creative virtual, chris ezekiel's presentation

Virtual Assistants

Online Self-Service

Chris Ezekiel

chris@creativevirtual.com

Agenda

• Introduction

• Overview of the solution

• Real-life examples

• Back-end (statistics etc.)

• Advanced functionality

• Implementation methodology

• Success criteria

• Q&A

• 15 years of experience in developing Virtual Assistants

• UK and US Operations

• Successful in all commercial sectors, from Financial Services to Retail

• Partners include KMP

Creative Virtual

• Natural Language Dialogue– Rule-based artificial intelligence engine– Keeping context of the conversation– Increasing levels of interactivity

• Emotions– Developing a relationship with the user– Providing a ‘sticky’ web experience– Humanising the Internet

• Integration– Full integration of front and back end

• Simple update process– The Editor– No technical skills required– Easy production & maintenance of the knowledge base

What is a Virtual Assistant?

Accuracy

Successful Transactions (Creative Virtual)

89%

90%

91%

92%

93%

94%

95%

96%

Apr-06 May-06 Jun-06 Jul-06 Aug-06 Sep-06 Oct-06 Nov-06 Dec-06

Lloyds TSB

British Telecom

One Railway

Teletext Holidays

Sharp Electronics

Sky TV

Direct Line

National Rail Enquires

Legal & General

Alliance & Leicester

Mortgage Brain

Birmingham Midshires (HBOS)

Renault

Motability

“It feels like we're getting an insight into the people not the clicks.”

“We searched the market and decided that the Creative Virtual solution was the best tool to help us improve the customer experience.”

LloydsTSB

Creative Virtual's comprehensive reporting system allows Teletext to review customer conversations with Jodie and so "get into their customer's head" to improve their understanding of customer requirements and provide more tailored services.

The ability to capture user data makes Jodie more than just a fantastic 24/7 customer assistant - it makes her a valuable marketing and research tool which allows Teletext to stay in touch with their customers.

Teletext Holidays Commercial Director Matt Cheevers

BT’ s “Emma” reduced calls to Service Centres by over 400,000 on 1.3M conversations

BT

Some customers quotes….

Creative Virtual’s innovative online reporting tools, BotStats, allow

you to:

• Gain an insight into your customers’ information requirements

• Gather demographic data of your web users

• Learn how satisfied your customers are

• BotStats are downloadable in MS Excel format, enabling you

to create effective management reports within seconds

• By exporting BotStats in XML format, you can import and

display the online statistics in any format of your choice

Understand your customers better!

Advanced functionality

• User interface

• Escalation to a real person

• Form filling

• Sales & Marketing

• Mobile

• Voice

Mobile

• http://www.bt.com/mobile/askemma

Creative Virtual’s implementation methodology consists of 4 Phases:

• Quick StartUsing the Virtual Assistant as an Intelligent FAQ system including natural language recognition and links to appropriate web pages

• Rapid Update CycleUsing the Virtual Assistant reporting tools (BotStats) to enhance the natural language recognition capabilities and FAQ’s

• Advanced Conversation and IntegrationDevelopment of conversational trees and full integration into the enterprise – by allowing your Virtual Assistant to take a more sophisticated customer service and sales role

• MaintenanceCreative Virtual’s update process is flexible enough to fit in with our existing workflows and systems, keeping the maintenance lean and efficient

Our project methodology

Success criteria

• Fast implementation (6-8 weeks)

• Focus on usability and accessibility

• Guarantee 90%+ accuracy

• On-going maintenance

• Call/email reduction

• Increase in sales

Results

Major success story

Targets were set well above industry norms

Achieved within 10 weeks

Call centre volume reduced by 400,000

on 1.3M conversations (annualised)

Ask Emma - Accuracy

0.0%

20.0%

40.0%

60.0%

80.0%

100.0%

120.0%

26/0

5/20

06

26/0

6/20

06

26/0

7/20

06

26/0

8/20

06

26/0

9/20

06

26/1

0/20

06

26/1

1/20

06

26/1

2/20

06

26/0

1/20

07

Ask Emma accuracy actual Ask Emma accuracy target

Emma safety net (lower is better)

0.0%

5.0%

10.0%

15.0%

20.0%

1 6 11 16 21 26 31 36

Emma safetynet (lower isbetter)

Q&A

• The best tool to for developing Virtual Assistants

• Encourages use through being conversational, fun, helpful, informative and quick (with clear escalation where necessary)

• Personality for the website (encapsulating brand values etc.)

• Large authoring community (and most experienced)

• Experienced in usability

• Market driven

• Convergence of mobile, iTV, computing and communication systems

• Voice recognition

Product & Technology – “best-in-class”

Experience

Future

Q&A

Questions?

Thank You

Chris Ezekiel

chris@creativevirtual.com