Virtual Customer Service Agents: Using Social Presence and Personalization to Shape Online Service Encounters* Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication

Virtual customer service assistants provide businesses with a great deal of flexibility when it comes to managing customer needs. Since they’re remote employees, you don’t have to worry about providing them with specific office hours or adhering to any set schedule. This allows your business to operate more efficiently and ensures that customers receive the attention they need regardless of their location or time zone. That’s why it’s essential to leverage technology to provide an efficient and effective customer service experience that meets the needs of your customers. If you are a manager or business owner and have to deal with clients daily, and it’s either not your core job or getting too much, you need to do something to bring about some change.

As the face of the company, you can create positive interactions with our customers every day– from curating a unique travel or lifestyle experience to helping them with their everyday needs. And, you can grow your skills through industry-leading training and ongoing coaching, all while learning what it means to continually set the standard for world class, customer-first service. This is why more organizations are turning to a virtual customer service model and virtual customer service assistants, which allow customers to get more immediate and personalized assistance with their inquiries. Virtual customer service representatives only need an internet connection to perform their job effectively. This eliminates the need for a physical office space and allows businesses to tap into a wider talent pool. Whether they work from home or a co-working space, these professionals are equipped to handle customer inquiries, resolve issues, and provide the support that customers expect.

Virtual customer environment

Instead of navigating through an automated menu system or speaking with a chatbot, they have the opportunity to connect directly with a virtual assistant who listens attentively to their concerns, answering all customer questions. We understand how difficult it can be for an entire team to clear their schedules all at once, especially doing so across time zones and increasing numbers of customer interactions. Recognizing the need for flexibility, we’ve developed our virtual training to accommodate the diverse needs and constraints of your team members. A company’s operations, and who they hire and train to work for them, now regularly extend beyond a single physical location. Start browsing the opportunities on our job board today and unlock a world of potential. Omnichannel networking capabilities, a ticketing framework, live chat assistance, customer self-help platform and customer satisfaction survey tool are all important features to look for when adding customer service applications.

We enable our clients to scale by augmenting their existing teams with both vCSMs and automation. By thoughtfully layering digital on top of one-to-one CSM and vCSM interactions, we save you time and money. Although websites can prove integrity via SSL certificates and other security measures, ultimately, nothing creates customer trust, like the ability to interact face to face with customer-facing staff. After all, if customers can’t ask for support when experiencing issues with your products, they’re more likely to leave your site, lowering your conversion rates.

Customer Services

This paper sheds light on these dynamics by proposing and testing a model drawing upon the theories of implicit personality, social response, emotional contagion, and social interaction. The model proposes friendliness, expertise, and smile as determinants of social presence, personalization, and online service encounter satisfaction. An empirical study confirms the cross-channel applicability of friendliness and expertise as determinants of social presence and personalization. Overall, the study underlines that integration between technology and personal aspects may lead to more social online service encounters.

On the one hand, service providers benefit from the greater interactivity and informativeness when servicing customers online. On the other hand, social and personal contact is relatively hard to fill in online and seem to be key weaknesses when creating online service encounter experiences. Zendesk, a customer service software company, offers a variety of virtual customer service roles. Zendesk values its team members, offering a positive work environment, competitive compensation, and benefits. Sutherland is a digital transformation company that offers various virtual customer service jobs. They work across various industries and have a reputation for providing a supportive and inclusive work environment.

In this case, training the virtual assistant to possess in-depth product knowledge would enhance their ability to assist customers effectively. Our Live Remote Training Solutions program offers live webinars formatted to include customized courses and delivered via webcast by a certified Bonfire Trainer in minute segments through remote training. Participants also receive time to practice the techniques on the job to help them retain the knowledge and know how to apply it in any customer interaction. At Comcast, we believe that the Customer Experience is our single most important product and providing a simple and intuitive support experience is critical. Our Customer Experience representatives are at the heart of our interactions with customers meeting them in the technology medium they prefer,  ensuring a positive interaction each and every time.

VIPdesk Connect – Tailored Remote Customer Service Solutions

After the final selection, the photos were sent to a professional cartoonist who transformed them into their cartoonlike equivalents. Friendliness is defined as the perception of being polite, responsive, giving extra attention, and creating mutual understanding (Price et al., 1995). It is likely that a friendly service agent evokes feelings of personal, sociable, and sensitive human contact, i.e., social presence, within the customer.

Virtual assistants possess exceptional communication skills, allowing them to listen actively, empathize with customers’ frustrations, and respond appropriately. Their job is more than just aiding customers; they are key drivers of customer loyalty. They can easily understand nuances in tone or emotions expressed by the customers, enabling them to provide empathetic support that helps build trust and loyalty. Imagine a scenario where a customer is facing an issue with a product they purchased online.

Defining Customer Service Virtual Assistants

Regular assessments help identify any gaps in knowledge or skills and provide opportunities for improvement through additional training or guidance. In order to hire the best customer service virtual assistant, you need to look for certain soft skills virtual customer or personality traits from your applicants. First, the laboratory environment in which the research was conducted assures internal validity, but also affects the generalizability of the study as the VCSA was presented in an artificial environment.

To navigate the impact of virtual customers successfully, businesses need to understand and analyze their behavior and preferences. By studying the data collected from virtual interactions, organizations can gain valuable insights into customer needs, preferences, and pain points. This information can be used to tailor products, services, and marketing strategies to effectively engage virtual customers and build brand loyalty in this evolving landscape.

Data breaches are not only expensive, but they can harm the customer experience and erode confidence. To ensure that the network is stable and your customer data is protected, it’s critical to have the required resources and training for your team members from the start. Therefore, you should consider adding a robust and thorough knowledge base to your website. Ideally, your staff should improve your knowledge base overtime by adding details, asking more questions, and adding accurate responses. This would foster a positive work environment, improve employee participation, and keep the information base up to date and relevant. This allows you to easily scale up or down depending on your needs, which saves time and money in the long run.

Another benefit of virtual customer experiences is the ability to collect data on customer preferences and behaviour. By tracking customer interactions within the virtual environment, businesses can gain valuable insights into what their customers like and don’t like. This data can then be used to improve the customer experience, target marketing, and even develop new products and services. They can access stored customer data and analyze it within seconds to deliver customized customer experiences.

It’s specially designed to help you find the perfect virtual customer service job that aligns with your skills, interests, and career goals. The modern customer service environment has shifted to a virtual reality beyond expectations. That’s because some customers find it difficult to leave the comfort of their homes to seek help with their issues. Virtual customer service enables these customers to receive high-quality service as those with the time and ability to travel to physical locations. Furthermore, organizations must also develop effective brand strategies to maintain control of the consumer relationship and foster human trust in virtual customers. This includes educating customers about the benefits and capabilities of virtual customers, as well as addressing any concerns or reservations they may have.

Sykes – Work-At-Home Customer Service Jobs

Specializing in business process outsourcing, Sykes offers a range of work-at-home customer service jobs. Sykes offers comprehensive training and support, competitive pay, and benefits, creating an appealing environment for those seeking a virtual customer service role. Regarding a virtual assistant vs a chatbot, you should not confuse a virtual assistant with an intelligent virtual assistant or personal assistant. Intelligent virtual assistants or personal assistants are automated programs, whereas a virtual assistant refers to someone who works remotely. Moreover, the chatbot itself is a different program and could refer to programs such as Siri or Alexia, but also to a human who works as a chatbot virtual assistant.

Our vCSMs, supported by ESG’s team of CS experts, deliver a seamless customer experience that identifies customer needs, provides proactive outreach, and exceeds expectations. They can respond to customers’ concerns and questions, collect customer feedback, help with shopping, or book appointments. And if you lose your customers’ trust, you’ll experience high churn rates and ultimately lose money.

Contrary to our expectations, smiling did not increase senses of social presence and personalization. An explanation for this result may lie in the fact that the agent smiled without applying stimulus–response mechanisms. That behavior may less likely induce emotional contagion, that is, it is imperative that the agent’s smile is evoked by the customers input. Most likely, due to the limitations of the current generation of VCSA software, the agent’s emotional reactions could not be aligned with the customer in a more realistic way, prohibiting the proposed effect of emotional contagion. To study the influence of VCSA characteristics on online service encounters, the research model in Figure 2 is proposed.

Yet, in today’s virtual customer service environment, we know that while opportunities like virtual customer service training are crucial, they can seem out of reach. Scheduling virtual customer service training sessions was already challenging enough when your staff worked mainly in one or a few office locations. But now, many excellent customer service teams operate in multiple time zones and geographic locations.

The ability to monitor agents’ activities online, receive real-time notifications for escalated calls, and provide guidance allows for efficient supervision of customer interactions. This ensures that virtual call centers can deliver exceptional customer service and maintain high levels of customer satisfaction. With the ability to access the necessary software and platforms remotely, virtual customer service representatives offer a seamless support experience for customers. They are well-trained in product knowledge and brand guidelines, ensuring that they can deliver the same level of service as in-house representatives. The convenience and cost-effectiveness of remote work make virtual customer service representatives an integral part of modern customer support strategies.

Customers will not know the difference between a work-from-home agent and an on-site worker. Virtual customer experiences are changing the way we shop and businesses that fail to embrace this new form of shopping risk falling behind their competitors. By investing in the technology and resources needed to create a seamless and immersive virtual environment, businesses can provide their customers with a unique and convenient shopping experience.

Using Virtual Customer support Assistant services like ossisto.com to your aid will help your business be very productive and help you manage the customer feedback and review, which allows you to save up any free time. A Management Trainee is first trained at the representative level and then fast tracked into a management position (30-90 days). They meet remotely with union members who have signed up to receive supplemental benefit plans that help protect their families far beyond what is covered through their employer. Their role is to consult with the family, explain the options available, and help them select the best one to fit their family’s needs. Successful Benefits Enrollment Representatives are great communicators who are ambitious, motivated, organized; they think like entrepreneurs and are committed, team players. Customer support doesn’t just mean waiting around for customers to send you their questions.

Chatbots & Differences from IVR and Virtual Agents LiveVox

The research design included manipulations for smiling (smiling vs. neutral), communication style (socially- vs. task-oriented), and anthropomorphism (human vs. cartoon) (see Table 1). Customers can partner with companies in different phases of product (or service) innovation – in product ideation, in product design & development, in product testing, and in product diffusion. VCEs can be designed so as to facilitate these different customer co-innovation roles. Examples of customer co-innovation through VCEs include Microsoft and the MVP forum; Nokia and the Concept Lounge; Ducati and the Tech Cafe; etc.

The only difference between an office-based customer support agent and a customer support VA is that VAs complete all their assigned tasks remotely. To induce perceptions of friendliness and expertise the virtual agent was programmed to communicate using natural sentences, act humanlike, and be able to answer all relevant questions. Based on Ekman’s (1994) suggestions, attention was paid to incorporate a genuine smile (e.g., the ‘Duchene’ smile), as authentic smiles are argued to evoke more positive emotional reactions than nonsincere smiles. Anthropomorphism was manipulated using either a human or a cartoonlike image of the VCSA.

With these key elements involved, our training is designed to empower your team with immediately applicable virtual customer service skills and foster a deeper connection between principles and practice. At Bonfire, we are dedicated to helping your team provide exceptional customer service, and our virtual training is your pathway to achieving that level of excellence. As an Arise agent, you can choose projects that align with your interests and expertise. Arise values its team members, offering a positive work environment, competitive compensation, and the opportunity to work on your own schedule.

Meanwhile, exceptional customer service can create loyal customers who’ll continue to purchase from and recommend your business. A luxury customer service-focused experience can be a competitive advantage and help you stand out from your competitors. An Aristo Sourcing virtual customer service assistant is hand-picked to match your unique needs. A virtual customer service assistant works with the client to resolve the customer’s problems.

Virtual customer support assistants allow you to choose them from the desired region. This allows your business to interact with your customers if you plan to expand internationally. European tax agency goes digital with eGain
The government organization uses eGain’s virtual assistant, chat, and offers to make it easy for citizens to use government services. When your team participates in virtual training, you’re getting much more than slides and a voiceover!

In the ever-evolving landscape of customer service, a new breed of virtual assistants has emerged to provide personalized and empathetic support. Unlike traditional chatbots, these customer service virtual assistants are real individuals, someone who can understand the context, emotions, and nuances in customer interactions, offering a unique customer experience. They serve as an essential tool in delivering more tailored and human services through digital channels. This study shows that VCSAs are able to provide online service encounters with both social and personal support. As expected, evaluation of an agent’s friendliness and expertise elicits social presence and personalization and in turn, social presence and personalization have a strong effect on service encounter satisfaction. Moreover, we found evidence that the effect of friendliness on personalization, and expertise on social presence is stronger for VCSAs with a socially oriented (vs. task-oriented) communication style.

• Firms apply these personalization tools to gather and harvest information about customers to better identity, fit, and satisfy their specific needs in order to build personal customer relationships.
• The company values its employees, offering competitive salaries, benefits, and opportunities for career growth.
• Customers don’t have to wait for hours in line to receive customer support when your organization has a virtual customer service team.

Roles may involve assisting customers with inquiries about their credit cards, explaining the perks of rewards programs, or making travel bookings on behalf of customers. American Express values employee well-being and career growth, offering a comprehensive benefits package and opportunities for advancement. Project management, networking, and file-sharing systems are examples of cloud-based computing tools that enable team members to communicate cost-effectively from any location with internet connection.

A customer support virtual assistant (VA) is a remote worker or remote contractor that can handle a wide range of customer service tasks for businesses. These tasks include answering questions from current or potential customers, answering phone calls, responding to chat messages, answering customer support tickets, and so on. Firms apply these personalization tools to gather and harvest information about customers to better identity, fit, and satisfy their specific needs in order to build personal customer relationships. Driven by their humanlike experience, VCSAs may signal they understand and represent the customer’s personal needs (Komiak & Benbasat, 2006).

These systems are well-integrated, allowing managers to keep track of success on a single dashboard. They often encourage workers in various time zones to catch up before beginning their shifts to reduce mistakes and delays while dealing with customers. Customer service is often the primary point of contact between a company and its customers. For more than 20 years, clients of all sizes and industries have trusted LiveVox’s scalable and reliable cloud platform to power billions of omnichannel interactions every year.

Only 29% of companies rate their digital experiences as ‘good’ or ‘very good,’ a significantly lower percentage than for either in-person experiences (40%) or phone experiences (61%). By utilizing ESG’s unique combination of vCSMs and automation, those experiences improve and become more consistent. Our team is here to fill your customer coverage gaps and provide best-in-class customer experience to your users. The recorded calls and screen activity also serve as valuable resources for agent training and performance evaluation. By analyzing these recordings, supervisors can identify areas of improvement and provide targeted coaching sessions. Sharing specific call examples with agents helps them understand the desired level of service and enhances their overall performance.

Bots are pre-programmed applications that can “talk” to customers through a chat platform on a company’s website. If a call center sends out a mass text to customers about a new product, a virtual customer service agent can help narrow down interested prospects. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. A bot can ask each customer to confirm interest by pressing a number, and agents can use that information to follow up on leads. That has led to new types of customer service, which businesses can leverage to deliver exceptional customer experiences. Today, we’ll discuss what makes virtual customer service different from in-person customer service. In conclusion, tapping into the power of human customer service virtual assistants offers significant advantages for businesses aiming to reduce operational expenses and enhance efficiency.

This knowledge will allow them to appropriately address problems or route questions to the most relevant departments. All in all, investing in a virtual assistant is a great way to ensure that your customers get the best possible experience when dealing with your business. In fact, 68% of customers would be willing to spend more with a company they believe provides an excellent customer service experience. Analyzing these experiences is also important as it gives you insights into how to improve.

Additionally, by using virtual experiences as part of a larger omnichannel strategy, businesses can create a truly integrated shopping experience that meets the needs of today’s consumers. So, if you haven’t already, it’s time to embrace the power of virtual customer experiences and take your business to the next level. Of the many virtual customer service channels, live chat is arguably the best option your company has in its arsenal to curb the increasing customer churn rates. That’s because it’s a perfect mixture of what’s best about in-person customer service. Your customer service team can solve your customers’ problems in real-time and from the comfort of their own homes.

Automate tasks that don’t require human agents and offer smart self-service that is personalized to each customer’s needs. According to a study by PwC, 46% of consumers say they prefer virtual customer experience interactions over traditional methods like phone or email. ESG’s virtual Customer Success Managers (vCSMs) fill customer coverage gaps and serve as incubators to test out new strategies and processes before rolling them out to their entire CS team.