Chatbots are an increasingly common presence in customer service environments. Whilst I remain in two minds as to their ultimate value, the technology is progressing at quite a pace. Indeed, according to a recent report by Grand View Research, the global chatbot market is expected to reach $1.23 billion by 2025, a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24.3%.
The latest example comes from New Jersey based cloud computing company NICE, who recently launched the NICE Employee Virtual Attendant.
Whilst most chatbot-style technologies are customer facing, NEVA is designed more with employees in mind. It aims to provide employees with real-time process guidance, either when prompted by employees or autonomously in certain circumstances.
The aim of the tool is to support employees in the performance of a range of tasks, including upselling new products, whilst ensuring compliance adherence at the same time as boosting employee engagement and morale.
Robotic assistance
It’s quite a heady wishlist, but the company are confident that NEVA represents the next step in how man and machine can effectively work together. They believe it can significantly increase the capabilities of existing staff so that they reach unheralded levels of efficiency and productivity.
NEVA provides a human-like interface to encourage employees to query it whenever they have issues. The interface supports both voice and textual communication, with both contextual and procedural queries supported. NEVA will translate any request into structured workflow actions, whilst interacting with back-end systems.
What’s more, the program can help to on-board new recruits by giving them step-by-step guidance on how best to perform their job. The company believe this will help not only new recruits but more experienced employees adhere to regulatory guidelines.
“The release of NEVA marks a significant contribution to the customer service domain, RPA industry and global business landscape at large by transforming the performance of employees at work. The NEVA innovation marks the beginning of a global paradigm shift, proving how intelligent robotic software can enable both human employees and leaders alike to reach their best performance potential,” NICE say.
