Staying on Brand: How to Humanize Virtual Agents, Just Enough
We are currently at a moment in time when virtual agents (VA’s) have become commonplace within customer service, more now than ever. The use of VA’s is expected to grow by 1000% by the year 2020. Now, interacting through a text or a web app for customer service is not all that awkward and has gone mainstream. A growing number, starting with Millennials, would even prefer doing business through a VA, or chatbot. The technology has advanced to the point where building VA’s is no longer a discussion around functionality and technology, organizations are now dedicating more time developing the VA’s “personalities” to reflect the company’s mission, vision and brand.
Virtual agents use natural-language processing and analytics together to create an engaging human-like interaction with the end-user for simple or complex tasks and conversations. By including avatars that have traditionally been used to visually represent ‘people’ in the virtual world, you are on your way to creating a simulated and meaningful human-to-VA interaction.
However, don’t confuse the avatars of the virtual agents with the ones we’ve used in chatrooms and in games like the Sims in the past. These virtual humans are consuming information, processing it, and making educated and cognitive-driven decisions based on that data. Their outward appearance, personality and speech strikes a difference with their conversation-only counterparts. Whether Avator of chat or voice, these VAs are freeing up valuable human resources to address the less mundane, more individualized and higher level customer service requests.
Ubiquitous Virtual Agents
According to recent research by Forrester, the #1 trend for customer service in 2017 is “smarter”, “self-served” and more automated customer service. As the financial industry adopts artificial intelligence in the form of virtual agents, companies are exploring new and innovative ways to ensure their virtual agent not only fosters relationships with customers, but also embodies their brands.
These virtual agents are revolutionizing customer experience in financial services by offering more ways for customers to interact with their financial institutions: faster response times, 24×7 availability, and instant, personalized service, using cognitive data. Today’s customers desire faster, efficient, thorough customer service, and the innovative AI technology can actually provide it. However, are your customers still looking for that “human” connection to have a trusted experience?
‘Venture Beat’ found that humanizing a virtual agent increases customer engagement, creates trust, and personalizes the experience. Some brands have attempted to do this simply by using a “human” avatar and name, but does that go far enough to create a comfortable, natural experience? How does this bot, named and personified, support a brand’s vision and promise?
This is a field that is still very new and the research is limited. That said, consumer trends suggest that consumers connect more with virtual agents when they have names, especially unusual ones — think Siri or Cortana. They also suggest that human-like avatars can leave end-users feeling uncomfortable — a phenomenon known as an Uncanny valley, or almost “too human” experience.
Hey [Insert Virtual Assistant Name Here]!
Customers can relate to agents that possess some human-like nature in the way they converse, engage, and empathize with their needs. For example, to feel connected, the customer is looking for the impression that the virtual agent is alive and thinking. Animations, sound, and colorful images help to showcase that effect — IBM’s Watson’s icon rotates and lights up as it thinks and speaks. The tone of the text or voice-based conversation also matters; it is not necessary for it to be convincingly human since the user knows the agent is not a human being. But it is also not personable if it is too robotic. Something in-between is the best choice.
As with training human agents, ensuring every interaction with customers represents your brand is critical. Simply using the company’s name or logo is not enough to create an engaging interaction. Here the customer will only feel like the agent is performing rudimentary tasks that can just as well be done on the website or app. Virtual Agents should have the same “attitude” as your brand, and as they use human-like visual effects, the identity of their virtual personality needs to connect into brand look, feel, and tone.
Finding The Right Balance For Your Brand
Overall, artificial intelligence and cognitive technology is a rapidly evolving space and the use of virtual agents in it is still very new. As companies start to adopt the use of virtual agents, here are a few key design principles to consider:
It is a testament to tremendous progress made in the field of cognitive and artificial intelligence that now the personality of these virtual friends is at a point of discussion and refinement. Embrace the future and befriend a virtual assistant in your customer service journey today!
