Call Center Management Featured Article
Google Launches COVID-19-Specific AI Virtual Agent for Call Centers
In recent years, many contact centers have made the transition to using chatbots – automated, artificial intelligence-driven virtual agents – to offload some of the most common questions and queries, or to screen customer outreach and direct it to the right agent or department. For those companies that haven’t yet adopted chatbots for self-service, the COVID-19 pandemic may accelerate the trend. Call centers are overwhelmed with customers asking questions related to procedures during quarantine and “social distancing.”
As could be predicted, many companies have stepped up to make their chatbot technology available to call center customers, and they’ve even tweaked their technology to be COVID-19 specific. This week, Google (News - Alert) announced the addition of the Rapid Response Virtual Agent in the Google Cloud. The Rapid Response Virtual Agent will allow call centers to quickly build and implement a customized contact center AI virtual agent to respond to questions and issues customers might be experiencing due to COVID-19 over chat, voice, and social channels. Users will be able to provide up-to-date information on their web sites through chat so customers don’t need to contact them. This will help free up human agents to handle more complex cases with automated phone responses to common customer questions.
The AI, which can be deployed in chat and voice across multiple channels, can be customized and up and running within two weeks, according to Google. Companies can start with common questions to launch the chat and/or voice bot quickly, and then customize and refine the bot easily as things change. To speed the process, Google is providing a template tht features curated information on COVID-19, including frequently asked questions and up-to-date guidance from public health authorities.
Busy call centers can easily integrate the bot into their business voice system, says Google.
“If you want to integrate with your telephony system, we have worked with our contact center partners to streamline those integrations to help you go live on voice quickly,” noted the company on its web site.
Edited by Maurice Nagle