1 Introduction #
1.1 Welcome #
Excellent customer experience is easy to identify, but difficult to encapsulate. But we believe there are some key principles that underlie every great interaction:
When people contact your company, they want to have a natural conversation with a real human being with their best interests at heart. We are all consumers and we know that being treated like a person is always better than being treated like a case number. Agent helps you focus on the Customer, rather than looking for a case number.
We believe that context is key. That’s why we provide visibility into every previous conversation a customer has had with anyone in your company, so you have all the background you need to better help them. At the end of the day, your customers won’t have to repeat themselves and you’ll be able to solve their problems faster.
We understand that speed and efficiency are key. From the ability to get a searchable online knowledge base we call Answers, to keyboard shortcuts that let you move faster, we’re always thinking of ways to help you save time and effort.
Measuring results
Goals are important, and knowing them? Even more so. With Liveboards and Agent Reports, supervisors have the metrics and insights they need to lead a highly efficient operational team.
The customer’s voice
We are delighted to partner with you on this journey to a better customer experience. With this handbook, you will learn more about how to use Agent, get some useful tips and tricks, and have a pool of additional resources you can refer to whenever you need help.
1.2 What is Agente? #
Agent is a radically personal customer service platform. Unlike legacy service platforms that focus on cases, only Agent puts the customer center stage and uniquely enables a lifelong conversation, from voice to modern messaging, integrating all the channels you need. It empowers the most innovative consumer companies to deliver exceptional customer experiences and makes customer service a competitive advantage.
What it does
Agent gives customer service teams the ability to treat your customers like real people, from knowing their last purchase, dress size, shoe size or even their children’s next birthday, all before they say hello. Built for the way people communicate today, a customer and their history are never separated within Agent, and all conversations, across all channels, are contained in a single conversation thread to give associates the tools they need to deliver exceptional customer service experiences.
Why does it exist?
The way people communicate has changed. Today, consumers move seamlessly from one communication channel to another and want to be known, understood and engaged with the brands they communicate with, wherever they are. Brands have the will, but not the way, because customer service platforms have failed them for so long. Legacy platforms are stuck in the past and treat consumers like case numbers. They cannot adapt and have not kept up with the modern customer. For brands to deliver superior customer service that generates value, a completely new approach is required. It’s time to transform the way modern consumer brands connect with their customers, and it starts with a radically personal approach that builds meaningful relationships, prioritizes customers and generates revenue.
How it works?
Put people at the center of service by highlighting their unique attributes and their history with the brands they buy from. With all information about a customer available in a single view, including past Conversations, recent transactions and even personal preferences, customer service teams are empowered to deliver better customer service that improves satisfaction and builds loyalty over time.
1.3 Key Concepts #
Because Agent is client-based, we present some concepts that are defined differently than systems you have used in the past, especially concepts related to «ticket/case-based» systems. To help you get the most out of Agent, take a moment to review these key concepts. They will help you become familiar with the features and help you understand the reports.
Agentes
Agents are the front line of a company’s customer service center and are responsible for delivering an excellent customer experience. At Agent, this means:
- Agents manage conversations and their contacts
- Agents are used to assign personnel to inboxes and agents can be assigned to several inboxes at once.
- Multiple agents can handle a single conversation over time, but a conversation can only be assigned to one agent at a time.
- Agents can be assigned several conversations at the same time, especially in messaging channels.
Assignments
Assignment is a process that helps ensure that customer requests are handled correctly. There are a few things you should know about assignments and other related concepts:
- Customers can be assigned and reassigned manually by agents, or automatically, by rules.
- Clients are always assigned to an inbox. Once routed, Clients are also assigned an agent in that inbox.
- Calls and messages contained in a conversation inherit the conversation mapping. This means that you cannot map a chat message or email on its own; the entire client and conversation will be a single thread.
- Tasks are different. They are also always assigned to an inbox and an agent when routed, but a customer can have several tasks open at the same time.
- During its duration, a conversation may be assigned to more than one agent (e.g., it starts with one and is then reassigned to another). These changes in assignment are reflected as attribution in the relevant reports. Since conversations can contain several contacts, each contact can be attributed to a different agent.
Conversations
Conversations provide a more natural way to handle communication, as conversations always provide a comprehensive view of who the customer is, the channels they use to communicate, as well as quickly view past conversations. It also consists of all the contacts and messages a customer has with you.
Things to keep in mind in conversations:
- A conversation can be spread over several channels.
- A conversation remains in only one inbox and one agent at a time.
- A conversation can have different contacts in different channels.
- A conversation can be assigned one or more topics so that you are aware of the issue being discussed.
- A conversation can go through a series of statuses: New – unassigned, after a new contact was entered; Open – assigned to an agent; Waiting – an agent has responded to the customer and is waiting for your response; Closed – resolved and requires no further action. Can be reopened if a customer responds to a closed conversation within a specified period of time.
- Clients are never assigned a «case/ticket number» in Agent.
- You never open a new conversation every time a customer contacts you (unlike cases / tickets).
- Conversations can cross multiple channels (e.g. SMS, chat, voice, etc.) where cases/tickets are typically restricted to the type of input channel used. This omni-channel capability in a conversational environment allows you to easily meet your customers when and where they want to meet.
- A customer can only have one open conversation at any given time, which avoids duplication of requests.
Contacts
Defines a contact as a phone call, messaging session, email or voicemail. The contact can be defined as an inbound (customer-initiated) or outbound (agent-initiated) activity. The contact can contain a call or several messages (individual chat messages, SMS, etc.). The contact is also part of a conversation.
- A contact is a phone call, chat session, messaging session, email or voicemail. The contact can be an inbound (customer-initiated) or outbound (agent-initiated) activity.
- A contact can contain one call or several messages (individual chat messages, SMS, etc.).
- The linear sequence of contacts and tasks, and their assignment and routing actions, comprises the conversation timeline.
Clients
Customers are people who have a connection with your company because they are interested in your products and services or are an existing customer. Agent customers may also have a history of conversations that may span multiple channels.
A customer will have a single profile in Agent that contains information about them. Sometimes a customer may have several profiles (for example, if they communicate with you using a different email address, phone number, etc.) that may exist. Customer profiles should be merged in this situation.
Customer Profiles
Think of a customer profile as a one-stop shop for everything related to a customer.
At the center of the customer’s profile, you’ll find the Customer Details panel, with the customer’s name, contact information, a list of their past conversations with your company, and even a section for customer notes. Your company can also customize the type of information you get here; so if you work for an airline, you might see the details of a customer’s next flight, or perhaps their past purchases if you work for a retail store.
Users and Roles
An Agent user is you and anyone else in your company who uses Agent to help customers solve their problems, manage teams of agents or even manage Agent.
Each user has at least one role assigned to them, which helps define the types of permissions they have and the actions they can perform in Agent. There are three main roles in Agent:
- Administrator: can use all functions. While they can work directly with clients when necessary, their main responsibilities lie in monitoring equipment and analytics and making sure the platform works as needed. They can also create new roles and users (Agents or Supervisors).
- Agent: Agents are the first line of a company’s support team. They interact with customers, helping them to answer their questions and solve problems.
- Supervisor: can monitor the teams (agents), assign contacts, analyze the data obtained.
Channels
A channel is a method a customer uses to communicate with your company. Currently, we support all customer communications through the following channels:
- SMS
- Voice
- WhatsApp y WhatsApp Business
- Facebook Messenger
2 Platform login #
After entering through the following link:
you will find an initial dashboard with a summary of all the activity of each of the agents.
2.1 Summary of information Administrator User
Detail of agent productivity #
The information is grouped by sections such as:
Requests of the month: summary of all the requests received by each of the agents.
New contacts for the month: displays the new contacts that have contacted each of your agents during the current month.
SMS: displays the number of contacts via instant messaging.
WhatsApp: shows the number of contacts produced through the WhatsApp app.
WhatsApp Business: shows the number of contacts produced through the WhatsApp Business app.
Facebook: shows the number of contacts produced through the Facebook Messenger app.
Twitter: shows the number of contacts produced through the Twitter app.
Note: the information is compared to the previous month to which it is found.
2.1.1 Customizable filters
Example: Filtering by requests according to channel #
It is possible to filter the information to obtain data according to the date range to select. Simply click on Type>Historical and you will be able to get the information updated in real time:
3 Menu #
In the main menu, you will see the modules included in the platform. We will now enter each of them.
3.1 Sandbox #
Sandbox mode is an option to test the channels you need to configure in your account.
In case you need assistance, you can contact Support: +19548690119
You can generate a test environment by sending and receiving SMS by registering a phone with its country code after verifying the number by clicking on «Verify Number».
You will receive the verification code to the phone number entered as shown in the example:
Once you have entered the code in «2. Verify code received», click on the «Verify» button to confirm and you will be able to start testing SMS sending:
Now we use the registered and verified phone in order to allow sending and receiving text messages. We simply type the message in the text box «Message (160 characters max.)» and then confirm the sending by clicking on the «Send» button:
The message is successfully received on the registered and validated device:
The response to the Agent platform will be reflected in the «Your message will appear here» text box.”
It is also possible to view a history of all the tests carried out on the different numbers verified with incoming and outgoing messages for each of the contacts:
