What is Intelligent Virtual Agent?

An intelligent virtual agent abbreviated by IVA. Also, sometimes referred to as Virtual Agent, is a conversational chatbot that uses artificial intelligence and natural language processing to understand user intent, analyze conversational trends, and respond to customer inquiries.

By employing machine learning to continuously learn from various types of inquiries, a virtual agent may also be taught to recognize when to forward a discussion to a customer support professional.

A virtual agent is frequently employed to engage in proactive communication with website visitors, pose important queries to understand context, qualify leads, and provide information on products and services.

Unaware of it, if you've ever gotten in touch with customer service to make an appointment, change a password, or inquire about the status of an order, you've probably already worked with a virtual agent.

What Purpose Do Intelligent Virtual Assistants Serve?

The words a user speaks or enters are converted by intelligent virtual assistants into digital information that software can analyze. Furthermore, the computer uses a clever speech recognition approach to choose the response that is the most likely.

Additionally, the algorithm gradually learns what users want when they type a certain response as the number of queries grows. This increases reactivity speed and reliability.

Customers engage with a product that is intended to appear and behave like a human agent. Whereas some consumers who use text messaging may believe they are speaking with an agent. The IVA system should offer customers the timely support they seek even if they are aware that the system is still an automated bot. This is frequently where older chat-based systems lose their value since they can send users down time-consuming and fruitless paths with no way to turn around.

What are the Key Gains of an Intelligent Virtual Agent?

Well, there are several key gains of an intelligent virtual agent. Some of them are the following. So, let’s have a look at them!

1. Repetitive Tasks are Performed Automatically:

An appointment booking, a purchase cancellation, a webinar registration, and an account upgrade are all examples of repetitive operations that a virtual agent may do. Additionally, this speeds up response times and enables agents to spend more time on customer inquiries that call for help from people.

2. Enhances Customer Satisfaction and Experience:

The first response time, or FRT, should be between one minute and thirty-six seconds, claims Klaus. Therefore, adopting a virtual agent is the quickest way to provide prompt answers to customers' questions. Additionally, a virtual agent reduces FRT and speeds up resolution time by automatically assigning a complex issue to an agent, increasing customer satisfaction.

3. Offer Both 24*7 Customer Support and Self-Service:

The capacity of a virtual agent to offer round-the-clock assistance is an obvious but essential asset. For businesses that operate in several nations and would otherwise need to hire agents in each area to provide excellent customer service, round-the-clock help is essential. Additionally, a virtual agent may also provide multilingual self-service.