It doesn’t come as a surprise that chatbots are becoming the next big thing for businesses to use to allow customers to contact them. They can give customers a fast and easy response to enquiries and can resolve issues without the need to speak to someone on the phone.
So, why should businesses make use of a chatbot?
Many businesses choose to use chatbots largely down to the fact that they can easily automate the most common customer queries, which helps to save time as well as money. Better still, chatbots can help to dramatically improve customer satisfaction by being able to solve things faster through personalised experiences whilst at the same time giving customers access to 24 hour 7 days a week support.
So, what are Microsoft Power Virtual Agents?
Microsoft Power Virtual Agents enables you to build bots that can help to answer questions or queries from your customers, employees, or viewers of your website. These powerful chatbots make use of built-in content building blocks, trigger phrases as well as pre-authored bot conversations to ensure that your business stays connected in real time.
Power Virtual Agents are included with the Microsoft Power Platform which also includes Microsoft Power Automate, Microsoft Power BI and Microsoft Power Apps. Furthermore, these Power Virtual Agents provide users with the capabilities to build adaptable AI chatbots which can be made use of for both employees and customer benefit.
You will find that Power Virtual Agents also have the potential to seamlessly integrate with Dynamics 365 Customer Service to allow the chatbot to gain access to information as well as customer data. From this information, Power Virtual Agents will be able to provide guided responses and recommendations personalised to their queries. If in certain situations where additional help is needed, the Dynamics 365 omni-channel, the virtual agent can give the query over to an actual person along with the customer’s request.
Being able to provide answers to queries without a doubt provides a whole host of benefits to businesses. Power Virtual Agents can complete activities such as downstream processing which can help businesses as it will help to improve process efficiency and automation.
Why not use them internally too?
Granted, chatbots are a fantastic way of improving the overall customer experience, however they could be used in another way which might not always be considered. As a result of the Coronavirus pandemic, the norm was to have a combination of both remote and hybrid working which required more input from internal service desks to help employees, saving time so they can spend time on more important tasks.
Ok great, I am convinced about internal chatbots but what does it look like?
By taking advantage of Power Virtual Agent’s easy to create function, it is simple to adjust your chatbot to answer common questions from your employees. From the data gleaned from your business, the chatbot would be able to provide a simplified answer to any questions.
Better still, a chatbot is a fast reference point for employees, so they can get answers to queries instantly without having to wait for a response from the support desk which saves both parties valuable time.
So, what else can be gained from using chatbots?
Chatbots are also great for onboarding new employees. A chatbot can help answer any questions from a new member of staff and can provide them with some useful resources without having to get other people involved.
Power Virtual Agents' benefits go far beyond just saving your business time – it can also help to grow ROI, reduce operational costs and improve customer loyalty. The added use of machine learning through Azure can grow the capability even more by allowing your business to learn and adapt to certain scenarios in real time.
Next Steps?
If you are a business that is looking to take advantage of the Microsoft Power Platform more specifically looking to use Power Virtual Agents then please give our team of Power Platform experts a call today to discuss how we can help you improve your efficiency and build customer loyalty.
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