VIKI (Verizon Interactive Knowledge Interface) - a multilingual AI based hybrid bot & search engine for frontline representatives.
From an idea/POC to complete nationwide rollout took 4 months for telesales, 3 months for retail and 3 months for indirect stores each.
VIKI is used by approximately 50,000 frontline agents in the USA in their retail, tele-sales and indirect channels as of December 2023.
Lean canvas on the innovation:
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PROBLEM
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SOLUTION
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UNIQUE VALUE PROPOSITION
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UNFAIR ADVANTAGE
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Retail store agents require a considerable amount of time to assist customers at the retail store owing to a lot of manual intervention involved in providing any product information, assisting customer queries. Offering any troubleshooting assistance leads to long queues at the store and extended timeframe for resolving customer inquiries. To put this into perspective, Verizon receives close to 70 million store visits / annum
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VIKI (Verizon Interactive Knowledge Interface) which is an AI-based hybrid bot that combines the best of both Conversational and Generative AI capabilities, is a powerful tooL that empowers the store agents with real-time insights and in-depth knowledge about the retail product offerings to drive superior customer experience. This partnership between employees and VIKI enhances the company’s ability to sell certain products and services to customers, even while significantly cutting down average store visit time for the customers with faster results and higher customer satisfaction
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- One stop solution for all the business needs of the retail store agents
- Convenience with Hybrid & Touchless solutions
- Multimodal and Video support
- Interactive Product Discovery
- Personalized recommendation
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- 4 decade legacy in Telecommunication industry
- Global reach and brand image
- They have over 92 patents from Verizon India and also continue to have a innovation forward strategy
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EXISTING ALTERNATIVES
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KEY METRICS
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CUSTOMER SEGMENTS
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EARLY ADOPTERS
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Frontline agents currently depend on manual intervention in retail stores today for any product information which takes a long time to transact
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- Decreased Store Transaction time
- Improved CSAT and NPS score
- Multilingual support (Up to 15 languages)
- Hybrid and Touchless support
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- Verizon serves both B2B and B2C
VIKI serves:
- Verizon’s Frontline store agents
- Customers
- Verizon’s retail business
employees
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Frontline agents at retail stores of Verizon of approx. 50,000 nos.
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Detailed note:
About VIKI:
VIKI (Verizon Interactive Knowledge Interface) which is an AI-based hybrid bot that combines the best of both Conversational and Generative AI capabilities, is a powerful tool that empowers store agents with real-time insights and in-depth knowledge about the retail product offerings to drive superior customer experience.
VIKI was the first of its kind in the telecom retail sector in the US to provide an immersive and touchless experience for both our customers and the store agents.
VIKI is a one stop solution for all the business needs of the retail store agents who empower customers in return. VIKI’s unique value proposition comes from it extending beyond being just a Virtual Agent that benefits all the involved stakeholders -to becoming an enabler for Verizon’s Frontline store agents, customers, Verizon’s retail business as well as the employees.
Problem that VIKI solves:
Traditionally, frontline agents would invest a considerable amount of time to assist customers at the retail store with a lot of manual intervention involved in providing any product information, assisting customer queries or offering any troubleshooting assistance. This would lead to long waiting queues at the store and extended timeframe for resolving customer inquiries. To enhance the store’s efficiency and reduce the transaction time, a thorough analysis was conducted which revealed the following areas for improvement.
Product knowledge
Limited Real-time supports
Queue and Wait time
Templated Scripts
Limited personalization
Difficulty in scaling
Language Support
Cross-selling and Upselling
What does VIKI do?
Verizon saw that the goal was to blend physical and digital, enabling a hybrid environment for their customers as well as our store agents to operate seamlessly with adequate context. Consideration was given to embrace technological solutions while not diminishing the personal connection that comes with human interaction. Recognizing the growing preferences for hybrid interactions and the constraints in managing growing transaction volume in store, VIKI was introduced, which allowed the seamless integration of a wealth of insights from our database, transforming it into a dynamic resource within a hybrid retail setting. This helped capture intricate details about customer persona, expectations, preferences and journeys, akin to a natural ongoing conversation. Thus, the approach enhanced the quality of engagement by synergizing both human intelligence with automation.
Some of the key features and benefits of VIKI are:
- Convenience with Hybrid & Touchless solutions - During the pandemic, in the context of safety precautions, multiple ‘Touchless’ & self-assist solutions for troubleshooting and payments were enabled within VIKI. Through the implementation of 'Touchless' interactions, we pioneered a hybrid customer experience which today, helps us keep pace with the growing transaction volumes with quicker resolution of customer queries leading to significant cost-saving benefits to the retail business.
- Multilingual support - VIKI’s multilingual interface has helped expand access to a diverse customer base across geographies by facilitating interactions with non-English speaking customers without the need for any specialized multilingual agents at every store. This has also helped eliminate any language barriers and has widened Verizon’s reach into new market segments.
- Interactive product discovery - VIKI is integrated with multiple downstream systems that enable the frontline store agents to discover the products and services that match customer’s specific needs instantly through a series of questions. This interactive approach mimics personalized assistance for customers and thereby enhances the user experience for both customer and the agent.
- Generative AI Capabilities - VIKI was developed with Generative AI capabilities way ahead of the market to generate automated quotes via the Virtual cart in just 1 min. as opposed to the traditional approach which would take around 15+ mins to add customer preferences and then generate a cart.
- Multimodal and Video Assist - VIKI's unique capabilities lets customers interact with agents through text-based chat while also providing video-based assistance. This hybrid approach allows users to receive visual information, demonstrations, or tutorials through video content in addition to the traditional text-based responses from the chatbot. VIKI provides multimodal experience with which users can switch effortlessly between text-based responses and video content, depending on their preference or the complexity of the inquiry
- Automation - Through proactive assistance and intelligent automation, VIKI keeps the store agents well-informed on the customers’ engagement journey, transactions, unpredicted surges/ outages, latest information on product promotions/ offers and deals. Everything is automated from a simple tax calculation to complex transactions, empowering agents to address urgent issues promptly.
- Personalized recommendations - By leveraging insights from customer journey and past interactions, VIKI offers instantly tailored suggestions of plans, offers, devices and services that resonate with the customer’s preferences and usage patterns.
- Connect with an expert sales/service agent - VIKI opens up other avenues as well for the sales representatives to engage with specialized agent groups (like finance, core, tech support etc.) in a contextualized way, when needing support for tech related and credit related services.
- Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Integration - VIKI integrates with RPA that enhances process automation and customer interactions. VIKI communicates with RPA bots and workflows to perform various tasks, automate processes, and provide more efficient services.
- Integration with internal store collaboration tools - VIKI has been integrated with internal store collaboration tools to enable constant communication among agents and real-time information assistance across channels and groups. This enables seamless communication and interaction within the store and across the store
Technologies used:
A homegrown solution using NLU (Natural Language Understanding) Platform, integrated with most advanced deep learning neural network algorithms for speech recognition
Usage:
Today, approximately 95% of Verizon’s retail agents engage with VIKI on a daily basis attesting to its effectiveness in streamlining hybrid operations. VIKI's language support extends up to 15 languages with Spanish, Portuguese and French being among the most frequently utilized.
With its superior conversational capabilities, VIKI has significantly accelerated operational efficiency by providing meaningful insights, automation, and proactive assistance at lightning speed.
Resulting in:
- Decreased Store Transaction time
- Personalized assistance
- Improved CSAT and NPS score
- Automation at ease
- Multilingual language interface that reduces language barriers
Customer/Internal Customer Quote:
"I find VIKI helps bring essential tools to the forefront instead of having to dig through menus. Having a Promo Guide easily accessible makes it easy to find our key offers. Being able to easily Add Remarks to an account saves us time and prevents manager overrides. Finally, the ability to check inventory levels, including allocated and in-transit, has become very useful for my team." Verizon, Retail Store Mgr, USA
Recognition:
Conferred with the Award of Merit for Excellence in Best AI Technology / Products/Solutions by Industry at the CII Global AI Summit and Awards for 2023
Innovation Culture:
Verizon strongly believes that Innovation drives progress and is part of their DNA. Verizon India has 92 patent grants..
Mr. Vijayaraman Subramanian - VP and MD for Verizon India: "As a leading player in the telecommunications industry, we recognize the importance of intellectual property and innovation in driving progress and setting us apart. Driving innovation is ingrained in our DNA. We foster a culture where our #vteam colleagues are empowered to turn ideas into tangible realities. With over 92 patent grants across Verizon India, (and many more filed on an ongoing basis), we are shaping the future."
Keywords:
#Telecommunication #DataServices #MultiLingual #NLUPlatform #ConversationalAI #GenAI #OperationalEfficiency
