Talk to any eBay buyer or sellers and you'll find that sometimes it is difficult to get help when you don’t know how to do something on eBay -- and scrolling through pages of FAQs is time consuming and it may not even address your problem or answer your specific question.
However, eBay is taking customer service to a new level by offering its members access to intelligent customer support using virtual agents. The company previously offered virtual agent support on its sites in France, Germany and the United Kingdom, but now has rolled it out on eBay.com and the eBay.ca site.
Ebay's VirtuOz virtual agent interprets questions and guides customers towards a resolution.
(Click for larger image).How They Work: Intelligent Virtual Agents on EBay
Mark Gaydos, vice president of worldwide marketing for VirtuOz, the company providing the intelligent agent customer support on eBay.com, describes the agents as intelligent online robots -- or bots for short. "Intelligent agents are computer programs that interact with users. It will interpret their questions and guide them toward a resolution,” he said.
A customer may ask “Why can’t I cancel my bid”? The agent, through a series of questions may determine that “canceling the bid” is not the real issue, but instead the person is unable to log in to their account to perform the action. In most cases, the initial questions posed by the virtual agent are simply to better clarify the customer's real question or source problem so the correct resolution can be offered by the agent.
The virtual agent will keep digging deeper until there is only one valid resolution for the problem. Say, for example, that you access the virtual agent and ask: “How do I cancel a bid?” The agent would start the resolution process by asking if you are a buyer or seller. It continues to ask questions until it can narrow down the specifics of your issue.
The virtual agent could even look up specific information if you are logged in to eBay, or show you images or direct you to the correct page for resolution. When necessary, the virtual agent could even pass you on to a live customer service representative.
According to Gaydos, the virtual agents work well on Web sites because they can jump to a number of topics in less than a second and ultimately identify the real problem.
Dealing with Business RulesWhen providing a resolution, Gaydos said that the path the virtual agent takes is based on eBay’s specific business rules, combined with the information that a shopper submits. EBay is a company with a lot of business rules, sets of procedures and a unique language, which makes deploying intelligent agents a challenge.
“EBay has a variety of business processes and rules around a number of things, such as products, what you can and can’t sell, returns -- all of these business rules can change depending on the country or even the state the user lives in,” explained Gaydos.
Of course, one also has to consider that many of eBay’s business rules change, depending on whether you are the buyer or seller on the site, and what level of seller status you have.
Another interesting aspect of deploying virtual agents on a Web site is the linguistics layer of the software. In eBay's case it meant ensuring the many common eBay phrases and terms one would use in a customer support conversation are accounted for and can be identified by the virtual agent.
When first deployed, Gaydos says clients typically have around a 70 percent resolution rate, but as more information and language is programmed in and the virtual agent is tweaked, the successful resolution rate averages 92 to 93 percent.
The Cost of Using Intelligent Virtual AgentsVirtuOz intelligent agents are, according to Gaydos, cheaper than the cost of using phone support or online live chat support. The pricing model is based on a per successful resolution fee, which can range from five to 50 cents per resolution.
Vangie Beal is a veteran online seller and frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com. She is also managing editor of Webopedia.com. You can tweet with her online @AuroraGG.
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