Now Virtual Assistant users can enhance the customer experience even further by seamlessly adding Inbenta’s Live Chat as an option. For example, when a customer isn’t satisfied with an answer they get from the avatar, they can instantly open a conversation with a live agent instead. The new service enables a fluid experience for both customers and for live agents, who will automatically have a detailed history of the conversation.

“Our research shows that a growing number of customers actually prefer self-service channels to answer questions, resolve issues or complete transactions. Yet, automated handling often hits limitations when it comes to handling complex queries or ‘remembering’ information previously mentioned in a conversation,” says Dan Miller, Opus Research lead analyst. “As intelligent assistant technology evolves; we anticipate the emergence of highly specialized ‘intelligent advisors’ that know when and how to involve a live agent. Inbenta’s Hybrid Chat is the beginning of this progress.”

Here’s how Hybrid Chat works:

Using Inbenta’s self-service technology, customers seeking support will immediately see an interactive “Help” window appear on the homepage of the company’s website.

Once engaged, the customer is greeted by a customized Virtual Assistant avatar; the avatar can even be programmed to speak questions and responses.

Customers will begin the conversation by typing their question(s) into the chat box; the virtual assistant will then access the company’s knowledge base to find the most relevant answer(s) based on Natural Language Processing.

If the customer is satisfied, the user closes out of the window and proceeds through their journey; otherwise, they are offered to connect to a live agent.

The full chat conversation is instantly sent to the responding agent so they can pick up the conversation wherever the Virtual Assistant left off. With this context, there’s no need to make the customer repeat themselves and the experience  is as efficient as possible.

See for yourself how Hybrid Chat is being used today by companies including Ticketmaster, Ticketbis, and Volotea.

Source: Inbenta