. To clarify, Virtual Agents automatically capture actionable customer intelligence based on each interaction, and powerful administrative tools allow your company to create customer reports on the usage of the Virtual Agent based on organizational needs. The monthly value cards are an additional resource provided by our Professional Services team here at noHold, containing helpful recommendations, best practices, and a snapshot of monthly metrics.

At the top is a screenshot of the monthly value card for the experts in high integrity data management and stakeholder engagement. The metrics above are for one Virtual Agent for a specific business unit within the company. In their value card, noHold shares the ‘number of interactions’ or the number of completed conversations had with the Virtual Agent (per month). Also, one of the most important metrics to pay attention to is ‘weighted effectiveness.’ This represents the percentage of people who have said the solution they found via the Virtual Agent was very helpful. This number is important because it allows your company to get some feedback straight from their customers. In addition, the ROI snapshot includes 'break even' - this particular client achieves 'break even' with only 1% effectiveness; that means that the Virtual Agent already paid for itself with 1% helpfulness votes. Therefore, the percentage of ROI is in the thousands. 

Besides having a huge ROI, additional benefits from the Virtual Agent include:

1. Reduced service cancellation
2. Improved customer satisfaction
3. Real-time feedback loop to product marketing
4. First contact resolution
5. Reduced call time

Kudos to this company for positioning their Virtual Agent successfully and utilizing all its advantages. Cheers!

www.nohold.com

The Most Commonly Used and Most Effective Virtual Agent Solutions

As we've mentioned in the past, metrics are an important aspect of a Virtual Agent (VA). Virtual Agents automatically capture actionable customer intelligence based on each interaction, and powerful administrative tools allow your company to create custom reports on the usage of the Virtual Agent based on organizational needs. Trusted brands use the metrics to report on things such as effectiveness, escalation, abandonment, completion, and more. In addition, noHold provides clients with a monthly value card as an added bonus from the Professional Services team with great recommendations, best practices, additional metrics, etc.

One category provided in these values cards is the top 5 most commonly used solutions and the top 5 most effective solutions. Here is a snapshot of the most commonly used solutions for one of the leaders in the PC/Consumer Electronics industry. 

For one line of products (Product X), the top 5 most commonly used solutions were: 

1. Drivers and software
2. Install drivers manually
3. You want to update drivers and applications using "Product X" System Update
4. Windows support
5. Get a Product Recovery CD or DVD

For that same line of products, the top 5 most effective solutions were:

1. Install drivers manually
2. Download SM Bus Controller
3. Drivers and software
4. You want to update drivers and applications using "Product X" System Update
5. Get a Product Recovery CD or DVD

The most commonly used solutions and the most effective solutions might sound similar, but there is an important distinction between the two and a good reason for listing both. Most commonly used solutions can be defined in exactly the same way they are interpreted; these are the solutions that the end customer uses most frequently. The most effective solutions are the solutions that users rate as very helpful for solving their problem. Effective solutions are important to note because they allow you to learn from your customers as to what works best and can be used as a guide for improving the solutions provided by the Virtual Agent. For example, a solution can make the most commonly used list, but not the most effective list. This could be an indicator that your customers are asking this same question, but aren't finding the solution very helpful. Your company can take this information and adjust the Virtual Agent accordingly to better suit customers needs. 

The demand for excellent customer service is high; it can make or break a business. Using reporting tools to learn more about your consumers is a proven effective way to increase customer satisfaction. 

www.nohold.com

"...It's the Only Support Solution That Drives the Cost Down the More it is Used.”

The best way to measure the success of a Virtual Agent is to learn straight from the clients that implement them. One of noHold's customers, ViewSonic, a globally recognized leader in visual display technology, provided noHold with a testimonial on their experience with a Virtual Agent. 

"InstantSupport™ helps us provide quick and consistent solutions for our customers with just a few key strokes.  Its reporting tools guide us towards updates to keep our solutions current and it’s the only support solution that drives the cost down the more it is used.” - Carol Hansen, Manager, Customer Care, ViewSonic

Kudos to ViewSonic for maximizing the use of their Virtual Agent and reaping the benefits of lower support costs and higher customer satisfaction. 

Are Virtual Agents one of the only support solutions that drive down costs the more they are used? What's your opinion? 

Business Case: Leader in Security Software Becomes a Global Success with a Multilingual Strategy

Did you know "1 out of 5 people living in the United States speaks a language other than English in the home?" (RedLine) Not only do big name companies marketing their brand all over the world need to be prepared; companies marketing to consumers in the US need a multilingual strategy, too. Offering support for your products/services in multiple languages is imperative for your company to be a global success. noHold Virtual Agents are language independent, meaning they can operate in any language to suit global needs. We have implemented Virtual Agents in many languages such as: English, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch, German, and Russian.

Here is a quote written in a previous blog from a noHold customer offering their Virtual Agent in Japanese.

"The noHold Virtual Agent has allowed Webroot to expand its support offerings in the Japanese market. With a small team in Japan, we are committed to continuously identifying ways to improve our customer’s experience while managing our support costs. In just the past few months since implementing our Japanese Virtual Agent we have already seen a significant return on our investment and improved customer satisfaction. Our customers expect only the best service from Webroot and we have an obligation to deliver nothing but the best possible experience to our customers. The noHold Virtual Agent is an integral part of our support operations and key to helping us uphold this standard of excellence." - Michael Davies, Manager Technical Support Operations at Webroot.

Living in such a diverse market, trusted brands need to make sure they are creating an excellent customer journey for ALL their consumers. Appealing to customers in their native tongue makes them feel valued as a customer. This multilingual strategy applied by a Security Software leader reduced support costs, increased customer satisfaction, and in turn, created loyal customers. 

Cheers!

Business Case: Leading PC Manufacturers Enhance Interactive Self-Service and Reach an Average 850% ROI Per Month

In 1983, Steve Jobs and a few others filled a time capsule and buried it at the Aspen International Design Conference. Over 3 decades later, the show Diggers helped organizers finally uncover the buried treasure. The unveiling of the time capsule will be aired on the National Geographic’s channel, February 25.

One of the items in the time capsule is the Lisa mouse. This mouse is considered to be a significant part of tech history. “Jobs used it at the conference where he predicted many innovations we use today. He envisioned the future of computers and the Internet, the creation of the App Store, wireless networking and other Apple technologies.” (Steve Jobs Time Capsule Finally Uncovered After 30 Years) Thanks to the innovation of the Lisa mouse, it has set the bar high for top PC manufacturers to provide cutting edge technology to their consumers. The inception of the box mouse “Lisa”, helped lead to innovations like the wireless mouse, touchpads, touch screen/tablet, holographic keyboard, and much more. 

Virtual Agents are also making an impact on tech history. Companies in today’s market are utilizing automated self-service tools for more than just support . Since the conception of the Internet of Everything, noHold Connect Virtual Agent’s advanced technology allowing them to communicate with multiple Virtual Agents (noHold Connect), providing a “butler” to keep users connected to all their devices from a single User Interface (UI).   

Here is an example of one of the top 3 PC manufacturers who is also recognized as a company that develops, sells, repairs computers and related products and services. The company began using a Virtual Agent to provide a better customer experience. This company wanted to gain insight into the top issues their customers were inquiring about and be able to solve these issues. Instead of using a standard approach to self-service and offering a long list of articles with answers to an infinite number of questions, they implemented an “empty” VA (EZintel) to keen in on what customers were having the most trouble with. After understanding the questions through reporting analysis, they began providing interactive and diagnostic solutions (InstantSupport) across multiple product lines (printers, mobile devices, gaming, etc.). In addition, integrating the Virtual Agent with their existing support ecosystem has reduced the need for human intervention. By preempting live chat with the VA, customers have the opportunity to get a quick answer through the VA before engaging a live agent. As a result, the company recently reported a chat avoidance metric of 11%. Using this front line technology has saved companies hundreds of thousands of dollars. Companies in the PC industry report an average ROI of 850%.

Times have definitely changed since the Lisa mouse, but the constant need to innovate is timeless. There will always be a new way to do things, but adapting is key to staying competitive and successful. What do you think the next big technology break through will be? What would you want in your time capsule?   

www.nohold.com

Business Case: One of the Top 3 Security Software Vendors Increases First Contact Resolution (FCR) in the Contact Center with the Help of a Virtual Agent.

One of the world leaders in security software has experienced major success by empowering call center staff with a Virtual Agent. The initial goal was to reduce Tier 1 escalation by 35%. After implementing a Virtual Agent, the average FCR rate is currently estimated at 50% across all products, exceeding their goal by 15% . This Virtual Agent is being used as the primary tool for resolving customer issues by an entry level support team. By utilizing the Virtual Agent in the Call Center the company has benefited by

1. Reducing average handle time (AHT)
2. Reducing training time for agents working in the Call Center
3.  Improving consistency all around

This proves that having an interactive and diagnostic Virtual Agent  that can be accessible by entry level Call Center agents will decrease the time to resolution in the call center, while reducing costs. It also provides a better experience for the customer because of the fast and consistent interactions. I think we can all agree that in a customer-centric world, it is important to provide the end user with a memorable and pleasant encounter to keep them coming back for more.

Cheers! 

Case Study: Leader in Security Software Increases Sales by Providing a Virtual Agent

"The use of noHold technology for both sales and support has resulted in a cleaner, enhanced Customer journey and is a revenue generator. We are pleased with the Customer Satisfaction rating the v-agent sustains. We continue to add new domains as we release additional products and services."

- VP of Customer Care for a leading security software manufacturer

Problem:
A leader in the security software market pioneered freemium security software products. The company needed a way to support as well as offer upgrades to millions of prospects.

Solution:
“Ask Julia” is a preferred self-service channel that offers a full 360 experience for the customer. She provides support and sales information for both personal support and mobile support sites. As the company continues to grow its products portfolio, "Ask Julia" will remain an essential part of the customer experience ecosystem.

Supporting Metrics:
• Purchasing data shows tens of thousands of dollars in revenue solely from the Virtual Agent on the support site.

• Increase in sales by offering options to upgrade, purchase additional licenses, and buy Express Install. Based on Virtual Agent metrics, 10% of “Ask Julia” interactions result in eStore referrals each month.

• Increase in revenue by using the “Power Pane” to promote Premium services. “Ask Julia” for support promotes Express Install service. By offering customers the option for premiere services, Julia captures 2% clicks per month to Express Install offering.

• Average 1% buy now clicks, and 10% ‘more info’ clicks per month.