What is an Intelligent Virtual Agent?

Intelligent virtual agents are transforming call centers by automating routine tasks and providing efficient, personalized support. In call centers, an intelligent virtual agent (IVA) is software powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and uses natural language processing (NLP) and large language models (LLMs) to provide an automated system to interact with callers.

Intelligent virtual agents are designed to handle caller inquiries and perform tasks with or without minimal human intervention. They can understand spoken or written language, interpret caller intent, and provide relevant responses or take appropriate actions.

AI and machine learning technologies enable virtual agents to learn from interactions, improve their responses over time, and handle increasingly complex queries. NLP and LLMs allow intelligent virtual agents to understand the nuances of human language, including different dialects, slang, and context.

Intelligent virtual agents are able to answer frequently asked questions, provide basic information, process basic transactions, troubleshoot common issues, and schedule appointments. Benefits of an intelligent virtual agent include:

• 24/7 Availability: Virtual agents can provide support around the clock.
• Increased Efficiency: IVAs can handle a large volume of inquiries simultaneously, reducing caller wait times.
• Cost Savings: Automation helps call centers operate with reduced staffing.
• Improved Caller Experience: Quick and efficient responses can enhance customer and patient satisfaction.
• Data Collection: Virtual agents can gather valuable data on caller interactions to provide insights for improvement.

Did you know that Amtelco now offers an intelligent virtual agent? We asked Kevin Beale, Amtelco’s Vice President of Software, Research and Development, for more information about his team’s latest development called Ellie®.

What is Ellie?

Ellie is Amtelco’s intelligent virtual agent. The name Ellie is actually short for Mrs. Eleanor Curtin, Amtelco’s co-founder. This new development is important enough to Amtelco and to all of our customers that we wanted to give it a meaningful name.

Why develop an intelligent virtual agent?

When developing a new product, we consider the needs of all of our customers. Our healthcare, business, and TAS (telephone answering service) customers all experience an overwhelming call volume at times. Staffing is a major concern for everyone because they need the ability to cover those busy times, and customers need to keep their caller wait times to a minimum, which is a constant challenge.

Our current solutions can address those situations, but sometimes they aren’t optimal. We recognized the challenges and took the opportunity to develop a product to help customers automate some of their calls. With our new intelligent virtual agent, customers can decide how best to use it for their business or organization.

What kind of benefits does Ellie offer?

Certain call types don’t need a live agent because they are common inquiries. These calls could always be directed to a virtual agent based on options callers choose from a menu. The option to transfer to Ellie could also be triggered if a caller is in the waiting queue for a designated amount of time or during high call volumes.

It’s really kind of amazing because customers who are using our updated platform and software will just basically have a new client behavior. One of the key criteria that we had was to leverage our customer’s existing scripts and incorporate an intelligent virtual agent so it can “understand” the scripts and perform advanced functions. Ellie can interact with API’s or other third-party systems, such as Epic, and interact with directories and on-call schedules for dispatching.

How does Ellie use natural language processing (NLP)?

Human agents are able to adjust, adapt, and accommodate to what their callers say, and they can read the computer screen and figure out what to do. Well, Ellie needed to have that level of intelligence as well.

Ellie is powered by AI (artificial intelligence) using a large language model (LLM) and natural language processing. Knowledge, awareness, and instructions enable Ellie to interact with callers and essentially have an intelligent conversation. Natural language processing recognizes what callers are saying without the need to say a specific keyword. People can just speak naturally, and Ellie determines their intent. This is a dramatic improvement over traditional IVR (interactive voice response) approaches.

Some callers may not feel comfortable speaking to Ellie. What happens then?

The ability to move callers between Ellie and live operators will always be available. This can be scripted or simply become a reaction to a caller’s request to speak to a human agent. And because Ellie’s script is the same one that live agents use, the human operators will see the information already gathered and pick up where the caller left off with Ellie.

What other kinds of automation can Ellie offer?

One of the benefits we talked about quite a bit is post-call surveys. For example, if a live agent has helped a caller, at the end of the call, the agent could ask if the caller would like to take a quick survey about their experience. At that point, you could hand the call off to Ellie, and it would take care of the survey. The survey could be part of the original agent script, or customers could have a separate script specifically for surveys.

We’ve talked with some of our healthcare customers about how Ellie can help with directory assistance. A caller could just naturally say, “I’d like to speak to Kevin Beale; I think his name is spelled B-E-A-L-E-L.” That’s where Ellie can really help again, using natural language processing and understanding what the caller needs.

There are potentially other opportunities, like trouble tickets, when customers don’t necessarily need to speak to a live agent to make a service request or check the status of a request. Similarly, healthcare customers can use Ellie to make and confirm appointments.

Ellie also offers enhanced text-to-speech and brings in opportunities for better overhead paging or interactive dispatching. Customers can critically look at any of the scripts they are currently using with live agents and identify opportunities for automation and advanced outbound applications with Ellie. Automation adds value to any type of call center.

Is there anything else you want to say about Ellie or the future of Ellie?

Ellie isn’t really limited to only voice services. It could provide a next-generation interactive text or web chatbot experience. So, think about scripts and the way they are used to interact with the callers being driven by a live agent. In that case, customers can think about Ellie as the automated agent that could be driving a webcam interaction—it doesn’t have to be a phone call. As we move forward, there will be multiple language translation opportunities, and the sky will be the limit.