The Age of Intent

Using Artificial Intelligence to Deliver a Superior Customer Experience

Have you ever wished that every company you interacted with could just know what you wanted and go get it for you? That when you picked up the phone or opened a chat window that the company would use what it knew about you to anticipate your needs?

We are on the verge of a future just like that.

The age of intent is a world where the smartest of chatbots - virtual agents - are powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and connected to a customer's complete past history. These virtual agents can anticipate just what a customer is looking for, answering questions through chat, on the phone, and through smart speakers like Amazon's Alexa. They'll transform the business world with efficient, scalable service that's available 24/7 and gets smarter every day.

In these pages you'll learn about the companies that have used virtual agents to deliver a superior customer experience. You'll see how:

  • Auto rental company Avis Budget used virtual agents to automate 68% of service calls, saving millions of dollars every year.
  • Danish bank Nordea's virtual agent Nova identified thousands of intents, handled 20,000 conversations a month, and reduced emails and calls by 25%.
  • Satellite operator Dish Network's agent DiVA responded to 4 million queries a year and helped meet surging demand for pay-per-view events.
  • Restaurant chain TGI Fridays used a Facebook Messenger chatbot to boost take-out orders by $150 million a year.
  • Butterball ported its "Turkey Talk-Line" to Amazon's Alexa smart speaker, serving 20,000 customers in the reassuring voices of its most trusted turkey advisors.

P.V. Kannan, the leader of the standout customer experience technology firm 247.ai, shares his expertise here on how and why virtual agent rollouts succeed - or fail. He explains how to architect key information systems, overcome corporate resistance and bad practices, and analyze customer journeys to make virtual agents maximally effective. You'll learn why selling through conversational commerce is especially challenging, smart speaker platforms are tantalizing but limited, and the best virtual agent systems work hand-in-hand with human support agents.

Virtual agents will usher in the biggest change in how companies interact with consumers since the web. They'll increase efficiency even as they improve customer experience. This is a technology shift you don't want to miss out on . . . and The Age of Intent is the best place to get smart about it.

$24.95
ISBN: 978-1-64307-240-1
Imprint: Amplify Publishing
SKU: 08-512-01
Categories:Amplify Publishing, Business and Finance, Thought Leadership, Industries, Technology

“I don’t think people have fully grasped how profound it is that in the near future, people will expect to talk to machines. And if they’re talking, companies need to provide the answers they’re looking for. The ability of machines to anticipate human intent is about to become fast, free, easy for the company you’re interacting with, mobile, invisible, and ubiquitous. It is going to make the world flatter, faster, and smarter than ever before. A conversation-first strategy will be required by all companies, just as a mobile-first strategy was after the advent of the smartphone.”—THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, New York Times columnist and author of The World Is Flat

“If you want to understand what customer service looks like in the future, then this is the book to read. And, by the way, the future is now!”—SHEP HYKEN, customer service expert and author of The Convenience Revolution

“Virtual agents are absolutely consistent, infinitely patient, and ready to help at any time the customer needs them. Together with the best human service representatives, they make a team that can’t be beat. That’s the message of The Age of Intent, and it should resonate with anyone whose products must deliver the best possible experience.”—JAMES E. MEYER, CEO, SiriusXM Satellite Radio

“Lately, I have experienced greater success with chatbots than with the untrained and apathetic support service humans. I think chatbots are trained to solve problems, while humans are motivated to get rid of callers faster. If you are responsible for customer service, go read The Age of Intent by P.V. Kannan. Do it now, before someone like me hangs up on your support person and starts bitching about your crappy customer support on Facebook.”—SHEL ISRAEL, coauthor of The Fourth Transformation: How Augmented Reality & Artificial Intelligence Will Change Everything

P.V. Kannan

CEO and Technologist

ageofintent.com

P.V. Kannan is the cofounder and chief executive officer of [24]7.ai, a leader in AI-driven customer experience software and services. P.V. cofounded [24]7.ai in 2000 to make customer service easy and enjoyable for consumers, and since then he has built a profitable company with more than 15,000 employees worldwide. [24]7.ai is redefining the way companies interact with consumers, helping the world’s leading businesses attract and retain customers through a personalized, predictive, and effortless customer experience.

P.V. holds more than 30 patents (issued and pending), has written several articles that cover some of the key issues around AI and chatbots, writes regularly on LinkedIn with his posts attracting thousands of views each, and has been featured in several books, including The World Is Flat and That Used to Be Us, by Thomas L. Friedman; India Inside, by Nirmalya Kumar and Phanish Puranam; and Reinventing Management: Smarter Choices for Getting Work Done, by Julian Birkinshaw. He has spoken at numerous industry conferences, including AI Congress and Forrester’s CXNYC.

P.V. has been a pioneer in integrating technology with business process operations to improve all aspects of the customer experience. In 1995, his first company, Business Evolution Inc., developed the first generation of email and chat solutions. The company was acquired by Kana in 1999, and P.V. became part of the management team until he founded [24]7.ai.

P.V. is a recognized leader in customer experience, from dramatically improving contact center operations to developing a big data predictive analytics platform; to creating omnichannel solutions for the web, mobile, chat, social, and speech IVR; to innovating mobile-centric applications; and now to pioneering the use of AI in customer experience.

Josh Bernoff

Bestselling Author and Ghostwriter

bernoff.com

Josh Bernoff is an expert on how business books can propel thinkers to prominence. Book projects on which he collaborated have generated more than $20 million for their authors.

Josh’s most recent book is Writing Without Bullshit: Boost Your Career by Saying What You Mean (Harper Business, 2016). Toronto’s Globe and Mail called it “a Strunk and White for the modern knowledge worker.” He is the coauthor of Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies (Harvard Business Review Press, 2008), which was a Businessweek bestseller. He has authored, coauthored, or ghostwritten eight business books.

He works closely with nonfiction authors as an advisor, coach, editor, or ghostwriter. His author clients include Mitch Lowe, former Netflix cofounder and Redbox president; Kevin Tracey, CEO of the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research; and Stefan Falk, former lead trainer at McKinsey & Company. He has collaborated on more than 45 nonfiction books.

Josh writes a blog post on topics of interest to authors every weekday at Bernoff.com. His blog has generated 4 million views.

He was formerly Senior Vice President, Idea Development at Forrester, where he spent 20 years analyzing technology and business. He appeared on “60 Minutes” and got quoted everywhere from The Wall Street Journal to TV Guide. The Society or New Communications Research recognized him as “Visionary of the Year.” Prior to Forrester, Josh spent 14 years in start-up companies in the Boston area.

Josh has a mathematics degree from The Pennsylvania State University and studied mathematics in the Ph.D. program at MIT.

He lives with his wife, an artist, in Portland, Maine.

Contact Josh on his blog or at josh@bernoff.com.

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