Astute Introduces Email Virtual Assistant, EVA, to Automate Customer Service Emails

New inbound email processing solution uses natural language processing and machine learning to instantly craft responses to customers

Astute is announcing the release of Email Virtual Assistant, or EVA, a new automated customer service tool that processes inbound emails and writes highly accurate responses, drastically reducing the time and cost associated with customer email management. By learning from how human customer service agents respond to customer issues, EVA replies to customers quickly and accurately while retaining a human feel.

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At a time when many contact centers are dealing with unprecedented email volume and entirely new types of questions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, EVA is the solution to mounting email backlogs. Using natural language processing, EVA reads incoming messages, interprets the correct case coding from the text, and uses response history from human agents to craft the reply. The tool can even determine the amount and type of goodwill to be sent, including replacement products, coupons, and gift cards. Finally, the completed case and email response passes to a human agent to QA before sending, allowing them to refine and edit the text as they see fit. This process combines the speed and efficiency of automation with the finesse that only live agents can provide when engaging with customers.

The potential return on investment for companies that deploy EVA is substantial, as the tool can process incoming emails and prepare them for agent QA in near-real time. Without automation, companies spend an average of $5 to $13 per email, so the dollar savings of using EVA is significant – all the while preserving high response quality and accuracy. Because EVA replicates the best agent responses from the past, replies do not have the stiff, robotic quality often associated with automated email replies.

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Astute puts its customers in complete control of how they want to use EVA. The functionality can be turned on or off as needed, and companies pay only for the emails that are successfully processed through the automation. This makes EVA especially well-suited to crisis management, spam management, temporary backlog management, or when companies need greater elasticity in managing call centers through uncertain times.

“Many Customer Care teams were struggling to stay on top of inbound email prior to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Astute President and CTO Alex George, “and with massive spikes in contact volume, many feel overwhelmed by their email backlog. We developed EVA to relieve this pressure while considerably reducing the cost per interaction. EVA frees agents to focus on meaningful engagements with consumers, instead of tedious and repetitive work.”

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