“The final segment in a multi-part series focusing on building intelligent bots using Google Dialogflow and Contact Center AI.
In the 1984 Terminator movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger, a cyborg hit man, uses a phrase that has sort of become legend: “I’ll be back.” This phrase can also convey meaning when applied to the less violent, but very important, intelligent virtual agent (IVA) cyber creations being rolled out in contact centers around the world. For IVAs to work well and to provide lasting value, they need monitoring and continuous improvement by the people and organizations that create them. Hence, any developer that creates V1.0 of an IVA needs to think in terms of “I’ll be back.”
Monitoring and Continuous Improvement
My industry colleague, Art Schoeller of Forrester Research, said this of IVAs during a Talkdesk-sponsored webinar: “It takes work to make them work.” He was referring to the effort required to get IVAs not only operational, but also useful to the end users for whom they are intended. As a strategic element in an organization’s customer engagement strategy, IVAs require continuous oversight, maintenance, and optimization.
“Bot rot” is a term one author used to describe what happens when an IVA is neglected. Unmaintained IVAs will ultimately lead to poor user experiences and low utilization rates.”
The article: Decoding Dialogflow: Proper Care and Feeding of IVAs
