Virtual agents move beyond customer service to sales and marketing on mobile
phones and social media
EMERYVILLE, CA – January 5, 2012 – VirtuOz, Inc., the leading provider of
intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) for online marketing, sales, and support,
today announced that it processed a record 166 million conversations in 2011
on behalf of its customers. This growth was fueled, in part, by expansion
of VirtuOz’ client base across multiple verticals including high tech,
telecommunications, retail, and consumer packaged goods. In addition, the
company noted the expansion of IVA usage from customer service, to sales and
marketing via a growing number of touch points, including mobile phones and
social media, such as Facebook.
VirtuOz’ record number of transactions, IBM Watson’s defeat of its two human
competitors on the game show Jeopardy, and Apple’s Siri, a voice-enabled
personal assistant built into Apple’s iOS5, are key 2011 milestones that
indicate market demand for IVAs is poised for massive growth. In fact,
Gartner Research predicts that, “By 2015, 50 percent of online customer
self-service search activities will be via a VA for at least 1,500 large
enterprises.”
“The over 177 million adults in the U.S. now conducting their personal and
professional business online expect companies to offer fast, engaging
self-service via their preferred touch point – the Web, social media, mobile
devices – with a quick, accurate response,” said Steve L. Adams, president
and CEO of VirtuOz. “The increased global adoption of our IVAs across a
wide-range of vertical industries, functions, and touch points indicates
that more and more companies understand the need for a new online channel to
engage customers and to provide a high quality customer experience for
marketing, sales or service.”
As noted by Forrester Research, “The traditional view of customer service is
blurring into all areas of the customer life cycle. Savvy eBusiness leaders
recognize the growing alignment of service, sales, marketing, and brand to
engage customers in an unfractured customer conversation.” Supporting this
research, in 2011, 20 percent of VirtuOz’ customers expanded their use of
IVAs to include sales and marketing missions.
Other notable VirtuOz highlights in 2011 include:
*Key partnerships with Salesforce.com and Moxie Software to create
multi-channel aware virtual agents that act as the point of first contact
for online customer engagements.
*Introduction of high performance analytics that capture and leverage the
voice of the customer to continuously improve digital customer
relationships.
*Recognition by Gartner Research for meeting requirements in 8 of the 9
categories in the Gartner Research Virtual Assistant (VA) landscape report
released in January 2011.
*Recognition by American Business Awards, Best in Biz 2011 and Tech Awards
Circle for technology excellence.
*Ranking 24th in the Top 50 Innovative European Companies by Commerce
International, and 4th in France.
*$7 million in additional funding from existing investors Mohr Davidow
Ventures and Galileo Partners to finance growth in the U.S. and E.U.
About VirtuOz
VirtuOz is the leader in Digital Customer Relationships, enabling large and
mid-market enterprises to use Intelligent Virtual Agents to provide
world-class online marketing, sales, and support channels, ensuring a high
quality user experience while improving operational performance. Recognized
by the American Business Awards, Best in Biz 2011 and Tech Awards Circle,
the company’s award winning intelligent virtual agents offer companies a new
channel for online self-service that delivers the best possible customer
experience at one-tenth the cost of traditional channels. VirtuOz solutions
combine best-in-class virtual agent solutions with best practices across
agent development, deployment, and optimization to deliver predictable and
measurable results. Intelligent virtual agents are predicted to become the
new standard for customer interaction in the next few years. VirtuOz leads
the market for successful use of intelligent virtual agents, having
processed over 166 million conversations on behalf of its customers in 2011
and with the largest number of live enterprise intelligent virtual agents
for Global 2000 companies including eBay, Michelin, SFR, H&R Block, and
Symantec. More information about VirtuOz can be found at www.virtuoz.com.
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VirtuOz is a trademark of VirtuOz, Inc. All other company and product names
are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
This holds true in almost all virtual environment – “The over 177 million adults in the U.S. now conducting their personal and professional business online expect companies to offer fast, engaging self-service via their preferred touch point – the Web, social media, mobile devices – with a quick, accurate response,” A lot of companies now turn to the digital media for more market sharing.