Plan for agents
When considering which business processes to automate, you'll need to determine which have the highest traffic and could be completed in an agent without the need for human involvement. You don't want to replicate what your website can already do. Most customers are familiar with websites and can accomplish certain tasks themselves without needing to interact with an agent.
Consider asking yourself the following questions:
Which areas could we improve customer interaction?
Where do customers struggle to find answers to their questions?
Does a more efficient way exist for completing a task?
Are procedures or processes in place that would benefit from a virtual agent?
While examining those questions, you can start to identify scenarios where an agent would be beneficial, such as:
Process returns and exchange requests - Instead of providing a customer with a list of steps to submit a return, as you would on a website, an agent could provide the customer with a guided experience that:
Initiates the return.
Provides a shipping label.
Offers suggestions on a possible replacement product.
Making reservations or booking tickets - The agent could help the customer identify the date and time that they're looking for and how many people are in their party. It could book their reservation and send them a confirmation.
Paying a bill or processing a claim - An agent can help the customer identify an outstanding balance and then go through the process of making a payment on the balance.
These examples are only a few of the many possible scenarios where an agent would be beneficial to a customer.
In addition to identifying what an agent does, you'll need to consider other factors, such as:
Data that the agent needs access to - Determine if the agent will need to access customer data that's stored in another system. Assess how the information that the agent collects in the conversation will affect how your organization will interact with data in other sources.
Who consumes the agent - Establish whether the agent will be used by employees, customers, or both. When considering the audience, you should also consider how they would access it.
Internal audience - Determine if the agent should be available in Microsoft Teams.
- Customers - Decide what channels that the agent would be available in.
These considerations are important because they can affect how you design the agent and other factors.