Tips for Selecting Virtual Agent Software and IVA Providers

The market is hot with new, “intelligent” technologies that promise to improve the customer experience. With so many options, it is necessary to take a strategic approach when choosing a virtual agent software provider.

A thoughtful approach will help businesses select an intelligent virtual agent (IVA) solution that meets their needs and helps them address their customers’ evolving communications preferences. Both elements are essential to the customer experience and the success of tech integrations.

Before evaluating IVA providers or a customer service provider, a company should understand its contact center’s communications needs. This baseline knowledge will help ensure that any solutions the company brings on board will be effective and offer the right ROI. 

In this blog, we highlight best practices and key traits you should look for when selecting a virtual customer service provider.

Evaluating Customer Service Needs

Before implementing an IVA, it’s best to take a good look at the current state of your customer service. Are the majority of your customers satisfied or dissatisfied? Do they experience long or short hold times? What areas of your customer service may benefit from automation or IVA support? To help inform which automation solutions are best for your business, you must first understand the level of support you need before investing in an IVA solution.

Three key signs or events will indicate it might be time to begin evaluating customer service solutions:

1. You may notice a rise in negative responses to your customer service and a general lack of satisfaction.
2. Perhaps call volumes are increasing, and you don't have enough agents to manage growth.
3. Or you may notice a lack of visibility into your customer’s preferences, behaviors or voice.

If your business is facing any of these challenges, an IVA provider can help identify the opportunities for automation and recommend customer service capabilities that will help you be successful.

Below are questions to help guide your search for the right provider.

Questions to Ask When Choosing Virtual Agent Software

Once you’ve identified your communications and customer service needs, you’re ready to start your search. The below list of questions can guide you through choosing virtual agent software. By checking these boxes, you’ll be able to vet IVA providers with a critical eye. 

How well will the system integrate with your existing tools?

For an IVA to be effective, it is important that the software can integrate with existing systems. This includes your customer relationship management system and your sales solutions. Understanding whether a customer service provider can integrate their IVA solution with your business in a seamless manner will determine which IVA provider is right for you.

How reliable is the service?

Having your contact center go down, even for a few minutes, is not an option. When evaluating customer service providers, ask them what their uptime guarantee is and how they calculate that figure. It is sometimes necessary to make exceptions, such as for scheduled downtimes, which can skew the calculation. Reliable service is essential for customer service and cannot be negotiated or overlooked.

Can the service scale as your business grows?

Scalability, particularly the ability to address customer’s evolving preferences, is also non-negotiable for top IVA providers. Businesses of all sizes can use IVAs, so it is important, for example, for small businesses to utilize technology that can grow with them. Ensure the intelligent agent will scale alongside your business rather than limit it.

Does the IVA provider offer multichannel support?

Customers expect the capability to text, call, and chat with a business at any hour. And while you can manage each channel separately, this is not ideal for you or your customers. Managing channels disparately makes it more difficult to maintain visibility and transparency into customer needs, and unnecessarily complicates communications management for agents. Opting for a solution that offers multichannel support gives your customers the freedom to receive help in the way that feels best for them. This freedom fosters a sense of independence and increases customer satisfaction.

What capabilities and level of automation does the solution provide? 

Customer service providers, particularly IVA providers, have the tools to automate and streamline contact center operations. Based on your findings from evaluating customer service needs, you’ll have specific capabilities and benefits that will be top of mind.

Consider asking these follow-up questions:

1. Does the IVA offer personalized customer experience?
2. Will it provide my customers an opportunity for self-service?
3. Will the agent be available 24/7?
4. Does the IVA provider offer conversational AI and design?
5. How has the customer service provider helped businesses lower their contact center costs? 

By keeping these questions in mind, you will find the virtual agent software that is right for your business. Few IVA providers can meet all of these needs, but some, such as Mosaicx, provide them all.

Meet Mosaicx: More than Just a Customer Service Provider 

We know evaluating customer service offerings is not easy. Mosaicx helps businesses design intelligent virtual agents that meet their customer service needs. 

The Mosaicx AI solution is an intelligent virtual response automation system that uses voice technology and digital messaging to increase business revenue, deliver exceptional customer support, and enhance business success.

Mosaicx provides personalized responses and recommends the next best step, making it easy to stay connected all the time. The IVA uses conversational AI to support defined customer service modules, such as taking payments or checking account information. 

The technology identifies customer needs and automates services accordingly. It designs our virtual agents with corresponding service modules to create an experience that is uniquely yours. Using Mosaicx technology, human agents can handle routine customer queries and simple transactions with more flexibility.

In addition to retaining customers through personalization and lowering average call costs, Mosaicx transfers customer data and needs to the agent seamlessly, eliminating customers from repeating themselves.

Mosaicx helps customers deploy and optimize contact center automation tools and offers support through every step of their journey. If you’re looking for an IVA provider, we’d love to meet you.

In today's competitive customer service market, contact center automation solutions help businesses stand out from the competition. The best IVA providers enable businesses with automation, flexibility, reliability, multichannel support, and personalized customer service.

Take your time evaluating customer service providers to ensure you select the one that’s best for both your business and your customers. Mosaicx is here to help you grow with your customers.