User Client Technology news

VirtuOz, Inc., the leading provider of IVAs for online marketing, sales, and support, today announced the availability of VirtuOz’ IVAs for Facebook Messages.  With this latest release, VirtuOz now offers enterprises the most contextually aware virtual agent solution that can deliver a consistent, cross-channel customer experience as consumers move from social to mobile to Web.

My video cassette recorder finally stopped working last week. Even if I wanted to replace it, I’d have trouble doing so as Panasonic, one of the last remaining manufacturers, stopped VCR production earlier this year. Few consumers will mourn the passing of the VCR. Apart from their infuriating habit of chewing tapes, VCRs were notoriously difficult to program. The common sight of the VCR clock display flashing “12:00” became a symbol for just how little thought the consumer electronics industry gave to usability.

Don’t you wish your car was as intuitive to use as a smartphone?During the past decade, automotive manufacturers have added more and more electronics to take the hard work out of driving a car. But the proliferation of buttons, screens and lights, while reducing the physical effort required to drive a car, has also increased the risk of distractions.

Building a closer relationship with individual customers is now a key objective for many organizations. However, those customers are already one step ahead. A decade of overexposure to increasingly aggressive marketing tactics has made them understand the power they wield over businesses that want their data and wary of trusting brands. Instead of engaging directly with an organization users choose to connect with friends, and even strangers, online to crowd source opinion on purchasing decisions. But surprisingly, treat them right and they are still willing to share.

Traditionally, virtual assistants have typically resided on a company website to help customers find the answers to their queries, but with corporate intranets becoming increasingly complex, more organizations are turning their attention to use VAs to resolve internal queries too. The corporate intranet has changed considerably from the early days of just publishing information. In the last few years as collaboration technologies have taken hold intranets have become a mine of information not just for employee related issues such as human resources, but with knowledge bases such as wikis too. However, having a large resource of data, doesn’t guarantee that a user can find the answer they are looking for.

Mobile devices are playing an increasing role in the lives of millions of people across the world, across all generations. As more and more online technologies deploy into the mobile realm, Virtual Agent technology is following this trend. Apple’s implementation of Siri, the voice-to-text virtual assistant feature they have added to the iPhone 4S, opened the world’s eyes to mobile virtual agent technology. Android also has added Vlingo, a similar feature that combines voice-to-text and voice recognition technology with its powerful “intent engine” to help users complete their desired action.

Ecreation, an interactive media agency, introduced www.chatbot4u.com. By using this new service, now anyone can create a virtual chat partner, by following a few simple steps. These so-called chatbots can be used on websites, in social media and on instant messengers. Chatbot4U offers entertainment for consumers and interesting opportunities for businesses.

Don’t be surprised if your child creates his/her first conversational agent earlier than you! Researchers from DevTech Research Group at Tufts University made it possible…

Google Labs has initiated a new project called Google Talk Guru, a so-called search engine chatbot. It sounds promising; however at this stage you can only enquire about 7 topics:

noHold, developer of the most interactive and diagnostic Virtual Agent technology, has the ability to embed a Virtual Agent directly into social media platforms, Facebook integration for ViewSonic serves as the first example.

As social media increasingly becomes a hub for customer interaction and support, noHold aims to help businesses cover these channels with Virtual Agent implementations. With a few simple lines of code, the same Virtual Agent that runs on a company website can assist end-users within their favorite mode of social media, such as Facebook. This provides end-users with an extra layer of interactivity and support, without the time needed to implement a second Virtual Agent.