Every business can take advantage of an automated tool to assist its users quickly and efficiently. The question is, which type of Virtual Agent is the right choice for your company to enable a better user experience on your ServiceNow platform? We are here to help you find the right solution!
The power of ServiceNow Virtual Agent
To make it simple, a Virtual Agent is a sort of chatbot that uses Artificial Intelligence to take communication to the next, more sophisticated level.
With Virtual Agent, you can create tickets, manage them, respond to questions, and fulfill user requests. If it is needed, it transfers the user to the live agent. Thanks to the natural language processing engine, the tool does not only analyze the keywords but also takes into consideration the context of a conversation. Smooth integration with all communication channels like Slack or Microsoft Teams makes it easy for the user who doesn’t need to login into the ServiceNow portal.
ServiceNow Virtual Agent is proven to help organizations in achieving better results in a number of areas, including ITSM, HR, and CSM, while constantly improving user experience and satisfaction.
Axel Starosta – SericeNow Developer at SPOC
The idea behind Virtual Agent is to save users’ and agents’ time and lower the effort and the mistakes in the process. Faster, easier, and more pleasant. And greater customer satisfaction with the use of the chatbot. And it learns over time! The Virtual Agent technology is constantly improving through data analysis to give your users the best conversation path. The more data, the better results. Analyzing the user’s request helps the Virtual Agent to become a well-oiled machine, better understanding the user’s communication patterns and guiding the user through the process. The Virtual Agent currently supports 8 languages, but as every organization uses its own, ‘inside language’, the tool’s learning skill is priceless. Preparing a chatbot for work is very simple. It is based on the popular no-code or low-code platform model. As shown in the graphic, an example conversation just needs to be prepared in a drag-and-drop interface.
Building a chatbot in Servicenow via Virtual Agent is as easy as doing it on different competitive cloud solutions like Google Dialogflow or AWS Chatbot!
Adam Goździewski – ServiceNow Developer at SPOC
Empower your users by finding the best match
Respond to a few questions to determine which type of Virtual Agent fits you the most. Choose your answer and check which kind of Virtual Agent you need.
1. What processes do you wish to make self-serviceable?
a) basic ITSM actions like checking ticket status or reporting an issue – A
c) my own, custom, not necessarily ITSM processes – C
2. What languages should your chatbot be able to understand?
3. Is there a need for Teams/Slack Integration with your system?
5. Should a chatbot have access to a knowledge base to suggest helpful articles?
6. Are their surveys required to gather user feedback to supervise virtual agent activity?
Basic needs for self-service
– Virtual Agent Lite
Your answers indicate that the lite tool is probably enough for your needs. The limited version of Virtual Agent gives you access to the keyword-based conversation in web chat and other messaging apps like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Messenger. It has an introductory collection of topics for your IT support. Virtual Agent Lite can improve your ITSM system self-service experience, giving you a primary conversational interface. Your users can check their ticket status or report an issue. It is a stiff path, but if you want to improve the response time and do not have many complicated tickets, then go for it.
This version is free for ServiceNow license owners, so it is the most economical option. Keep in mind that the lite version does not allow any modifications to topics in Designer, like creating new topics, topic blocks, or custom controls. You will not have access to Virtual Agent Analytics Dashboard or Natural Language Understanding support either. The two available paths let the user check the ticket status or report an issue.
Extended support with natural language
– Virtual Agent Professional
Virtual Agent Professional might be a perfect choice for you. The extended version of the tool offers all core functionalities plus customization and NLU. What does it mean for you? The tool improves over time and can give a better, more personalized customer experience by applying the information from previous conversations. With NLU, your Virtual Agent understands, processes, and responds in an improved way to the users’ needs. Thanks to access to Virtual Agent Designer, you are free to develop, test and deploy tailored automated conversations. It allows you also to build new topics and topic blocks that can perform certain functions or custom controls during the interactions with your users.
Virtual Agent Professional covers different communication channels and third-party messaging apps, making it more convenient and easier for users to resolve their issues. The available channels are broader than in the Lite version, thanks to conversational custom chat integrations. Your users can choose a channel familiar to them, making the whole user journey smoother. The technology in the full version of the tool supports also:
- answering FAQs;
- providing tutorial (“how to”) information;
- querying or updating records, e.g., to get status on cases or incidents;
- gathering data, such as attachments, for the live agent;
- capabilities performing diagnostics;
- resolving multi-step problems.
Specific needs for improved customer satisfaction
– a dedicated solution
Sometimes even the extended version does not meet the company’s needs. You might as well need a customized AI bot for your ServiceNow, written accordingly to your specific requests. Perhaps you have different communication channels that need to be covered, or you want to automatically assign tickets to a particular person. You might also want to take a step further and make your Virtual Agent more fun, enabling it to chat about the weather or the latest news. The sky is the limit thanks to unlimited integration possibilities with NLU engines like IBM, Watson, Microsoft LUIS, or external APIs. Your Virtual Agent solution can be anything you want and need.
Read about the 6 most common myths around ServiceNow Predictive Intelligence.
We helped AMS to build a customised chatbot with the app engine. With 400K recruitment interviews organised each year, the custom solution was a perfect choice. It allowed AMS to automate and coordinate the interview process at every step of the way – from the first online to the last face-to-face meeting. Results?
Using ServiceNow, and its elite partner SPOC based in Poland, AMS Interview Scheduling automates and co-ordinates every aspect of the process, enabling everyone involved to focus on getting the maximum value from the interview.
Natalia Mikrut, Head of Digital Automation at AMS
Read more about this success story. And find out more about our experience in developing custom applications.
How to get better business outcomes with Virtual Agent?
Based on 10 years of experience and extensive ServiceNow knowledge, we believe that choosing the right version of the tool is critical. First, consider your company’s needs and how this tool can improve the user experience. Do you need more advanced help, or is it just a question of a basic solution to improve the response time from your agents?
So our tip is to go for adjusting the tools towards the needs, keeping in mind that any automation will be positive for your agents to free them from repetitive tasks and let them focus on more complex user needs. When we analyze our clients’ instances and provide them with a health check, we usually come up with a reasonable solution that will be both appreciated by the agents and end-users.
Please tell us more about what you want to achieve, and what are you prerequisites or expectations – contact us.
