noHold's CEO Becomes Member of the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM)

Artificial Intelligence has been impacting a wide variety of industries in the recent years. It has also been effecting various business units within those industries as well. AI is continuing to grow, and becoming so versatile, Gartner suggestions company leaders start laying down their organizations AI foundation now, before it's too late.

Photo Source: Content Science Review

Through research and experience, noHold developed an innovative way for the Appliance industry to leverage AI (Virtual Assistant technology) to better engage with their customers via QR codes. This past month, a press release regarding the exciting new things noHold is doing within the Appliances industry went out. If you missed that release, you can find it here.  

In line with these recent moves into the Appliances industry, noHold has become a member of the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM). This year, Diego Ventura, CEO and Founder of noHold will be attending AHAM's annual member meeting called Expectations 2018. From April 19^th to the 21^st, noHold will be in Arizona meeting with leaders in this space to share how AI can help brands exceed customer expectations. By placing QR codes on appliances that will invoke a Virtual Assistant that is knowledgeable about that specific product, these brands are able to reduce Customer Effort Score (CES), provide assistance in multiple languages, 24/7, up sell, and capture metrics that can be used to spot product improvements or knowledge gaps.

If you would like more information on AI and Virtual Assistants, please contact us via the web, and we would love to help you out. To become a member of AHAM or register for the Expectations 2018, please click here.

www.nohold.com

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’s Artificial Intelligence Improves the Way the Appliances Industry Engages with Customers

March 15, 2018, MILPITAS, CA – noHold is revolutionizing the customer experience for the Home Appliance industry through Artificial Intelligence. Home appliances are an essential part of consumers’ everyday life, and noHold thinks companies in this space need more than just a great product to be successful, they need to create a great customer journey as well.

noHold has developed a strategy to be able to invoke a Virtual Assistant through a QR code that is positioned directly on the product. Using this strategy, customers’ would have to put little effort into searching for answers/ information. Here is an example of how a company can use noHold’s technology to reduce Customer Effort Score (CES) for both potential buyers and current customers.  

A woman comes into a store looking for a new refrigerator. She finds one, but has a couple of questions about it. Instead of trying to find the right salesperson that knows about that specific refrigerator, she uses her smart phone to scan the QR code on the product. Instantly, a Virtual Assistant appears and answers her questions. She ends up buying the refrigerator. A couple years later, she is having a problem with her ice maker. Using the same process of scanning a QR code, she is able to quickly find the exact part she needs to buy to fix her ice maker.

Using the QR codes to leverage a Virtual Assistant was beneficial for a few reasons.

• She did not need to look and wait for a sales personal that knew about a product.
• Even after several years of owning the fridge, she did not need to scavenge up the manual she probably threw away.
• The Virtual Assistant was able to upsell.
•  Metrics were captured to learn about her experience, and used to improve the product or support for the product.

QR codes are not the only unique way people can pull up a Virtual Assistant. noHold has created connectors to Google Home, Amazon’s Alexa, Facebook Messenger, and more, so people can reach the Virtual Assistant through their preferred channel, whenever they want.

Diego Ventura, Founder and CEO of noHold, adds, "I believe we are in a unique position to help companies accomplish this paradigm, because we have built a platform that empowers companies to create Virtual Assistants automatically out of existing documents such as manuals."

Proven Strategies to Improve Customer Effort Score for PC Manufacturers

noHold's 18+ years of experience, and long standing customers in a variety of industries (including PC) have given us insider knowledge when it comes to what companies can do to better support customer efforts. Diego Ventura, CEO of noHold, took some time to look into the PC industry, and determined a few key pointers that will help improve Customer Effort Scores (CES). 

For more information about noHold please visit, www.nohold.com

Understanding the Voice of the Customer- Virtual Assistants Used to Help Improve Customer Satisfaction

Photo Credit: under40preneur.com

According to Google, “Customer satisfaction is a term frequently used in marketing. It is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation.” One way to increase customer satisfaction is by having exceptional customer support, through the channels they prefer. Self-service options are continuing to become the consumers' choice to fulfill their support needs. 

The way we measure customer satisfaction has changed and can vary depending what your company wants to know. CSAT is commonly used to measure how satisfied a customer is with their recent interaction with the company. Another metric used is Net Promoter Score (NPS) which asks the question, "How likely are you to recommend our company to a friend?" Recently, companies have been using Customer Effort Scores (CES) to determine customer satisfaction. CES works on the premise that if a customer does not have to put in much effort to get to the solution they need, they are satisfied. We live in a fast paced world, and speed and efficiency are what people are looking for. Virtual Assistants provide customers with that convenience of ease and quickness that they desire. 

While each customer satisfaction metric has their own advantages and limitations, it is important that your company understands its customers, hearing it directly from the customer. How does your company capture the Voice of the Customer (VOC)? Would a Virtual Assistant help improve customer satisfaction? 

www.nohold.com

Customer Spotlight: Cisco Consumer Division

Authors of a recent article in the Harvard Business Review recognized Cisco Consumer Division for “minimizing channel switching by increasing self-service channel ‘stickiness’.” Today, 84% of all customer contacts are handled through self-service on Cisco’s Consumer Website.

The article highlighted a new measure of customer loyalty, the Customer Effort Score. These authors suggest that the perceived effort has the greatest influence on whether a customer will return for business. This measure is intuitively sound and can perhaps be applied as a measure of overall satisfaction as well. For more information visit: http://hbr.org/2010/07/stop-trying-to-delight-your-customers/ar/1

Cisco’s Consumer Division has been working with noHold since 2006. noHold now provides Virtual Agents and ArticlesManager™ for Linksys and Valet products. Both the “Guide Me” and FAQ functionality are provided by noHold. Try it for yourself: http://homesupport.cisco.com/en-us/home/

On a similar note, noHold would like to congratulate Cisco Systems on recently being presented the Spring 2010 Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA) Star Award for Online Support. The TSIA presents this award to companies that leverage Web-based solutions to provide effective self-service for their customers. For more information visit: http://www.tsia.com/awards_and_certifications/star_awards/star_awards_spring.html