Showing posts with label charity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label charity. Show all posts

Thursday, October 16, 2014

noHold Kicks Off Virtual Volunteers With its First Charitable Virtual Assistant Awarded to Family Giving Tree

Photo Credit: familygivingtree.org
October 16, 2014, MILPITAS, CA – noHold is proud to announce its charitable initiative called “Virtual Volunteers,” with its first Virtual Assistant donation given to Family Giving Tree of California. The goal of noHold’s Virtual Volunteers is to provide charities, non-profits and foundations with a Virtual Assistant that interacts with website visitors to get real answers to questions real fast. Virtual Volunteers work similar to live chat; however, instead of interacting with a live person, end users interact with an Artificial Intelligence (AI). These Virtual Assistants are available 24/7 and allow supporters to find answers without human intervention. Virtual Volunteers improve customer satisfaction, help the recipient get closer to its audience, and increases donation/volunteer rates. 

Family Giving Tree is one of the first recipients, and has recently launched a Virtual Assistant. The Virtual Elf is ever-present as visitors to the website navigate through various pages, and provides a wealth of knowledge for hosts, volunteers, agencies, and offers additional information about how to donate. With successful programs focused on back to school as well as the holidays, Family Giving Tree accepted the donation to keep up with the growing popularity of giving back. In its 23rd year, the total number of gifts and backpacks donated had grown to over 900,000, making the Family Giving Tree the largest gift and backpack donation program in California.

By donating a Virtual Assistant, noHold will empower the organization to focus on its charitable mission and spend less time answering calls. Since Family Giving Tree has frequent changes in volunteer locations, donation centers, etc., the “Virtual Elf” can be updated as necessary based on the needs of the organization and its audience. In addition, the Virtual Elf will capture actionable feedback from its users, which provides a unique way for Family Giving Tree to get closer to supporters. For example, a visitor to the site might have questions about leading a drive, volunteering, donating or he/she may even be part of an agency. The Elf will first determine which of these groups the visitor belongs to, then answer specific questions automatically.  To interact with the Virtual Elf, visit www.familygivingtree.org, and click on “Ask the Elf!” on the lower right corner. 

“I have been a longtime fan of Family Giving Tree, so I was thrilled when they were selected to receive the same great Virtual Assistant technology we provide to our for-profit customers.  By having a Virtual “Elf” to answer common questions, the fabulous folks at Family Giving Tree can focus even more of their time on fulfilling families’ wishes.  And volunteers, agencies and hosts can get answers from the Virtual Assistant right away, even when Family Giving Tree offices are closed,” said Andrea Sahli, Member of Virtual Volunteers Committee, and Implementation Manager at noHold. 

“In order to give back to our community, noHold has recently launched Virtual Volunteers. Working with trusted brands over the past 15 years has proven that Virtual Assistants can significantly reduce costs while increasing customer satisfaction. noHold looks forward to working with The Family Giving Tree as they achieve the same success as our customers,” said Diego Ventura, CEO and Founder of noHold. 

“We are extremely grateful to noHold, Inc. for donating their time, energy and support in providing our organization with a fantastic Virtual Assistant.  The quality of service, commitment and expertise from the entire noHold staff has been incredible. We feel very privileged to work beside them on this endeavor, and highly recommend their expertise and product to both for-profit and non-profit agencies alike,” said Ashley Gilmer, Communications Specialist Elf. 

noHold plans to donate two Virtual Assistants each year to organizations selected by the Virtual Volunteers committee. More information and submission criteria can be found at: www.nohold.com/virtual-volunteers.html, or you can "Ask Vint" about noHold's charitable initiative.

About Family Giving Tree
The Family Giving Tree began in 1990 as a San Jose State University MBA class project. Jennifer Cullenbine and Todd Yoshida were asked to "create a program that adds value to someone else's life." They created the Family Giving Tree with the hope of providing holiday gifts to 300 children in East Palo Alto. Encouraged by the success of the first year, Jennifer decided to continue and expand the organization. In the 23rd year of the program's existence, the total number of gifts and backpacks donated had grown to over 900,000, making the Family Giving Tree the largest gift and backpack donation program in California.

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 experience into cognitive customer interaction. noHold customers include Toshiba, Lenovo, Cisco and a host of industry leaders. More information can be found at www.nohold.com.


Press Contacts
Sarah Ramoz
Marketing Operations Manager
sramoz@nohold.com
408.946.9200 ext. 305

Veronica Cech
Social Media Assistant
vcech@nohold.com
408.946.9200 ext. 356
 
Copyright © 2014 noHold Inc. All other product and service names are the property of their respective owners.

Friday, July 18, 2014

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...



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


Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Virtual Agent Tips and Tricks: Leveraging a Virtual Agent for Your Cause

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.

Want to apply for your nonprofit? It’s easy. All you have to do is go to the website, download the application form, complete it, and fax it to noHold: (408) 946-9202. Or, use our Virtual Agent, Vint (a Virtual Volunteer expert), and submit your application online. Vint will gladly assist you with any questions you might have regarding the initiative, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.


We are receiving wonderful feedback from nonprofit organizations, and are currently in the process of completing a couple Virtual Volunteers. An official announcement will be released in the coming weeks. 
Cheers!