Virtual agents / Chatbots
in United Kingdom

Dee may not be exactly like us, with blood coursing through her veins, but she is much more than a search facility and a traditional FAQ.

She is actually pretty clever. Not only does she have a conversation with you - you type in a question in your own words and she provides you with an answer - but she will also lead you to the relevant page on our site, log the entire process, note and report on information gaps and build a profile of our users for us.

Synthetix has launched a multilingual Virtual Agent, its fourth deployment into the Water Utilities sector for Dwr Cymru Welsh Water. The company provides water supply and sewerage services to over three million people living and working in Wales and some adjoining areas of England. They have 1.2 million household customers and over 110,000 business customers making them the sixth largest of the 23 regulated water companies in England and Wales.

Website visitors just type a question into the question box; the system then sifts through the vast amounts of data on the site looking for possible answers. Once an answer has been found it appears on the screen along with links to further information. It is hoped 'Ask Alex' will become the first port of call for people looking for answers, providing instant response and feedback and reducing the need to call the Customer Service Centre, providing a faster more responsive service and saving both time and money. New questions will continue to be added to further improve customer satisfaction. User input is vital, if a question is not being answered there is a facility which allows the user to submit the question for inclusion.

This new interface has allowed Lincolnshire to optimise their online content, by making the information more customer focused and easier to find, therefore creating a solution to both, online and offline customer service issues. At the moment the technology is only available on the 'I am a Parent' section of the Lincolnshire site, however in time it will be widened out to other areas, to further enhance service delivery. To see "Ask Alex" in action, please click here to visit the Parenting section of the Lincolnshire website.

Peter Barton, Head of Web and Information Services at Lincolnshire believes the Synthetix customer service technology gives them a solution to both their online and offline customer service issues;

"People like talking - or writing - to people. And that's how they see it. We anticipate this being a big win for our customer service.

Customers with questions and queries can click on 'Help' on the homepage or input their questions directly to the page at other points on the site and are greeted by the smartAgent. Andrea has been designed to talk to thousands of people every week, answering their queries and navigating them around the website. The conversational, natural language interface provides straight answers to straight questions. Andrea is answering queries about Travelodge venues and has a wealth of knowledge, from hotel directions to in-room facilities.

Travelodge have full access to the Synthetix.info analytics service and can see all the questions that visitors to the website have. This allows them to make sure that Andrea is always updated to answer any new queries that may arise. It also provides detailed management reports to monitor the success of the smartAgent.

Wanda is magic. She is a fairy and works for Park - the UK's number 1 for Christmas savings. Wanda is there to help Agents, customers and anyone interested in ordering from Park with their questions. Questions can be asked in natural language. Wanda can help you navigate around the website, answer questions about commission, orders, deliveries, vouchers and more. She can let you know how many weeks you have left to pay for your orders, and how much you should be paying each week.

This chatbot is the University of Wolverhampton's Library Learning and Information Services virtual assistant.

Tesco Direct’s V-Person™ has a clean, professional template design complete with their well-known company logo and motto. Users can easily browse the clickable FAQs or type a free text entry to find the answer to their query 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without the hassle of contacting a call centre. This install also gathers feedback from users about the usefulness of answers and call savings thus helping to constantly improve the system.

Synthetix successfully launched its third Virtual Agent deployment into the Utilities sector for the organisation delivering water and sewage services within the south east of England, Essex & Suffolk Water.

Visitors to www.eswater.co.uk can click on "Ask us" and are greeted by one of several smartAgents (selected at random) who are there to answer queries twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The smartAgent has been implemented to improve the customer experience and reduce the routine inbound enquiries to the Essex & Suffolk Water contact centre and thus saving costs.