As your business grows, so too will customer inquiries. But if they grow faster than you can hire, customers end up waiting longer and getting frustrated, while your team becomes overwhelmed. Every missed call or delayed response could mean a lost sale or a churned customer.
Intelligent virtual agents, or IVAs, handle customer interactions when you’re unavailable. They can answer questions, take messages, and manage routine requests automatically. Plus, your team gets fewer repetitive calls while customers still get immediate help.
This guide explains what IVAs are, how they work, and how they can help your team. You’ll also find several use cases for IVAs, plus how to implement them in your business.
What are intelligent virtual agents?
An IVA is AI-powered software that understands and responds to questions using natural language. This makes it sound more like a real person than a bot. They’re also called intelligent virtual assistants or conversational AI.
IVA can interpret customer intent, make decisions based on conversation flow, and complete multi-step tasks on its own. Customers can ask questions naturally, like: “Can someone cut my grass on Tuesday?” The IVA answers and asks follow-up questions to gather details like lawn size and preferred appointment time.
IVAs also work across multiple channels:
- Intelligent voice assistants that customers can speak with over the phone
- Chat-based agents that handle text conversations on websites and messaging apps
IVAs vs chatbots: What’s the difference?
Chatbots stick to a rigid script. IVAs, on the other hand, are more flexible. They use a combination of machine learning and AI to understand the context of a message. This lets them understand intent and handle requests they weren’t explicitly programmed for.
Chatbots are pre-programmed to recognize specific keywords and triggers. They’re also rule-based, which means they always respond a certain way. If a customer doesn’t use a word or phrase exactly, a chatbot cannot respond accurately. That’s why most chatbots can only handle predictable queries, like FAQs and basic location information.
Let’s say you want to learn more about the catering options at a local bakery. Here’s what that process might look like using traditional chatbots and an IVA:
- Chatbot: You type “catering options.” The chatbot responds: “Type ‘menu’ to see our products.” When you ask about booking, it says: “Please call us to schedule an appointment.”
- IVA: You type “Do you make gluten-free wedding cakes?” The IVA confirms availability and asks follow-up questions like cake size and wedding date. It then texts you a booking link to schedule a consultation.
Now, imagine you need support in setting up a business phone system. Here’s a visual breakdown between a traditional chatbot versus an IVA tool:
How do IVAs work?
Here’s a detailed breakdown of how IVAs operate, in both practical and technical terms.
How IVAs work in action: The practical side
Once you implement an intelligent VA, this is how you and your customers will experience it:
- Customer initiates contact. This could be through a phone call, website chat, messaging app, or other digital channel.
- IVA receives and processes the request. If it’s a phone conversation, the IVA converts speech to text. Then it analyzes the customer’s message for intent and context.
- Retrieves relevant information. The IVA pulls information from the sources you provide to decide how to answer the message. This could include knowledge bases, company documents, FAQs, and policies. It can also pull from integrated systems, like CRMs, scheduling tools, and databases.
- Executes the task. Based on the intent and context of a customer’s message, the IVA decides how to take action. This could be booking appointments, answering questions, and updating records with company-specific information.
- Handles follow-up. The IVA asks clarifying questions if needed. Then it explains to the customer what actions it has taken and offers additional help if requested.
- Escalates when necessary. If the IVA recognizes a customer needs more support, it transfers the interaction to a human rep. It provides your rep with the full context of the conversation, so they don’t have to guess what the customer needs.
- Learns from the interaction. The IVA improves its responses based on outcomes and feedback. This ensures customers receive the best, most up-to-date information.
Sona, Quo’s AI voice agent, can take incoming calls 24/7. It greets callers and answers routine questions based on the information you provide.
Need to capture lead details? Sona can ask for specific details on behalf of your team. Then you can review call recordings and transcripts in each conversation thread.
If a question is too complicated for Sona, it can take follow-up information or transfer callers to humans. Sona can even text callers information like links to schedule appointments, directions, or forms, on the call.
Call and talk to Sona yourself and see how it works by calling the following number:
(888) 297 7662
When Sona picks up, you can ask questions about capabilities and learn about how it can fit into your workflows.
How IVA technology works: The backend system
On a technical level, IVA relies on four technologies:
- Natural language processing, or NLP. This also includes natural language understanding, or NLU. These technologies determine the intent and meaning of what someone says.
- Machine learning, or ML. This identifies patterns and decides which responses work best. That way, you improve your IVA’s responses over time.
- Natural language generation, or NLG. Using the context of a conversation, NLG creates more natural-sounding text replies for customers.
- Speech recognition and text-to-speech. These technologies convert spoken words into text for IVA to analyze. Then, if it’s a voice conversation, it converts the AI’s responses back into natural-sounding speech.
Why do growing businesses use intelligent virtual agents?
Some benefits of intelligent virtual agents include:
- Higher customer satisfaction. According to Salesforce, 82% of service professionals say customer expectations are higher than they used to be. And customers expect a lot, including 24/7 support. Not only is IVA available 24/7, but it also provides instant answers, which improves the customer’s experience.
- Lower operational costs. AI handles routine work that would otherwise require additional staff hours. Since IVA is a self-service tool, it can lead to cost savings by cutting unnecessary staff hours.
- More productivity. Salesforce also found that 81% of service reps use AI to free up time for more complex cases. IVA can also help reduce customer service burnout since your reps won’t need to manage repetitive or low-value work.
- Maintain scalability. IVA can handle dozens of questions or requests at once. You don’t need to hire more people to handle high call volumes. This makes it possible to stay responsive, even during peak hours or business growth spurts. It’s also a viable call reduction strategy.
- Create omnichannel service. Your existing reps may not have the bandwidth to offer support over social media, phone, and text. But with conversational AI for customer service, your team can help customers across more channels.
8 Virtual agent use cases
Here are a few conversational AI use cases for fast-growing brands:
- Customer support: Book appointments, handle after-hours and overflow inquiries, and answer FAQs. For example, healthcare providers might use IVAs to take calls 24/7 and guide customers to scheduling pages. Here’s how Sona does this:
- Lead qualification: Your IVA can act as a missed call service, taking messages so human reps can follow up later. Teams can also use conversational AI for sales to schedule demos or consultations more easily.
- Appointment scheduling: Let your IVA handle bookings, cancellations, and reminders so your team doesn’t have to. Or let your IVA text customers links to more information.
- Sales assistance: Ecommerce businesses can use IVAs to answer product questions and issue refunds. Some automations even help customers check out faster. Loop Earplugs, for example, implemented sales AI for ecommerce. They saw a 357% return on investment and an 80% customer satisfaction score.
- Internal operations: Instantly answer routine employee questions without bogging down your human teams. For example, you can set up an IVA bot that answers FAQs about PTO, password reset requests, or onboarding steps.
- Multilingual service operations: IVAs read, understand, and respond to customers in multiple languages. This is especially useful in places where your customers speak more than one language, like in California or Montreal. You can also use multilingual IVA to serve international customers faster. .
5 Straightforward steps to implement a virtual agent in your business
Setting up an IVA for your business could take as little as 15 minutes.
Here’s the step-by-step process for getting this done, along with examples from Quo.
1. Identify your customers’ frequently asked questions
Knowing what your customers ask about most lets you optimize your IVA to provide more relevant support.
Ask your team what questions they hear most often. If you’re a Quo user, you can skim through customer data via call recordings, transcripts, and summaries.
Questions you might train your IVA on include:
- “Where are you located?”
- “Can I book an appointment today?”
- “Are you closed for [specific holiday]?”
- “Do you offer military discounts?”
2. Decide where IVA can help your business
Find out where an IVA system will add the most value to your business. A chatbot for FAQs? A phone agent for calls? Or both?
Then identify specific customer service or business issues that an IVA could help with.
Let’s say you don’t have enough human reps to answer incoming calls. You can set up Sona to handle after-hours calls, missed calls, or general inquiries. Just use Quo’s visual call flow builder to drag and drop Sona into your call flow. If you’re unsure about anything, the Sona Wizard can walk you through the step-by-step process. You can get up and running in minutes.
3. Train the IVA with your business information
Give your IVA access to plenty of information so it can respond accurately to customer questions. Train your IVA on the following:
- FAQs
- Company policies
- Team member names
- Product or service details
- Industry terminology and jargon
You can start training Sona by uploading a file, adding links to your website, or creating knowledge pages with more details. Test what it’s learned by setting up mock calls. Then adjust your training documents based on how Sona responds.
Learn more about Sona knowledge management.
4. Define rules for the IVA’s behavior
Instruct your IVA on how to respond to specific customer requests. If someone says they have an “urgent request,” for example, it might offer to transfer them to a team member. Or if someone asks to book an appointment, Sona can text them a link to your booking page.
These instructions are referred to as “jobs” in Quo. You can create your own from scratch or start with a template for everyday scenarios.
For example, here’s a lead qualification job that collects specific details from callers, then lets them know someone will call back soon.
5. Test and deploy your IVA
Last but not least, see how your IVA reacts in different customer scenarios.
Test to make sure the tool:
- Uses the right tone
- Answers questions accurately
- Follows the rules for handling specific situations
- Doesn’t get stuck or provide inaccurate information
If you don’t like what you hear, make adjustments accordingly. This could be tweaking job instructions, adjusting knowledge articles, or updating greetings.
Quo makes testing easy with a “Test Sona” button you can find in the call flow builder. This lets you quickly make mock calls before publishing anything. Once you’re happy with Sona’s responses, publish your changes.
You can keep an eye on Sona’s performance after deployment. Every Sona call gets a recording, transcript, and summary that lives in your Sona dashboard. That way, you have oversight into every conversation.
Implement your intelligent virtual agent with Quo
As customer inquiries grow, IVAs let you handle more volume without hiring more people. They also take care of routine requests so your team can focus on what matters most to your business.
Quo makes it easy to implement an IVA in your business through Sona, available on all plans. You don’t need IT resources or prior experience with artificial intelligence to get started. Just add Sona to your call flow, provide training data, and create conversational flows in minutes.
Sign up today to try Quo for free. Then, when you’re ready, test your first 10 calls with Sona for free.
FAQs
Voice assistants like Alexa and Siri are general-purpose tools for personal use, like setting timers or playing music. IVAs, on the other hand, are business-focused agents trained on company data and workflows. This allows them to handle specific customer service, sales, or support tasks.
Most IVAs range from $15 per month to over $300 per user. For example, Sona credits are included in all of Quo’s paid plans, starting at $15 per user per month. Check out the Sona pricing page for more specific information.
Intelligent virtual agents, or IVA, use AI to interpret text and audio and generate responses. They can also perform simple tasks, like booking appointments and transferring calls.
Interactive voice response, or IVR, systems are automated phone menus. They’re helpful for routing customers to specific people or departments, like your HR lead or billing department. IVA and IVR can complement each other, but they have different functions.
Conversational AI works across almost every industry. You can use IVAs in:
– Service businesses that handle a lot of inquiries, appointments, or quotes
– Contact centers to streamline calls to live agents
– Ecommerce and retail teams that need to deliver personalized experiences at scale
IVAs will handle increasingly complex tasks as AI technology advances. For example, IVAs may be able to reference past interactions and respond with more personalization. But human reps will still be crucial for quality control and customer escalations.
