Enhancing call centre hyper-personalisation with virtual agents
Traditionally, an airline customer who lands and discovers their luggage is missing has to navigate a decision tree of service options when calling.
This includes the typical “press one for payments, two for sales etc” but probably doesn’t offer a specific button for lost luggage.
When the customer does eventually speak to a human agent, a number of factors influence their experience including language ability, whether the query was solved, or even the “chemistry” a person might feel with the agent.
Virtual agents (VAs) on the other hand, can be programmed to provide accurate information based on specific context clues, behavioural insights and historical or real-time data.
They can also clarify, analyse or diagnose before offering a solution in line with rules and regulations. No more simplistic chatbot experiences - you really do feel like you are dealing with someone who can resolve your issue.
Personalisation data
In our luggage example, the virtual agent allows the customer to ask for what they need, in the language of their choice. Using personalisation data, it can pick up the flight number and that the passenger boarded in Johannesburg.
If any information is required, the virtual agent will ask for it before working with back office systems to track it down. It could even trigger a workflow to get the luggage delivered to a requested address.
While doing this, the virtual agent can take on a persona that best suits the passenger. They can adjust their voice, language and tone to improve the experience. This is important as people respond not just to the message but the messenger.
A 19-year-old, Zulu-speaking female student calling her bank for a problem with her online banking is likely to respond differently to a 60-year-old Afrikaans male pensioner, for instance.
Virtual agents allow companies to cater to both of them, in a way that feels natural and comfortable. The student can interact with a persona that is more upbeat and humorous, while the pensioner might prefer a more empathetic response or slower explanation.
Nothing actually changes in the logic used to orchestrate these conversations - it’s just the tone and personality that changes to create a more engaging customer experience.
People interacting with businesses and brands don’t want to feel like just another number. They want to know that the businesses they support know them and understand their needs.
It is no longer enough to segment people into categories defined by age, gender and geographic location, brands need to build hyper-personalisation into every customer touch point - including the call centre.
Personalising digital conversations
Virtual agents are helping call centres do this. Whereas chatbots were poor at personalising digital conversations, virtual agents are skilled at it. They can have rich, human-like conversations, specific to each person while remaining on process-bound guardrails.
This ability to ‘stay on the road’ but to change the route based on customer data, intent, and context is fundamentally transforming our ability to automate sales, service and support engagements via digital self-service.
According to Gartner, global contact centre spending on AI and virtual agents is expected to grow by 24% this year. It also estimates that by 2027, around 14% of interactions will be handled by contact centre AI, compared with around 3% in 2023.
Businesses are now opting for virtual agents, not just because they’re cheaper, but because they allow them to finally nail hyper-personalisation at scale. Virtual agents have taken us to the cusp of a radical enhancement to customer experience and it won’t be long before they change the game entirely.
