Virtual customer assistants help firms reduce calls by up to 79%

They also report increased customer satisfaction and a 33 per cent saving per voice engagement

Twenty-five per cent of customer service and support operations will integrate virtual customer assistant (VCA) or chatbot technology across engagement channels by 2020, up from less than two per cent in 2017. Speaking at the Gartner Customer Experience Summit in Tokyo this week, Gene Alvarez, managing VP at Gartner, said more than half of organisations have already invested in VCAs for customer service, as they realise the advantages of automated self-service, with the ability to escalate to a human agent in complex situations. Organisations report up to 70 per cent reduction in call, chat and/or email inquiries after implementing a