Throwback Thursday: Connected Virtual Agents

     For this week’s throwback Thursday, I wanted to bring your attention back to a blog written by Angela McIntyre, a research director from Gartner. Back in 2011, she wrote a blog titled "Human or Chatbot."  Angela discussed the advantages of Virtual Assistants, in particular the Virtual Assistants with the capability to pass the conversation on to a partner Virtual Agent. "Some providers of virtual assistant technology seamlessly link the virtual agent for the company that makes the device, with the virtual agent of the company that makes the connector box, with the virtual agent of the company that provides the software application, etc." noHold is the only corporation that utilizes this type of technology which we call Confederated Knowledge (CK). Since two out of three calls in the call center are related to third party products and services, it is advantageous to customer satisfaction (not to mention cost wise) to be able to direct your consumer immediately to the right solution.

     As always, I love to leave you with a quote, so here is a quote from Diego Ventura, the founder and CEO of noHold, Inc. "noHold is pleased to enhance the partnership between our customers through CK. However, the real winners here are the end users who can solve their problems quickly on their own terms without having to visit multiple sites." Click here for the full press release.

    Enjoy the rest of your week. Cheers!

Throwback Thursday: Customer Case Study with Cisco

     In the spirit of Throwback Thursday, we wanted to share with you a case study from last year presented at Technology Services World in May of 2012. Check out these slides which were co-produced with Tarik Mahmoud, Senior Manager of Customer Support at Cisco, to learn how support became the leader in innovation.

                                               

View more presentations from noHold, Inc.

  
     Additionally, we wanted to give you access to an exclusive interview held with Mahmoud were he talks about his knowledge of world-class customer support. As a multi-award winning executive, Mahmoud gave us insight to invaluable advice pertaining to web support that any company can benefit from. Click on the link below to download the full PDF to see what he had to say. 
 www.nohold2.com/index.php/download_file/view/56/82/

Happy Thursday!

Download the Presentation: Motorola Modem Virtual Assistant

The Motorola Modem Virtual Assistant: Is it Part of Your Support Bundle?
If you missed our last webinar, you can now access the presentation below. Please contact noHold if you are interested in the recorded version, or if you would like to learn more about a one month free trial.

Motorola Modem Virtual Assistant: Is it Part of Your Support Bundle?

View more presentations from noHold, Inc..

Webinar: The Top 10 PC Issues and How to Transform Them Into Opportunities

There's still time to register for Wednesday's webinar: The Top 10 Consumer PC Issues and How to Transform them Into ROI. Join us as we reveal the top 10 issues Consumers ask about their PC. All attendees will receive a free EZintel package  - Start monitoring your own top 10 right away!

Click the image below for more details and to register. We look forward to seeing you on the webinar.

TSW Day 2 - Cisco/noHold Case Study

The second day of TSW was full of excitement, case studies, networking, and finished with prize drawings. One of the highlights of the day for noHold was the customer case study session with long time customer, Cisco. Tarik Mahmoud, eSupport Manager joined Diego Ventura (noHold's CEO) to discuss: Positioning the Support Organization as the Leader in Innovation. Diego began the presentation by introducing noHold to a full room of attendees. Tarik followed by discussing his approach to Cisco's award-winning multichannel support strategy, understanding different types of customers, and providing them with the right experience for their needs. After 'knowing' the end customer, Cisco provides the tools to create a successful engagement. In addition to providing a great experience to its customers, Cisco drives innovation by listening to the Voice of the Customer and providing that intelligence back to the Business Units, who in turn transform the voice in actionable ROI.

For example: If a new product is launched, and the Guide Me tool reports that there is a connectivity issue, Tarik's group can push that information back to product development and/or engineering. The respective business units can decide if there is a real issue with the product and quickly take action.

Big thank you to the Cisco team for being a great customer, and for sharing your self-service journey today.

If you would like to hear more details about the customer case study with Cisco at TSW, please contact us.  Stay tuned for more highlights tomorrow as we wrap up Spring TSW 2012.

Technology Services World (TSW) 2012 - Day 1

Today, Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA) officially kicked off Technology Services World (TSW) 2012. The first presentation open to all attendees was the The Innovation Tour, with TSIA's analyst John Ragsdale announcing the finalists for the Innovation Awards. Following the Innovation Tour on the Solutions Stage, attendees began attending keynote sessions, followed by the open Expo toward the end of the day. All attendees received a copy of John's new book Lessons Unlearned.  For more info on John's book, click here.

We are excited to be a sponsoring partner of TSW Spring 2012, and are looking forward to presenting a customer case study with Cisco tomorrow. Come see our case study during the breakout sessions at 11 AM in room: Grand D. If you are attending the conference, we would love to meet with you there - Stop by and see us at booth 4 in the Expo. If you are not, and would like more info, please contact us. 

Look for my blog post tomorrow as we share more details about our experience and customer case study with Cisco's Tarik Mahmoud.

Customer Feedback Fridays - Avatars

With the excitement and buzz of Artificial Intelligence in business as well as digital personal assistant Siri, and IBM's super computer Watson, (not to forget the movie titled "Avatar") I thought it was a fitting time to resurrect the discussion about Avatars. What's an avatar you ask? It's one word used to describe a digital representation of a human, or a 3D cartoon. Sometimes it moves, responds based on sentiment, and sometimes it just smiles and stares.

Some of our customers have elected to use an avatar (in one form or another) as the 'face' of their Virtual Agent. In fact, noHold's technology is flexible enough to accommodate multiple options on the User Interface - for example: images (logos, pictures...); multiple panes (for promos, videos, etc.); 2D/3D avatar and more. In my blog post about flexibility, I mentioned that one customer has used the APIs to create their own UI. If you want to see some sample UI's, please visit www.nohold.com and type "Sample UI" into Ask Holmes - He will show you some great examples.

In 2011, we polled our customers and asked how they felt about Avatars. We received some great responses, and today since it's Customer Feedback Friday, I will share a feedback directly from one of noHold's customers about their take on Avatars.

Remember, the key is to take a look at your business (industry, target audience, key metrics..) and decide what experience will be the best for your customer, and use the metrics to make the best decision for your brand. In either case, we are happy to accommodate.

Happy Friday!

“Prior to a commitment to a 3D avatar we would likely A/B test with the standard avatar to understand the impact if any of using a 2D vs 3D representation. In the mindset of the customer they are more interested in a easy to use clean interface with rapid and relevant response/resolution. If a 3D vs 2D avatar were to prove more efficient in customer engagement with the virtual agent tool then it would likely take preference for the representation of the tool to the customer. However with that said more focus would likely be given to ensuring appropriate content is delivered to the customers query than whether the customer sees a 2D or 3D skinning of the tool.”

Live Chat, Virtual Agents and Peanut Butter & Jelly

Companies use an IVR on the phone to find out what a customer is interested in before engaging a live agent, and after hours when an agent is not available. But how do they do it online? When your live chat agents start interacting, are they ready to hit the ground running? What are you using to capture the voice of your customer when agents are not available? How do you shorten the path to a meaningful chat?

Join noHold in a compelling webinar that addresses the benefits of coupling live chat with a Virtual Agent. We look forward to seeing you there.

Click here for more details, and to register.