The Do's and Don'ts of Using QR Codes

In March, noHold released a press release on how the Appliances Industry is leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) via QR codes to reduce the effort it takes for customers to  get support for their products. (Customer Effort Score- CES) Here is a link to the full release on Yahoo! Finance: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nohold-artificial-intelligence-improves-way-140000281.html

Shortly after, I bought a new washer from a huge, globally recognized brand, and inside the box came a "support" flyer with a few common questions about the washer. See the picture of the flyer below. (I have removed identifying logos for obvious reasons)

It was great to see major brands recognizing the potential of QR codes and using them to support their customers. In fact, Apple is starting to embrace the QR code trend as well. iPhone's don't require a separate app to be able to scan the codes anymore. In a recent update, iPhone cameras already have the QR reader built in for easy use. 

Kudos to the companies above for their forward thinking, but there are some aspects that can change to make better use of the technology such as: 

1. Instead of having multiple QR codes linked to individual videos, 1 QR code can be provided that pulls up a Virtual Assistant that has access to all the videos plus more if you wanted. Creating an interactive Virtual Assistant is easy and takes no programming skills with Albert. (Side note: Not only can Albert come up from a QR code, but that same Virtual Assistant can be used on Amazon's Alexa or Google Assistant for a voice enabled feature.)

2. Positioning the QR code directly on the product. It is beneficial since most people can never seem to find the manual/flyers that the product came with when they need it the most. Also, positioning the QR codes so they are easy to scan. The above flyer is almost impossible to scan the correct QR code because they are so close together. 

3.  Only being able to support English can be really frustrating for customers who don't speak English. Having a multi-lingual strategy makes a huge impact on customer satisfaction. Virtual Assistants are a great way to provide multi lingual support, without needing live agents who know every language. 

For more information on Artificial Intelligence and QR codes, please contact us here and we will get back to you as soon as possible. 

noHold Gives its AI Platform a Voice Through Google Assistant

November 7, 2017, MILPITAS, CA – noHold, Inc. just announced the release of a Google Assistant Action called “Albert AI.” This connector empowers Albert customers to connect their own Bot to Google Assistant which is used on over 100 million devices. Devices that are compatible with Google Assistant include Google Home, smartphones, Android TV, Android Auto, smartwatches, and more.

This method has become the easiest way for people to get content on Google Assistant. Typically, creating a Google Action requires some programming knowledge and time. With noHold’s connector, no programming skills are required and your Bot can be on Google Assistant in minutes. All you need is a device with Google Assistant, an Albert account, and access to Microsoft Word or Google Docs.

There are only a few steps to creating a bot and making it live on Google Assistant:

1. Sign up for an Albert PRO account, create a document, and upload to the SICURA™ QuickStart platform.
2. In the top right, click the drop down menu and select “Albert Voice Support” followed by “Google Assistant."
3. Define a short phrase that will be used to request your Albert.
4. To invoke your bot via Google Assistant, say “Okay Google, talk to Albert AI about (phrase from step 3).” From that moment on you can speak to your Albert.

Click here for a short video demonstrating how an Executive Assistant leveraged Albert on Google Assistant.

We can think of applications for the business world and personal life. Imagine an Albert on Google that plays scavenger hunts with your kids, or that settles a dispute for whose turn it is to wash the dishes. Also at work, answering questions if the projector is not working or where the toner for the printer is, etc.

Diego Ventura, CEO and founder of noHold says, “Voice enabling our platform is an important step in making sure that the Virtual Assistants built with SICURA™ are a) available on multiple channels b) easily built with existing documents c) they can connect with each other and d) they can speak multiple languages.”

Tunstall and noHold Collaborate to Create a Virtual Assistant for Smart Hub™

October 31, 2017, MILPITAS, CA – noHold is excited to announce Tunstall as a new Albert customer. Tunstall is leveraging noHold’s Artificial Intelligence as a way for customers to find answers to the questions they have about their newly launched product called Smart Hub.

Tunstall, an international company that offers a range of Connected Care and Connected Health solutions, recently launched their Smart Hub product in Australia and is currently undergoing trials in Europe and the USA. The Smart Hub is Tunstall’s latest IP home unit, opening a new world of possibilities for the provision of care in the home. Using cellular technology and working on the 2/3G mobile network with a roaming SIM, the Smart Hub doesn’t require a landline, removing limitations on location.

Tunstall was in search of a way to continue to provide world class support to their growing audience and at the same time learn about the voice of their customers. That is where noHold’s AI Platform, SICURA™ QuickStart comes in. With noHold’s platform, Tunstall is able to use existing documents to easily train their own bot (Albert). Creating Albert requires no programming, and it can be deployed on multiple channels in minutes. Using Albert, Tunstall is able to deliver its customers with 24/7 access to product knowledge and support, regardless of the time zone.

“With the upcoming launch of Smart Hub and our Device Management Platform, we needed a way to communicate with our customers and guide them through the new IP set-up process.  Working with noHold we were able to easily create our own bot and quickly gain feedback using the insights from the dashboard,” said Matthew Henfrey, Group Product Marketing Executive - Telecare, Tunstall Healthcare (UK) Ltd.  

Diego Ventura, CEO of noHold adds, “Tunstall has created a world class product, and it deserves a world class support AI platform that can grow with its business. We have thoroughly enjoyed working with them and we are looking forward to future projects.”

To start creating your own bot, sign up for an Albert account at www.albertai.com.

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, Intel and a host of industry leaders. More information can be found at http://www.nohold.com or subscribe to noHold’s vlog to hear more from CEO, Diego Ventura.

About Tunstall Healthcare Group
Over the last sixty years, Tunstall has pioneered the use of technology to enable independent living, creating the Connected Healthcare industry as we know it today, and supporting more than five million people and their families across the world. Tunstall was the first to develop alarm systems for older people, and has continued to lead the market ever since, remaining at the forefront of developments such as telecare and telehealth, right up to the present day where we are harnessing the power of digital technology.

CEO of noHold Discusses Albert for Presidential Executive Orders

Just a couple weeks ago, noHold announced Albert in the House. This is a little project we took on to demonstrate how easy and versatile Albert can be. We took Presidential Executive Orders from various Presidents, and uploaded them to the SICURA QuickStart platform. In the end, we were able to take these documents straight from the official White House website and produce an Albert that knows all about these Executive Orders. 

From this announcement, Albert in the House made headlines in some a couple different publications including Forbes and The Next Web. 

"Albert can answer questions like 'What is the purpose of this order' or 'Does this order supersede any other order' and is completely bi-partisan. It doesn't care about your political leanings. Using Natural Language Processing (NLP) and an Inference Engine (IE), Albert is able to identify the answer to your question on your own terms, eliminating the hassle of manually sifting through the entire document. This method allows people to feel confident they are getting objective facts straight from official documents." Curtis Silver, Forbes

For more information, Diego Ventura, CEO and Founder of noHold, recorded a quick vlog explaining what it is, how to make one, and why it is important for citizens to be empowered with unbiased information. 

Enjoy New Updates to Albert PRO

Hope everyone had a great holiday break! Now, lets get right into it.  The latest version of Albert is live, and PRO users are now able to enjoy a handful of new features described!  Albert's Advice New updates include: 1. Voting mechanisms can be put in place allowing users to vote on the effectiveness of a solution. You can enable this feature in the "Edit Dialog" page.  To view the rating of effectiveness, go to "view usage." As you can see in the photo below, within the widget on the right, the different color dots symbolize whether a solution was voted effective, needs improvement, or somewhere in between.  2.  Some other updates to the usage page include: The ability to view more metrics. Now, the date filter has many ranges to choose from, or you can specify a customer date range for which you would like metrics.  An extra widget titled Top Countries. This shows you where in the world users are coming from. An option to export data has been added.  3. Even personal accounts have included a new feature. Within the dialog settings page, you are now able to create a "help" button at the top of your bot. This button is an easy way for users to escalate to an alternate support resource in the case that they can not find the answer they need with Albert. This button can be labeled whatever you like, and be linked to wherever you want. If you need any help, or have any questions on the new updates, please feel free to contact us. Albert of the Month Congratulations to Centro39 on being named June's Albert of the Month. Centro 39 is the online destination fashion boutique for luxury Italian style. As a small business, they are using Albert as a 24/7 customer service sidekick. Check out their story below. We would love to hear from you, too. Feel free to send us how you are using Albert for a chance to be featured here.

Click here to upgrade to Albert PRO.

noHold Recognized by Gartner as a 2017 Cool Vendor in AI for Conversational Platforms

June 20, 2017, MILPITAS, CA – noHold, a leader in web based self-service solutions, was named Cool Vendor in AI for Conversational Platforms, 2017 by Gartner. The Cool Vendor series is used to discover emerging innovative SMB vendors with interesting and highly original technology that impact their respective markets in a big way. This is the first year Gartner published a Cool Vendor report for this category.

According to the report, “The use of conversational platforms is a much-hyped topic, with chatbots, assistants, messaging platforms and other natural-language processing (NLP) uses vying for attention. The five Cool Vendors in this note show the breadth of offerings available and are representatives of the cutting-edge innovation in their respective fields.” (Cool Vendors for AI in Conversational Platforms, 2017, 30 May 2017) noHold’s latest platform, SICURA QuickStart, is an example of that type of revolutionary technology being put forward. This platform proves that interactive and diagnostic chatbots can be built directly using Microsoft Word or Google Docs, even if you are not a programmer.

The report goes on to discuss some of the features of SICURA QuickStart that are also outlined in a previous press release. noHold is proud to be part of a short list of companies that have demonstrated innovation in this category.

Furthermore, this is noHold’s second Cool Vendor recognition by Gartner, previously being acknowledged as a Cool Vendor in Business Process Services, 2015. It is a great honor to be accepting a Cool Vendor designation for a second year. noHold is proud to be a pioneer in the chatbot industry, and still continue to be known as a visionary in the space.

You can download the full report titled, “Cool Vendors in AI for Conversational Platforms, 2017” by clicking here.

noHold Adds Two Bots to Cisco’s Spark Depot

May 30, 2017, MILPITAS, CA – noHold, the recognized leader in web based self-services, is proud to announce that Cisco’s Spark Depot now includes two bots noHold has created using its own SICURA™ AI platform. The Spark Depot is a place for users to browse through and add “integrations and bots that can accelerate business outcomes” to their own implementation of Spark. The bots provided by noHold include:

• SparkHelp Bot- SparkHelp empowers users to find answers about Cisco Spark anytime, directly from the Cisco Spark space.
• WebEx Bot- WebEx bot can answer common “how to” questions about WebEx. To start a chat with the WebEx bot is just like starting a chat with a live person directly from within a Spark room.

To position these bots on the Spark Depot, noHold’s engineering team built a connector that allows users to leverage noHold’s existing chatbots directly within the Cisco Spark platform, adding an extra level of convenience for Spark users. The project took only a couple of weeks, and now this effort can be leveraged by any company that has built a Virtual Assistant using noHold’s AI platform, SICURA. In this sense, SICURA is one of the fastest ways to build a bot for Spark.

The Cisco Spark connector is an important component in achieving the multi-channel strategy pursued by noHold. Diego Ventura, CEO of noHold adds, “We want to make sure that the customers who have invested in our solution, can leverage it on different channels. If you build a Virtual Assistant with SICURA you can launch it on the Web, on Alexa, on Facebook M, and today, also on Cisco Spark.”

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, Intel and a host of industry leaders. More information can be found at http://www.nohold.com or subscribe to noHold’s vlog to hear more from CEO, Diego Ventura.

Press Contact

Veronica Cech

Marketing Associate

vcech@nohold.com   

408.946.9200 ext. 356

All other product and service names are the property of their respective owners.

How to Add Albert to Your Website

One of the great things about creating a bot through SICURA QuickStart is the bot you create can be used on various channels. For this particular blog, I wanted to share a quick how-to video on positioning Albert on your website. Check it out:



As you see, the video describes two methods for adding Albert to your website: a JavaScript link and an iframe. With minimal effort and in a matter of minutes, you can provide your audience access to your personal bot online.To download the code used in the video to add Albert to the website, go to the support and resources page. Scroll down until you see "Download the Code to Add Albert to Website." This will give you access to a Word document with the code needed. 

The website is not the only place you can leverage your Albert. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Salesforce, Spark, and more can all be channels for people to interact with your bot. And the best part, you only have to do the work of creating a bot once. Stay tuned for some more "how-to" videos and leave a comment below to let me know if you are interested in learning more about a specific channel.
www.albertai.com
www.nohold.com

noHold’s AI Continues to Improve Efficiency in the Call Center

SICURA QuickStart™ is making it easier than ever for Call Centers to adopt bots

April 27, 2017, MILPITAS, CA – Since the launch of SICURA QuickStart, users have shared multiple ways they are using Albert (the bot created from existing documents). One use case that adds significant value to businesses is leveraging Albert in the Call Center. Recently, a globally recognized conference brand based in Long Beach, CA, created an Albert designed specifically to help Call Center Agents become proficient quickly, and compliant when answering customer questions.

This Call Center is responsible for providing technical support and customer care to people in multiple countries 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year round. After trying different methods and resources to help Agents, the Call Center Manager turned to noHold for help.

In the past, noHold has worked with large enterprises to implement Virtual Assistants in the Call Center, proving Artificial Intelligence works as a great resource not only for customers, but also Agents. According to a recent blog by Cisco, bots are included in the top ten technologies to consider for contact centers in 2017 (Cisco).  

Now, with SICURA QuickStart, the same concept can be applied using Albert, except no programming skills are required to create Albert and the implementation time is much quicker. The Call Center Manager was able to input all the content Agents needed to know about into one Word document, upload it to the QuickStart platform, and within minutes a bot was created. Agents are able to use Albert while replying to customers’ emails, and also while on the phone.  Specifically, the Call Center Manager achieved the following objectives: 

• They reduced the time to get an agent up to speed from one month to one week.
•  Agents were excited to get a tool that made their job easier and more fun, which decreased churn significantly.
• Since Albert delivers information to the agents’ fingertips in real time, AHT dropped by 12 points.
• Consistency and compliance of the information delivered by the agents improved significantly because agents were all leveraging one single source of information.
• Albert provides specific reporting on how many questions agents ask every day and what most of the questions are about. This helps the Call Center Manager make sure that the company is always ahead of what is needed to make the agents successful. 

In summary, Albert took less than an hour to set up and it paid for itself upon launch. Most of all, Albert helped the Call Center Manager with the constant challenge of onboarding and training new agents necessary to keep the Call Center fully staffed.

Diego Ventura, CEO and Founder of noHold says, “We believe that Albert is taking the Consumerization of IT one step further, empowering agents with the same sophisticated tools, such as bots, that people are starting to use in their daily lives.”

To learn more about how businesses can leverage Albert to improve Call Center efficiency, you can find more information here.

noHold Connects its own Albert with Amazon’s Alexa

March 30, 2017, MILPITAS, CA – noHold is excited to announce the availability of a connector that can link SICURA™ QuickStart to Amazon’s Alexa. QuickStart empowers non-programmers to create a bot (Albert) from any existing documents such as, product manuals, employee manuals, training documents, etc. Through the connector Albert can now easily turn a document into an Alexa skill. For example, say you want to extend Alexa to answer questions about your home. Today, to be able to achieve this goal, you would have to be a programmer, or at least very technically savvy. With Albert this is no longer the case. All you have to do is:

1. Create a document that contains FAQ’s about your home (i.e. where is the main valve for the water? Where is the electrical panel?)
2. Use QuickStart to create an Albert by ingesting the document
3. Use the connector to link Albert to Alexa

From that moment on, you can say, “Alexa, ask Albert where the water valve is?” and Alexa will answer back from the knowledge she obtains from Albert. This can be a pretty useful system, especially if your guests are accidentally flooding your home. 

Other use cases involve creating an Albert/Alexa combination that can answer questions in the boardroom, at a hotel concierge, in a company lobby, at the post office, in a classroom, etc. The possibilities are endless.

The next step is to take the connector from the lab and make it available to everybody with the click of a button. Diego Ventura, CEO and Founder of noHold said, “I am looking forward to the day when everybody with a QuickStart account and an Amazon Echo will be able to expand Alexa’s capabilities in minutes without having to be a programmer. With a bit of luck, that moment is around the corner.”

How to Leverage Artificial Intelligence in the Call Center to Improve Productivity

Businesses face many different challenges when it comes to the Call Center. We believe there are some definite use cases for bringing Artificial Intelligence into the Call Center to alleviate some of these pain points. 

Here are a few ways a Virtual Assistant that is available to your agents will add value to your business, and tackle some of the challenges that these professionals face.

First off, churn can be high in some call centers, which can be expensive for companies. It can take up to a month for new agents to train and become productive. Providing a bot for these new agents to access at anytime during a customer interaction, can make them better prepared to handle calls, in a shorter amount of time; making them be just as productive as seasoned agents.

Another important aspect of the Call Center, is for agents to know how companies want them to respond based on their brand. Having a bot that knows exactly how you want your agents to answer questions, increases consistency and compliance within the call center. 

Even seasoned agents can use some help, too. Sometimes agents need to know a little bit of information about a plethora of products and services. Having a bot there as a reminder, or to keep up to date on ever changing products can be a powerful resource.  

Some of noHold's enterprise customers have Virtual Assistants implemented for their Call Centers already and have seen advantages such as decreased Average Handle Time (AHT), increased customer satisfaction, lower churn, and more. Click here to learn more about this story. 

Using Albert, you can create a similar experience for your customers using a word document containing all the information you want your Call Center agents to know and uploading it to the QuickStart platform. Then, the information they need will be readily available right at their fingertip. 

If you are interested, here are a few links to magazines we have found that write specifically about the Call Center space.
http://www.connectionsmagazine.com/
https://www.contactcenterworld.com/
http://www.icmi.com/

Have a great weekend!

noHold Releases Next Generation of Albert

February 27, 2017, MILPITAS, CA – Last month, noHold announced SICURA™ QuickStart, the first platform designed to allow non-programmers to create a chatbot (Albert). Today, noHold is excited to introduce the next generation of Albert. There are many new features implemented to make creating a quality bot easy for anyone.

Here is a list of the new features offered on the platform:

• Phrases Digital Signature (PDS) – This is a new algorithm that allows Albert to no longer rely solely on the Headings to retrieve information. Now, Albert can analyze the entire document (headings and content) to determine what the end user is asking and provide the most accurate solution.
• Synonyms list – Directly within your document, you have the ability to create a list of synonyms for words that are specific to your business. For example whether Joe asks about “Droid settings”, or “Android settings”, Albert understands they are the same questions, because “Droid” and “Android” are set as synonyms.
• Albert Etiquette – This feature gives users the ability to add some personality to Albert. Simply add a few phrases and answers to your document that you would like Albert to answer in a certain way. For example, if someone asks Albert a silly question like “what is your favorite color?” or “why is the sky blue?” You can let Albert know exactly how you would want him to respond. This sort of one off phrase adds character to Albert.
•  Dialog configuration – Users can now manipulate the dialog settings. This includes changing greeting messages, escalation phrases when Albert does not know the answer, and escalation links for further assistance.

In addition to the new features mentioned above, noHold also introduces SICURA QuickStart PRO, making Albert available for commercial use. Features that are exclusive to PRO users include:

• Commercial Use – Companies are able to create and distribute business chatbots, either for external or internal use for little cost.
• Customization of the User Interface (UI) - The free version offers a standard UI that is not customizable. With PRO, account holders have the ability to easily change colors, add company logos, and more all without touching the HTML.
• Multiple Alberts – There are many advantages to having more than one Albert. For example, a company can leverage different Alberts to be knowledgeable about various business units. There can be one bot that knows all about support questions that is positioned on the website for external purposes. Then, another Albert can know about HR policies/company manuals used internally for employees.
• Key encrypted URLs – An extra level of security was added to ensure that Alberts that contain company sensitive information (particularly for internal use), stay private.

Diego Ventura, CEO of noHold says, “Companies are surprising us every day in how they are using Albert. A dealership uses Albert to train and onboard new employees. A technology company is connecting Albert to Near Field Communication (NFC) tags to activate Albert when a user phone gets close to a specific device. A design agency uses Albert to rapidly prototype new bots. We would have never thought about these applications if it weren’t for our customers.”

It is great to be able to offer a more dynamic option to users, still without needing programming skills, and for very little cost. To upgrade your personal account to PRO is as little as $100/month. To sign up for a PRO account, please click here.

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, Intel and a host of industry leaders. More information can be found at http://www.nohold.com or subscribe to noHold’s vlog to hear more from CEO, Diego Ventura. 

What Would You Do With Your Own Bot?

noHold is excited about the response we have received from the BETA program of our latest platform, SICURA QuickStart. If you don't know, QuickStart is a platform designed for anyone, even non programmers, to create a chatbot out of a Word or GoogleDoc. We call these bots, Albert. Get your own Albert here! Small businesses are adopting the concept already. One example is Revolve Robotics, creators of the teleprescnce robot Kubi. Check out the video below to see how Albert has helped enhance customer service without requiring much effort at all.  In this instance, Revolve Robotics is using Albert to answer support questions, but Albert is versatile and can be knowledgeable about whatever you want. It can be used for internal purposes including employee manuals, sales processes, and general IT information. Individuals are also using personal accounts to create customized AI assistants from documents they already have such as recipe bots, teacher assistants, and more. For more small business use cases, please click here. If you would like to sign up for your own free, personal account you can visit www.albertai.com, and click 'sign up' in the top right corner. Already have an account? We would love to hear how you are using Albert! Tag us on Twitter (@albertai2)/Facebook (@Albert) or contact us via the web, and share your story for a chance to be featured on our website. Cheers!

ASK Albert | Contact Us | 408.946.9200 x 311

Small Businesses Adopt noHold’s Newest Product, Albert, Adding Value for Little to No Cost

January 24, 2017, MILPITAS, CA – A little over a month ago, noHold launched the BETA version of the platform, SICURA™ QuickStart. This platform empowers anyone, including non-programmers, to easily create, implement, and maintain a Virtual Assistant (Albert) through a Word or GoogleDoc. The BETA program is now officially over. People can get a free personal account at www.albertai.com and clicking sign up in the top right corner.

Since the launch, Albert has received positive feedback from large enterprises to personal users. Top press publications such as The Next Web, Forbes, PCWorld and more have also recognized the advantages that stem from SICURA QuickStart, and the simplicity of operating it. In addition, small businesses are also finding this technology to be extremely powerful, allowing them to provide customers with the self-service options they crave, without breaking the bank.

Here are a few examples, just from the past month, of small businesses that have leveraged Albert in various ways already. Each example includes a short video showing how each company is utilizing Albert.

• Filosano is a curated marketplace for sustainable fashion. They needed a way to take existing content on the website such as vendor information and product materials, and package it in a way that can deliver that information to end users efficiently. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytvyAX_HANw
• Centro39 is a high fashion online boutique centered on clothing from Italy. Just like many small businesses, customer service departments can be small or sometimes nonexistent. Centro39 is leveraging Albert to fill that gap, being a part of the team to answer support questions 24/7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLRo41CvQaY
• Revolve Robotics, creators of the telepresence robot Kubi, is using Albert to enhance the customer experience. Klaudia Izabella, Customer Success Manager at Revolve Robotics says, “…bringing affordable telepresence and robotics technology to those in the world who need it is our goal, and with Albert we can focus on the bigger picture.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77LJ8bbhTbM

To learn more about the SICURA™ QuickStart platform and other companies that are using Albert, visit www.albertai.com.  Also, noHold’s Founder and CEO, Diego Ventura, will be speaking at the Conversational Interaction Conference on January 30 in San Jose, CA. He will share his expertise on chatbots, the Internet of Things, and where he sees the industry going. To register, click here.

“We are surprised every day by the way in which people are deploying Albert,” says Diego Ventura, founder and CEO of noHold. “The smaller companies focus on customer relationships to answer pre and post sales questions. The larger companies instead are finding ways for Albert to bring efficiency to internal processes. For example, if you work at a company employing 20,000 individuals, just finding access to the right resources may be a challenge. Albert can help with that easily, and with the documents you already have.”

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, Intel and a host of industry leaders. More information can be found at http://www.nohold.com or subscribe to noHold’s vlog to hear more from CEO, Diego Ventura.

Press Contact

Veronica Cech

Marketing Associate

vcech@nohold.com   

408.946.9200 ext. 356

All other product and service names are the property of their respective owners.

Catch noHold's CEO speaking at Conversational Interaction Conference

Greetings!

Wanted to give you guys the heads up that noHold's CEO, Diego Ventura, will be speaking at the Conversational Interaction Conference in San Jose, California. On Monday, January 30th, Diego will be presenting "Connecting Humans and the Internet of Things." In his talk he will be discussing the significant impact Virtual Assistants are having on our lives. He will answer questions such as how Virtual Assistants can be leveraged at every stage of the product life cycle, not just support, and how Virtual Assistants will improve the way humans connect to the Internet of Things. 

After 17 years of being of major contributor in the Virtual Assistant space, Diego is excited to give an insiders perspective on where the market is, and where it is heading. "The CI Conference will discuss how companies and application developers can take advantage of this trend - including resources for creating bots and digital assistants, delivering customer service in natural language, best practices, examples of deployed solutions, and other commercial opportunities generated by the trend."

If you are interested in hearing Diego, and other acknowledged leaders in this space, visit www.conversationalinteraction.com to register and reserve your spot for this 2-Day conference. 
We hope to see you there! Cheers!
#CIcon2017
www.nohold.com

Curated Marketplace for Sustainable Fashion Creates Chatbot for Support Using Albert

The creation of Alberts are well underway. Publications such as Forbes, PCWorld, TheNextWeb, and Business Insider have all recognized SICURA QuickStart as a powerful platform for non programmers to build their own chatbot, opening up the world of AI to so many more people. 

Filosano, marketplace for eco-friendly clothing and accessories,  was one of the first small businesses to try Albert. With little technical background, they have already created and positioned an Albert on their website for their customers to get help on their own terms, 24/7. Check out this video to see how they are embracing this technology. 

Want to create your own chatbot? Sign up for Albert here to create an account.

noHold Launches SICURA™ QuickStart

Empowering non-programmers to create their own Virtual Assistant (bot)

December 6, 2016, MILPITAS, CA – noHold announces SICURA™ QuickStart, a platform designed to make creating a Virtual Assistant (Albert) easy for anyone with a basic understanding of Microsoft® Word or Google® Docs.

Now, if you are a small business owner you can create a Virtual Assistant out of the manual for your product(s). If you are a large enterprise you can create a Virtual Assistant out of an Employee Handbook. Personal use is possible, too. For example, students can create a Virtual Assistant out of their last research paper.

According to Business Insider, in April of 2015 the number of messaging application users surpassed the number of social application users.  Given that the interaction paradigm of a messaging application is very similar to the paradigm of a Virtual Assistant (bot), the popularity of Virtual Assistants has increased exponentially. Recognizing this growing trend, noHold engineered SICURA QuickStart as a way to make creating and managing AI simple for anyone.

To make your own Albert, go to www.albertai.com, and click sign up in the top right navigation bar. Follow a few simple instructions to get a free personal account, and once you have access you will be ready to start teaching Albert anything you want. Upon completion of training Albert (a process that takes seconds), a mobile-friendly URL is provided. This URL can be placed anywhere you like, making integrating with websites, social media, and collaboration platforms easy. Metrics are also available to monitor weekly usage and identify exactly what users are asking your Albert.

CEO of noHold, Diego Ventura, goes on to say, “I don’t believe the next generation AI will be built by one single big company, instead, it will be the result of the collaboration of millions of people who have created their own Virtual Assistants and are able to connect them together. Who knows, maybe a lot of them will be called Albert.”

Dreamforce 2016 Announces Einstein, But noHold Introduced Albert Years Ago

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Dreamforce 2016, one of the largest tech conferences in the world came to a close last week. It was exciting to see industry professionals come together in San Francisco to connect, learn and grow. There has been many interesting things that came about from Dreamforce, but one of the biggest announcements from last week has to be the introduction of Einstein. 

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Salesforce has jumped on the Artificial Intelligence train, acquiring numerous machine learning companies over the past couple of years to create what is being considered the 'smartest CRM system' out there. In short, it is a product that helps sales people narrow in on the most promising leads with the use of Artificial Intelligence.

While Salesforce is starting to revolutionize the way CRM systems operate with Artificial Intelligence, noHold has been using Artificial Intelligence to change the way customers engage with customers for over 15 years. We always believe imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Back in 2012, noHold started using the name Albert for one of our Virtual Assistants aimed at helping the Help Desk. Albert after Albert Einstein, that is. Now, we are moving forward with the name Albert as a product that will make it easier for anyone to create their own Virtual Assistant. Come back around Thanksgiving 2016 to learn more about Albert.

Cheers! 
www.nohold.com

A Look Back at noHold’s Top Stories of the Week: July 28-August 1

This week has been full of some great information; from blogs about the Internet of Everything to Virtual Realities, it has been an interest week. Here's a quick recap of the week's stories.

1. The Internet of Everything is taking city streets to a whole new level with Internet connected trash cans!

Photo Credit: govtech.com

2. Did you know, "35% of IT organizations will have 75% of IT service desk contacts from the business resolved by Virtual Assistants."

3. Flashy gimmicks are no longer the way to promote your company's new products or services. By using a Virtual Agent, it can provide the appropriate information, in the right context. Check out the blog, Leveraging a Virtual Agent to Cross-Sell Within the Right Context.

4. #TBT: Virtual reality is the new anesthesia? It seems so. Researchers are studying the effects of being immersed in a virtual reality while undergoing dental procedures. Studies are showing that the pain is significantly reduced when you distract a patient by immersing them into a virtual reality. Maybe one day, instead of being 'put under', all you'll have to do is put on a headset and drift into another reality. 
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Hope you all have a great weekend, cheers!
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35% of IT Operations Organizations Will Have 75% of IT Service Desk Contacts from the Business Resolved by Virtual Assistants

In recent news, noHold announced last Thursday our partnership with a trusted provider of user-oriented IT solutions for systems, security, mobility, and ITSM challenges. In doing so, we are working together to introduce the next-generation Help Desk to IT organizations with the help of Virtual Assistants/Virtual Agents. Here is our stance on the topic.   

Typically, customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction are prioritized on two different levels, and in a customer-centric world, companies often let employee satisfaction fall by the wayside. In fact, industry experts in IT Operations have said that in general, IT Service Management is five to six years behind consumer-facing Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Knowing this, companies are taking another look internally and starting to incorporate what experts call a ‘necessity’ to running an efficient Help Desk. Top research firm, Gartner, predicts, “By 2016, 35% of IT operations organizations will have 75% of IT service desk contacts from the business resolved by virtual assistants” (Source: Gartner Predicts 2014: Automation Brings Promise to IT Operations Management, but at What Cost? 12 December 2013. Authors: Greene, J., Colville, R., et al.).

Some companies are already embracing a more interactive Help Desk. For example, Fidelity, the world’s largest provider of financial services, used Apple’s Genius Bar as inspiration for constructing their Help Desk. By doing this, the company is providing a closer, more personal relationship between the business and their employees. Multiple universities are also following suit, creating Help Desks with a similar concept to the Genius Bar.

A ‘Genius Bar’ inspired Help Desk is a move in the right direction; but as for the near future, IT organizations seem to be getting more interactive, in addition to becoming automated. In fact, industry experts agree that most IT help desk tickets can be handled through self-service. It is increasingly important for IT to implement a quality self-service solution for their employees to ensure profitability and employee satisfaction.  

A revolutionized Help Desk will include leveraging a Virtual Assistant as a first point of contact. One way of making a Virtual Assistant easily accessible, is through QR codes. Simply scan the QR code and a Virtual Assistant will pop up to help you with questions regarding BYOD, company policies, email issues, and more. When a live agent is necessary, the Virtual Assistant can carry the conversation over to the live agent so they know the root of the issue and can take action quickly. Incorporating a Virtual Assistant into your IT strategy can support employees, while allowing the Help Desk to spend less time responding to issues that can be automated, and more time focusing on the business.

I'll leave you with this slideshare demonstrates how a Virtual Assistant empowers enterprise customers.

www.nohold.com