noHold Participates in a Case Study with Partner, Rackspace

Here at noHold, we love getting feedback from our customers. It is a great way to find out if we are providing the best products/ services possible, what ways we can improve, and how we can customize products to better fit the needs of our audience. Just recently, Dario De Santis, our Product and Engineering Manager, participated in a case study for one of our partners, Rackspace. They are a well-known managed cloud computing company based in Texas. Here is a brief video of Dario explaining how our involvement with Rackspace and their services is truly essential to providing our customers with the best foundation possible for their products.

There is also an article explaining a little more in depth why Rackspace works so well for noHold. To read the full document, please click here. 

Is customer feedback a key performance indicator for your company? Why or why not?  

www.nohold.com

Virtual Agents Can Provide 'How To' Videos for Visual Learners

Last week, we talked about embedding surveys into Virtual Agent solutions to encourage users to complete a survey by making it more fun and interactive. The same concept about embedding surveys into Virtual Agents can be applied for 'How To' videos, as well.  

It is estimated that about 65% of the entire population are visual learners (Prime Infographics). Most people prefer to see how something is done rather than read about it. Knowing this, we need to adapt self-service support solutions to include options for all types of learners.  

Take the video above for example. In this video, by Donald Bell from CNET, he demonstrates how to take your old PC data and store it in the cloud. Since this is a hot topic now, a lot of people will be asking, "How do you do this?" Explaining this process through text only can be confusing to some and a bit lengthy, but adding a 'How To' video into the Virtual Agent solution, it offers supplementary information that can aid in the support process. In addition, the Virtual Agent makes finding videos much easier than traditional search. By positioning the video as part of a solution, end users can play a short clip and visualize how to fix their problem. 

Here is an example of a Virtual Agent that provided the answer to a question AND a supplementary instruction video. 

Note: In this example, the Virtual Agent being used is SalesAdvisor. A Virtual Agent designed to educate, advise, and cross-sell to prospective customers in real-time. 

How does your company make it easy for customers to find video solutions? Does typical search retrieve a list of potential solutions where the customer has to 'guess' which visual is the answer to his/her questions? 

www.nohold.com

Throwback Thursday: Self-Service Kiosks: Past, Present, and Future

Photo Credit: IBM

Above is a picture of the world’s first self-service kiosk created by IBM who partnered with American Airlines, and American Express. It was used as an airline ticket vendor and received high praise from its test trial, with 99% of users saying they would use it again. IBM continued to create and make advancements to many self-service kiosks throughout the years and still to this day.

Today, many companies are coming up with ways to enhance what can be accomplished through self-service and they have come a long way since the first kiosk was introduced. Now self-service kiosks are popping up everywhere in the community – from grocery stores to DVD rentals, airports to train stations – people are demanding self-service to be an option. Just recently, a national pilot program for Peapod was implemented. Peapod is a mobile application for online grocery shopping. This program is setup in train stations across the US (where people typically have to wait long periods of time for the next train) and individuals step up to a specific panel on the train platform and downloads the Peapod app. They can then virtually grocery shop through aisles, pay online, and be done; quick and easy. That is essentially what the customer’s want; a quicker and easier way of doing everyday tasks. And with the sort of technology resources we have, why not make life a little more efficient.

“I really think the future holds many great possibilities. I think the ATM was the first instance where a person had the opportunity to interface with a piece of machinery, and that allowed that person then to be comfortable with interfacing to other pieces that came out since then—like PCs, as an example, and we all know the success of the PC. I think we’ re going to see much, much more of that happening in the future. I think people nowadays and in the future are going to have the opportunity to not only come up with a lot of new products but also to be able to use those products in ways they never dreamed of.”

-Don Wetzel, Co-patentee of the Automatic Teller Machine.

I agree with Wetzel, the future allows for infinite possibilities that can only be imagined right now. Eventually, a shift from self-service kiosks will move to be completely in the cloud. For example, already people rarely go into the bank. ATM’s are what people prefer to use, but slowly the need for ATM's will be unnecessary because of the cloud. People can deposit checks, transfer money, etc via digital devices. Pretty soon everything will be automated; you will be able to talk to a Virtual Agent and tell it what you want, and it can do it for you.

Do you envision a world were kiosks will live in the cloud? Or are there certain situations where the presence of a kiosk is needed?