AI virtual agents are known by many names – often called AI voice assistants, virtual assistants, AI voice agents, conversational AI chatbots, or simply AI voice bots, to name just a few. These terms are typically used interchangeably and may vary based on vendor or solution (voice-based or text-based). Whatever you call them, AI virtual agents are seeing an increased adoption by businesses across many different industries because of the undeniable benefits they offer in terms of automating operations, improving CX, and reducing operational costs.
In this article, we’ll use the term AI virtual agent to refer to all types of AI-driven voice-based solutions (AI voice bots) businesses can use to automate voice interactions with their customers or prospects. We’ll explore how these solutions work, the common use cases, and the benefits of implementing them.
What is an AI Virtual Agent (AI Voice Bot)?
AI virtual agents, or AI voice bots, are intelligent software systems powered by Artificial Intelligence and designed to help businesses interact with their customers or prospects via voice communication in a natural, conversational manner, just like a human agent would. An AI-powered virtual agent can automatically handle inbound and outbound calls, collect information, answer questions, and perform basic actions – all without getting your human agents involved.
An AI-based virtual agent uses Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Natural Language Processing (NLP), Natural Language Understanding (NLU), and other technologies to understand human language and user intent and provide contextually relevant responses, engaging users through natural dialogue. Similarly to AI chatbots, many AI voice bots are built on Machine Learning (ML) algorithms, which means they can learn from past interactions and feedback and improve the accuracy and relevance of responses (become smarter) over time.
On top of that, an intelligent virtual agent can be set to seamlessly transition calls to human reps while preserving the context of the conversation, so a human agent can easily pick up where the virtual agent left off.
AI Virtual Agents vs. AI Chatbots
Both AI virtual agents (or AI voice bots) and AI-based chatbots use conversational AI to simulate human-like conversations. And as we mentioned earlier, many use these terms interchangeably. Both solutions have similar use cases – but the key difference is in the way they operate. AI virtual agents (or AI voice bots) operate through voice-based interactions over phone systems, while AI chatbots function through text-based interactions.
AI voice bots are typically more advanced (and are harder to build) because of the additional layer of voice technologies like Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR). And ASR is critical as it ensures that voice bots can accurately understand diverse accents, dialects, and languages.
Recommended reading: Enterprise Chatbots: Features, Benefits, and Common Use Cases
AI Virtual Agents vs Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
AI virtual agents are also more complicated than Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems. A traditional IVR software system allows callers to navigate through simple or multi-level IVR menus by pressing the corresponding numbers (e.g., Press 1 for sales, Press 2 for billing) or using voice commands. The purpose of an IVR system is to simply capture the caller’s intent and connect them to the most appropriate department or team of agents to reduce call transfers and improve the First Call Resolution (FCR) rate.
Even the most advanced AI-driven IVR systems still operate based on predefined workflows and scripts, while AI voice bots can engage callers in a human-like dialogue and provide contextually relevant answers, making callers feel as if they are interacting with a human rep.
Common Use Cases for AI Virtual Agents/ AI Voice Bots Across Industries
AI virtual agents are still relatively new, but as technology advances and bots become smarter, more businesses are now looking to adopt these solutions. What exactly do virtual agent platforms offer, and how can AI virtual agents be used to streamline business operations? Let’s walk through the most common use cases:
Customer service and support
Just like AI chatbots, AI voice bots and virtual agents are mostly associated with customer service interactions. An AI virtual agent in a call center can automatically handle inbound customer calls, answer FAQs, provide information, and help customers resolve basic issues without needing to talk to customer service agents. When integrated with your internal systems like CRM, databases, or helpdesk platforms, AI voice bots can accurately retrieve customer data and history of previous interactions to provide more personalized responses.
Recommended reading: How AI Benefits Customer Service and How it is Used in Contact Centers
Inbound lead qualification
AI virtual agents are also great for automated inbound lead qualification. As soon as a prospect calls in, the AI voice bot can instantly respond and initiate a conversation. It can gather specific information, such as name, company information, and contact details, and ask a series of predefined questions (like ‘What solutions are you interested in?’ or ‘What is your current budget?’) to help you qualify leads automatically. Based on replies, the bot will then determine if the prospect qualifies as a potential client.
Outbound sales calls
In addition to handling inbound calls, AI voice bots can automatically initiate outbound calls to your prospects. The bot can assess the prospect’s interests, needs, and readiness to purchase through a series of predefined questions. You can even train AI voice bots to handle the most common objections like bad timing, lack of trust, budget concerns, etc. And if the prospect is interested in learning more, the bot can either transfer the conversation to a sales rep or schedule a demo call.
Appointment scheduling/ booking
Businesses in industries like healthcare, hospitality, real estate, automotive, financial services, and many others can use AI voice agents to automate the process of scheduling appointments or booking reservations, reducing the workload on your team. And what’s more, AI voice bots can also send automated reminders to prospects or customers or help them reschedule appointments – all without human intervention.
Customer survey collections
You can also use AI voice bots to conduct customer satisfaction surveys and gather customer feedback in a much more efficient way compared to email or text surveys. Considering that the open rate for email is typically law, collecting surveys through phone calls can be a lot more effective. Besides that, the entire process can take minutes as AI voice bots can handle hundreds of survey calls simultaneously, reducing the need for your reps to do it manually.
Payment reminders and debt collection
Additionally, AI voice bots can be used for payment reminders, subscription renewals, and debt collection, benefiting subscription-based services, banks, lending institutions, SaaS businesses, and collection agencies, among others. When integrated with CRM and other back-end systems, AI voice bots can tailor each message based on customer-specific data. And what’s great about AI voice bots for debt collection is that they can be trained to use empathetic language, making debt collection conversations feel less stressful for customers.
Benefits of Using AI Virtual Agents for Businesses
To sum it up, here are the key benefits you can expect by implementing virtual agent software for automating voice-based interactions with your customers and prospects:
Fewer human-assisted interactions
Since AI voice bots can handle both inbound and outbound calls and interact with your customers or prospects independently, that ultimately means fewer human-assisted interactions for your business. While it doesn’t mean that AI voice bots can completely replace human reps in call centers, you can simply let the bot handle repetitive inquiries and free up your customer service team to focus more on dealing with higher-value tasks. That may include handling escalated requests, dealing with sensitive issues that need a human touch, or building relationships with your customers.
Customer service automation
Customer service automation is one of the most significant advantages of implementing an AI voice agent. Again, similarly to AI chatbots, a virtual AI customer service agent can handle multiple customer interactions simultaneously, while a human rep would only be able to handle one call at a time. Better yet, AI voice bots can operate 24/7 and offer your customers uninterrupted service even outside of your business hours when your customer service representatives aren’t available. That helps you ensure no customer calls go unanswered.
Recommended reading: 7 Ways to Automate Your Customer Service and How AI Can Help
Increased customer satisfaction
A Salesforce research found that 77% of consumers expect to interact with someone immediately when they contact a company, while 81% expect faster service as technology advances. With the round-the-clock availability, AI voice bots empower you to provide immediate responses whenever someone calls in, no matter the time or the day, cutting wait times to zero. The ability to get instant answers whenever it’s most convenient for them creates a more satisfying experience for your customers.
Multilingual support
While your human reps are limited by their knowledge of one or several languages at most, AI voice bots can deliver customer support and interact with your customers and prospects in many different languages. That makes AI voice bots an excellent customer support channel for businesses operating globally, allowing them to support customers in different regions in their language without having to hire language-specific agents.
Instant support scalability
With AI virtual agents, you can easily and instantly scale your customer support operations whenever the demand increases. For example, when things get busy and your inbound call volume increases during the holiday season, you don’t need to worry about hiring temporary agents to handle call volume spikes. AI voice bots can handle any call volume – and you only get to pay for the actual time they spend talking to your customers.
Automated proactive outreach
There might be different reasons why you’d want to reach out to your customers or prospects proactively, whether it’s delivering critical service notifications, conducting surveys and gathering customer feedback, or sharing special limited-time offers. Your reps don’t have to dial and talk to hundreds of customers – an AI voice agent can do it for them and interact with hundreds or even thousands of people concurrently, saving your reps time and effort.
Improved lead qualification and sales
AI voice bots are always ready to engage with your inbound leads as soon as they call in, delivering the information they need right when they need it and helping you ensure that not a single opportunity is missed. Similarly to qualifying inbound leads, AI virtual agents can run outbound cold calling campaigns, reach out to more prospects in less time, and help you streamline the process of outbound lead qualification. The ability to process both inbound and outbound leads faster can ultimately lead to better conversions and sales while also saving your sales reps a bunch of time.
Recommended reading: AI in Sales for Contact Centers: From Lead Generation to Conversion
Better experience for your agents
Call center jobs can be stressful, especially when agents have to handle dozens or even hundreds of calls per day and answer repetitive questions over and over again. AI virtual agents can take care of repetitive queries, reducing the load on your team, improving the agent experience, and allowing your reps to focus on meaningful conversations. And better agent experience means increased job satisfaction and lower agent turnover.
Reduced operational costs
For many businesses and organizations, integrating an AI voice virtual assistant presents an opportunity to reduce support-related costs. By allowing an AI voice bot to handle routine calls automatically and independently, your business can operate with fewer live agents. Besides, as voice bots can answer customer calls around the clock, there’s no need for you to cover night shifts. That allows you to cut labor costs and improve operational efficiency at the same time.
How to Get Started with AI-powered Virtual Agents
Implementing an AI virtual agent platform can transform your call center operations, helping you streamline both customer service and sales processes. But AI virtual agents are only as good as the knowledge and data you feed into them. To ensure your AI voice bot is able to deliver a high-quality experience to your customers and prospects instead of only frustrating them, make sure to train it on comprehensive knowledge sources and fine-tune responses for better accuracy, relevance, and efficiency.
Book a quick demo call now to learn more about VoiceSpin’s AI-powered voice bots and chatbots and how they can improve your CX and sales by supporting your customers 24/7 and accurately qualifying your inbound leads.
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