IntelliResponse Virtual Agent

Patricia Seybold Group / Product Review
IntelliResponse Virtual Agent

Virtual Agents that Are Fast and Easy to Deploy and that Deliver One Right Answer to Customers
Questions
By Mitch Kramer, Senior Consultant, Patricia Seybold Group
May 10, 2013
NETTING IT OUT
IntelliResponse Virtual Agent (IntelliResponse VA) is the virtual assisted-service offering
from IntelliResponse Systems, Inc., a privately held supplier founded in 2000 and based in
Toronto, ON, Canada.
Organizations purchase subscription licenses for cloud deployment of IntelliResponse VA.
To date, IntelliResponse claims that 155 customer organizations have licensed it and have
deployed more than 450 virtual agents.
IntelliResponse VA earns excellent grades on the Customer Service Report Card for Virtual
Assisted-Serviceit Exceeds Requirements for Answers, for Question Analysis and
Matching, Analytic Functionality, and Product Viability, and it Meets Requirements for
customer service integration and company viability.
Use IntelliResponse VA to deploy virtual agents on web, contact center, social, and mobile
channels. Customers can ask questions in any language and, on mobile devices, they can
speak their questions. Virtual agents can deliver answers in any language and can answer
in speech on mobile devices.
We recommend that B2C companies of any size consider IntelliResponse VA to add crosschannel virtual assisted-service to their customer service application portfolio. Its virtual
agents are fast and easy to deploy and can deliver accurate and consistent answers to any
customers questions, lowering cost to serve and improving customer satisfaction.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Answer Customers Questions and Solve Customers Problems
Customer service products help organizations deliver answers to their customers questions and
solutions to their problems through their case management, knowledge management, search, account
management, and social network management capabilities, capabilities that support self-service, assisted-service, and social-service channels. These products help answer and solve customers questions and problems about products and services, about business policies, processes, and practices, or
about the elements of their customer relationships such as accounts, bills, orders, and contracts.
Directlink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1571/pr05-10-13cc
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Patricia Seybold Group Inc. P.O. Box 783 Needham, MA 02494 USA www.customers.com Unauthorized redistribution of this report is a violation of copyright law.
2 Product Review
Virtual Assisted-Service
Virtual assisted-service products and services use software to:
Solicit and receive customers questions, typically within a box on a web page, similar to
the box for a chat session. Within the box are a text box into which customers enter their
questions and an image of a person, a virtual agent.
Analyze customers questions to determine the meaning and the intent. Analyses are
typically natural language processing (NLP) and linguistic analytics.
Match a customers question to the answer within a collection of predefined answers that
best matches it. Matching also uses linguistic analytics. The collection of predefined
answers is a knowledgebase.
Deliver the best answers to customers within the box on the web page.
Virtual assisted-service is virtual because it uses software to determine and to deliver answers to
customers questions. Its assisted-service because it solicits questions and delivers answers in the
style that live agents/customer service reps deliver answers on assisted-service channels. Customers
escalate to virtual assisted-service from self-service activities when they have difficulty getting answers to their questions. Virtual agents are the faces of virtual assisted-service technology.
Virtual Assisted-Service Can Be a Low(er)-Cost Customer Service Channel
Virtual assisted can be a low(er)-cost customer service channel. Its customer service software,
not customer service staff. It can lower cost-to-serve by avoiding or deflecting assisted-service chat
sessions and/or contact center calls. It can also prevent or delay abandonment and improve customer
satisfaction, delivering answers to customers who might otherwise leave rather than call.
The Best Virtual Assisted-ServiceFast and Accurate
As it is for all customer service, the best virtual assisted-service is fast and accurate. Customers
wont wait very long. They access your sites on fast devices using fast connections on fast networks.
Your processing of their questions should never be the bottleneck to their completing their activities
in doing business with you.
Accuracy is the key. Customers want the right answer. Theyd prefer not to read a list of FAQs
to match their questions with yours. (Thats what they expect a virtual agent to do for them.) They
dont want to wade through pages of possible answers like theyre forced to do when they use Internet search.
INTELLIRESPONSE VIRTUAL AGENT
IntelliResponse Virtual Agent is the virtual assisted-service/virtual agent offering from IntelliResponse Systems, Inc. IntelliResponse VA deploys on web pages, agent desktops, social networks,
and mobile devices. Its virtual agents invite customers to ask them questions in text or, on mobile
devices, in speech. Then, using IntelliResponse VAs patented analysis and matching technology,
virtual agents find and deliver the Single Right Answer from their knowledgebases in text with
images, links, and, optionally, data from external applications, or in speech.
IntelliResponse branded its virtual assisted-service offering as IntelliResponse Virtual Agent in
2012, but the offerings foundation technologies and the product that leverages them were introduced
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IntelliResponse Virtual Agent 3
in 2001. To date, IntelliResponse claims that 155 customer accounts have licensed IntelliResponse
VA (and its predecessor offerings) for more than 450 product line, organization, application, and
language deploymentsby far the largest customer base in the virtual agent market segment.
IntelliResponse VA deploys in the cloud. IntelliResponse offers subscription licenses for its deployment. The firm also offers professional services to help ensure successful deployments and to
help in their ongoing refinement and management.
IntelliResponse Systems, Inc.
IntelliResponse Systems, Inc. is a privately owned software supplier based in Toronto, ON. The
firm was founded in 2000 and currently has a staff of approximately 65 employees.
IntelliResponse VA is IntelliResponses only product line, and IntelliResponse VA has always
been a customer service application, delivering the One Right Answer to customers questions, the
core of customer service. Very recently, however, IntelliResponse has introduced analytic and recommendation capabilities that enhance IntelliResponse VA and extend its usefulness to marketing.
The new analytic capabilities examine customers questions to help organizations identify the themes
in customers conversations. The new recommendation capabilities deliver offers within the context
of virtual agents answers.
Whats New in IntelliResponse VA?
Weve been evaluating IntelliResponse VA and its predecessor products since 2007. Our most
recent evaluation was of the predecessor IntelliResponse Answer Suite 6.0 (IntelliResponse AS)
which we published in October 2010.
While the offerings core technology to match customers question with the one right answer
in a knowledgebase has remained essentially the same, IntelliResponse has continued to make very
significant improvements that leverage capabilities of the core technology. These include:
Offerings for small and mid-sized businesses and higher education institutes: irSMB and
irSC
Mobile device support
IntelliResponse Virtual Agent branding
Language support, including support for languages with double byte encoding
i.Suggestvirtual agents suggest answers as customers type their questions
IntelliVoicespeech-enabled virtual agents on mobile devices
New branding
New applications
Late in 2011, IntelliResponse announced irSmallCampus Version 1.1 and irSmartBusiness Version 1.1. irSC/irSMB are strategic offerings for two reasons. First, they address scope, scale, and
pricing requirements for virtual assisted-service in the small and mid-sized markets for educational
institutions and commercial enterprises, extending IntelliResponses reach in the market. Second,
and perhaps more significantly, they demonstrate that deployment of virtual agents can be a selfservice process rather than a consulting project. Future product versions, including IntelliResponse
VA 6.2, the subject of this product evaluation, include the technology, the tools, and the processes
that enable the self-service deployment of irSC and irSMB.


4 Product Review
On July 11 2011, IntelliResponse announced native support for the Android platform for its
products. IntelliResponse had supported native Apple iPhone and RIM Blackberry through WAP.
Android is an important addition.
IntelliResponse rebranded its offering as IntelliResponse Virtual Agent during 2Q2012. Virtual
agent branding takes advantage of a hot customer service trend, and it more accurately describes the
capabilities, features, and benefits of the product. The product had been called IntelliResponse Answer Suite and, before that, simply IntelliResponse.
IntelliResponse announced IntelliResponse VA 6.2 on June 7, 2012. IntelliResponse 6.2 has two
major new features: IntelliResponse for Global Markets and i.Suggest (i.Suggest was called IntelliSuggest at announcement).
IntelliResponse for Global Markets adds internationalization capabilities and support for
double byte languages including Japanese, Korean, and the Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese,
and Min languages of Chinese. It makes the offering more attractive to global
organizations and expands IntelliResponses market reach from North America and
Europe to Asia.
i.Suggest is a major enhancement to the products question analysis and matching

capabilities. It mimics the style of predictive search, delivering suggested answers as
customers type their questions. However, where conventional search approaches look for
exact matches on question content, i.Suggest uses IntelliResponses patented matching
technology to determine the intent of customers questions to suggest the most
appropriate match. Results from beta customers demonstrated a 21 percent improvement
in the accuracy of answers, and a 22 percent reduction in customer effort (the number of
questions customers ask in a single session to complete a task).
IntelliResponse announced IntelliVoice on November 9, 2012. IntelliVoice is a new feature of

IntelliResponse VA, that supports voice on mobile devices, letting customers using iPhones and Android devices speak their questions and lets IntelliResponse VAs virtual agents speak answers in response. IntelliVoice uses industry standard voice recognition technology to convert spoken
customers questions to text and uses IntelliResponse VAs knowledge management technology to
analyze the questions and match them to a single right answer. Then it uses text to speech technology to convert the answer to speech and have virtual agents deliver it to the customer. It also delivers
the response in text.
IntelliVoice is the first virtual assisted-service offering to let customers and virtual agents
speak with each other. Its a mode of mobile communications that many customers already want to
use. Siri on Apple iPhones has demonstrated the usefulness and has proven effectiveness of virtual
agents and spoken questions and answers. However, whether they communicate by speaking or by
typing, mobile devices are becoming customers preferred self-service channel. Virtual agents must
be able to answer both spoken and typed questions on the mobile channel.
As we write this product evaluation report, IntelliResponse introduced new applications and new
packaging for IntelliResponse VA. The new applications leverage IntelliResponse VAs core question analysis and matching technology and apply it to CRM and marketing applications. In addition
to delivering the One Right Answer to a customers question, IntelliResponse VA now determines
and records a code that represents the intent of the question. Intents are critical to understanding customer interests, preference, and behavior, critical factors within satisfaction, loyalty, and profitability.
IntelliResponse VA integration with CRM systems transfers intent codes to the customer profile records of CRM systems. Understanding intent is also key to making effective marketing offers. Delivering marketing offers within the answers to customers questions is another new IntelliResponse


VA application. Think of it as one right answer coupled with one right offer. Its anther virtual
agent first for IntelliResponse.
The new packaging organizes IntelliResponse VA into application-specific and channel-specific
components. Applications components are customer service (IntelliResponse ANSWERS), reporting/analytics and Voice of the Customer themes (IntelliResponse VOICES), and marketing offers
(IntelliResponse OFFERS). Channels components are mobile, which includes IntelliVoice, and the
combination of web, social, and agent. Well get into a bit more detail on packaging in the Customer
Service Best Fit section of this report.
Now, lets evaluate IntelliResponse VA.
FRAMEWORK FOR EVALUATING VIRTUAL ASSISTED-SERVICE PRODUCTS
This report presents our evaluation of IntelliResponse VA ActiveAgent against our framework
for evaluating virtual assisted-service products and services. The framework has these top-level
evaluation criteria. Each has sets of sub-criteria that we evaluate in detail for each customer socialservice product.
Customer service best fit

Virtual agent technology
Analytic functionality
Viability
In the next sections of this report, well present our evaluation of IntelliResponse VA against
each of these criteria. Well also describe the criteria and their sub-criteria in a little more detail prior
to the evaluations. Finally, well summarize our evaluations in our Virtual Assisted-Service Report
Card.
CUSTOMER SERVICE BEST FIT
Key Characteristics for Fast Evaluation of Customer Service Products and Services
The Customer Service Best Fit evaluation criterion presents information and analysis that classifies and describes customer service products and services. Customer Service Best Fit speeds evaluation and selection by presenting easy-to-evaluate characteristics. For example, if yours is an
international organization in the financial services business, then a quick glance at the Positioning
and Target Markets sub criterion row of the Customer Service Best Fit table will let you see whether
financial services is within the industries that the customer service supplier targets and whether the
supplier targets and support international organizations. If so, then continue to our detailed analysis
and evaluation. If not, move on to the next customer service product or service.
For virtual assisted-service, Customer Service Best Fit comprises these evaluation criteria:
Virtual agent approach

Deployment
Environments
Positioning and target markets
Pricing and packaging
Customer base
Alternatives


6 Product Review
Customer Service Best Fit for IntelliResponse Virtual Agent

In Table 1, we present our evaluation of Customer Service Best Fit for IntelliResponse Virtual
Agent. Our analysis follows the table.
Customer Service Best Fit for IntelliResponse Virtual Agent

Criterion
Virtual agent
approach
Description
IntelliResponse VA virtual agents deploy on web sites, agent desktops, mobile devices,
and social networks.
Customers ask questions by entering text in a search box, in a chat box, or, on Android
and IOS devices, by speaking. Virtual agents deliver a single right answer within the
text or speech context of customers questions.
Customers ask questions as text strings of words and phrases. IntelliResponse VA

virtual agents deliver answers as text with images, links, and/or URLs or as spoken
words, phrases, or sentences. IntelliResponse offers integration services for including
data from external applications within answers.
IntelliResponse VA uses the translation facilities of Google for language support. As a

result, customers may ask questions and receive answers in most Western and Asian
languages.
IntelliResponse VA uses rules-based machine learning technology to match customers

questions with answers. IntelliResponse VA stores and manages answers, prototypical
questions, which are called Representative Questions, and matching rules, which are
called Criteria, in a knowledgebase. Analysts specify answers and Representative
Questions to deploy instances of IntelliResponse VA. IntelliResponse VA automatically
generates matching rules.
IntelliResponse VA packages integration with chat, email, contact center, web selfservice, community, and social network applications. See Customer Service Integration
for details.
Deployment
IntelliResponse Virtual Agent deploys in the cloud. IntelliResponse uses SSAE16/SOC3

certified third-party cloud computing services which have sites in Toronto, ON and Boston, MA
Environments
IntelliResponse VA supports these browsers:
Apple Safari
Google Chrome
Microsoft Internet Explorer
Mozilla Firefox.

IntelliResponse VA supports Apple IOS and

Google Android devices via native apps.
IntelliResponse VA also supports all mobile
devices via WAP.

Customer Service Best Fit for IntelliResponse Virtual Agent (continued)

Criterion
Packaging
Pricing
Description
Components
Suites
ANSWERS is the virtual agent

application for customer service on
web, mobile, and social channels.
CRM CONNECT delivers summaries

and question intent codes of
customer/virtual agent sessions to CRM
systems.
The base IntelliResponse VA suite

includes ANSWERS, CRM
CONNECT, multi-channel access
through web, mobile, agent and
social channels, and the enabling
technologies.
OFFERS and VOICES are optional

modules that can be bundled at initial
licensing or added-on anytime after
deployment into the base
IntelliResponse VA suite.
Integration provides integration of

external applications through Web
Service.
VOICES is a Voice of the Customer

application that identifies the themes in
customers questions and presents
them visually and interactively.
OFFERS is a
marketing/recommendation application
that leverages VOICES to include offers
within answers to customers question.
Enabling technologies
o
i.Match question analysis and

matching
i.Connect automatic generation of

matching rules
i.Suggest predictive analysis and

matching
IntelliResponse offers IntelliResponse Virtual Agent suites on an annual subscription basis for
deployment in the cloud.
Subscription fees are based on a forecasted volume of customer questions that virtual
agents will answer during a 12 month period. The fees are fixed to provide budget
predictability.
Typical year one price of the vaService suite for enterprise clients is $100,000.
Subscriptions are typically two years or more. Pricing includes turnkey implementation
services called QuikStart and monthly knowledge management and analytics services
called SmartSource for a single knowledgebase, but an unlimited number of
deployments.
IntelliResponse guarantees that a deployment can be live with QuikStart within 60-90
days and claims that all of its customer contracts since 2007 included QuikStart.


8 Product Review
Customer Service Best Fit for IntelliResponse Virtual Agent (continued)

Criterion
Positioning
Target markets
Description
IntelliResponses positioning for IntelliResponse VA has these elements:
Engagement. Useful, enjoyable, and actionable customer experience.
Answers. Relevant and accurate answers to customers questions.
Access. Broad support for channels and languages.
Insight. Collection and analysis of customers question to identify actionable insights

and for continuous refinement and improvement of customer experience.
Industry
Organization size
Geography
Consumer
electronics
Asia
Europe
Financial services
Middle East
Government
North America
Higher education
South America
Telecommunications
Travel and
entertainment
Utilities
Enterprise-class
Customer base
IntelliResponse claims that 155 customer organizations have licensed IntelliResponse VA for
450 deployments.
Alternatives
IntelliResponse Virtual Agent competes most closely against:
Creative Virtual V-Person
Next IT ActiveAgent
Nuance Nina Web
Oracle RightNow Cloud Service

2013 Patricia Seybold Group, Inc.
Table A. We present the Customer Service Best Fit for IntelliResponse VA in this table.
Based on the details of Customer Service Best Fit that are presented in Table 1, the drivers for
selecting IntelliResponse VA are:
One Right Answer.
Fast and easy deployment. Specification and management of answers and the questions
that typically match them are the key tasks that client organizations perform to deploy


virtual agents. Deployments can be completed with little or no consulting services from
IntelliResponse.
Virtual agents that support many channels and that understand questions and deliver
One Right Answer in many languages and in speech.
VoC analytics that deliver useful, high-value insights to customer service, product, and
marketing staff.
Attractive to B2C organizations of any size, especially for those organizations in

financial services, higher education, and utilities and for account management and billing,
and staff support (HR, benefits, payroll) applications.
One Right Answer

IntelliResponse VA deployments really do deliver One Right Answer to customers questions
typically 80 to 85 percent of the time at initial deployment and 90 percent of the time or better after a
virtual agent gets some experience. Its analysis and matching algorithms are built on machine learning technology, and IntelliResponse provides learning facilities that improve answer accuracy with
usage. Weve seen this level of accuracy within the deployments of IntelliResponses clients and
within the environments that IntelliResponse gave us to evaluate IntelliResponse VA.
Fast and Easy Deployment
IntelliResponse VAs fast and easy deployment comes from using machine learning technology
for analyzing and matching customers questions and from the facilities and tools that IntelliResponse has built specifically to automate the generation of matching rules and to improve accuracy
through their refinement with virtual agent usage. IntelliResponse VA automates most deployment
tasks. IntelliResponse VAs clients have only to specify a small number of representative or prototypical questions (IntelliResponse calls them RQs for Representative Questions) and the knowledge
items that answer them. The technologies do the restgenerating rules (IntelliResponse calls them
Criteria) that match the possible variations of RQs to knowledgebase answers at design time and using those rules to analyze and match customers questions at run time. IntelliResponse VA also provides facilities to extend and refine RQs and matching rules to improve effectiveness and expand
scope. The approach is simple, elegant, and, over the years, proven to be effective and increasingly
efficient. Virtual agents typically deliver the One Right Answer 85 to 90 percent of the time. And
virtual agent deployment can approach a self-service process.
Channels, Languages, and Speech
IntelliResponse VA supports web, mobile and social channels, the self-service channels that customers most commonly use to get answers to their questions. IntelliResponse VA also supports assisted-service channels. So agents and customer supports reps can get answers from virtual agents,
too. Thats important when an agent doesnt speak a customers language.
English is IntelliResponse VAs native language, and English is the language for its tools and facilities for deploying and managing virtual agents. However, virtual agents can understand customers questions and deliver answers a wide array of Western and Asian languages whether theyre
entered in text or, on mobile devices, in speech. In Table B, we outline how IntelliResponse VA supports languages and speech.


10 Product Review
Language and Speech Support

Tasks
Design time
Run time
Language Support
Speech Support
Specify Representative Questions in

the target languages
Specify Representative Questions in

English
Use the Google translation engine to

translate RQs in the target language
to RQs in English
Use RQs in English to generate

matching rules in English
Specify answers in English
Use RQs in English to generate

matching rules in English
Specify answers (knowledgebase

Responses) in the target languages
and save them in the IntelliResponse
VA knowledgebase
Use Google Nuance to transform

English answers to answers in
speech
Customer asks a question in one of

the target language
Customer on a mobile device speaks

a question
IntelliResponse VA uses Google

translation engine to translate the
question to English
IntelliResponse VA matches English

question to answer in English
IntelliResponse VA uses Google

Voice or Nuance technology to
translate and transform the question
into text
IntelliResponse VA finds the

corresponding answer in the target
language
IntelliResponse VA matches textual

question to a textural answer in its
knowledgebase
Virtual agent delivers the answer in

target language to the customer
IntelliResponse VA finds the

corresponding answer in speech
Virtual agent speaks the answer in

target language to the customer and
also provides the text answer
Table B. We describe support for languages and speech IntelliResponse VA in this table.
IntelliResponses developers have taken a clever and practical approach for language and speech
support. The approach uses industry-leading translation and text-to-speech technologies and leverages, without modification, IntelliResponses matching and automatic matching rule generation technologies. For language support, the additional work required of knowledge management staff is the
specification and management of Representative Questions and answers in target languages. IntelliResponse feels that automated translation technologies do not do a good job with culture, style,
and idiom. Dynamically translated answers do not seem natural. Their accent is typically very
strong. For speech support, the only additional work is to ensure that updates to spoken answers are
synchronized with updates to their textual counterparts.


VoC Analytics
VOICES is IntelliResponses new Voice of the Customer (VoC) offering. It applies NLP and
statistics analytics to customers questions on web, agent, mobile, and social channels to identify
their themes or topics. VOICES then presents the results of this analysis within visual and interactive
word cloud-style charts, each theme is shown in a cloud or a bubble that make it easy to understand
the themes that it identifies. See Illustration 1.
VOICES Theme Bubbles
2013 IntelliResponse Systems, Inc.
1. This illustration shows the credit card themes over the last month largest bubbles show the most important
themes.
VOICES analyzes all questions of all customers across all channels. It extends the application of
IntelliResponse VA from virtual-assisted customer service to VoC, from delivering answers to customers questions, to providing customer service, product, and even marketing staff with information
critical to developing, implementing, measuring, analyzing, and refining their strategies, plans, and
programs. VOICES is a powerful analytic application for IntelliResponse VA, a significant strength
and differentiator.
B2C Businesses
While IntelliResponse targets large enterprises, IntelliResponse VAs fast and easy deployment
makes it attractive to B2C business of any size in the industry segments targeted by IntelliResponse.
Here are a few examples of IntelliResponse VA virtual agents for RBC Bank (Royal Bank of Canada); Avista, an electric and natural gas utility in Spokane, WA; and Copa Airlines, an airline based
in Panama that serves Latin America.


12 Product Review
RBC Banks Virtual Agent
2013 Royal Bank of Canada
2. This illustration shows the IntelliResponse VA deployment for the RBC Advice Centre.


Avistas Virtual Agent
2013 Avista Corporation
3. This illustration shows the IntelliResponse VA deployment for Avista, an electric and natural gas provider
based in Spokane, WA with 680,000 customers in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.


14 Product Review
Ana, Copa Airlines Virtual Agent
2013 Copa Airlines, Inc.
4. This illustration shows Ana, the IntelliResponse VA virtual agent for Copa Airlines.


Alternatives
Creative Virtual V-Person, Next IT ActiveAgent, and Nuance Nina Web are the closest alternatives to IntelliResponse VA. At a high level, all of these offerings are quite similar. They provide
cross-channel customer service and deliver a single answer to customers questions. Deeper analysis
differentiates the alternatives. Technology for analyzing and matching questions is the most fundamental difference between IntelliResponse VA and its competition.
Competitors use natural language processing (NLP) technology for question analysis and matching. Their key deployment task is building an NLP model that represents a business, that businesss
vocabulary, its products and product vocabulary, and its customers questions and vocabulary. Its a
large and complex task that requires the consulting services of the virtual agent supplier. These services are also required to manage the deployment as customers questions change, required modifications to the NLP model.
As weve mentioned, question analysis and matching in IntelliResponse VA is based on machine
learning technology. Answers are as accurate as NLP implementations. Virtual agent deployment
and management is faster and easier, approaching a self-service task.
VIRTUAL ASSISTED-SERVICE TECHNOLOGY
Technology is what powers virtual assisted-service. So, technology is a key factor in comparison, evaluation, and selection. Weve defined three criteria for technology evaluation. We examine
the virtual assisted-service technologies that:
Create and manage the collection of predefined answersthe knowledge management

of virtual assisted-service.
Analyzes customers questions and matches customers questions to the best answer from
within a collection of predefined answers.
Integrates a virtual assisted-service offering into a customer service applications

portfoliocase management, account management, contact center, knowledge
management, social-service.
ANSWERSKNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN VIRTUAL ASSISTED-SERVICE

Knowledge management is, in most respects, content management. Knowledge items are special-purpose content, content that answers customers questions and/or solves their problems. Authoring, editing, and management of knowledge items are the critical tasks for implementing and
maintaining the knowledgebase(s) of virtual assisted-service products, and these products must include (knowledge management) services and tools for performing these tasks.
We evaluate answers similarly to the way that we evaluate the more general knowledge management of other customer service applications. Evaluation criteria are:
Knowledgebase. Within this evaluation criterion, we describe the organization and

implementation of the knowledgebase(s) that are used in a virtual assisted-service
product.
Knowledge model. The knowledge model specifies the types of the knowledge items
that are stored and managed within a virtual assisted-service product. We also examine


16 Product Review
the properties or attributes of knowledge items. Properties/attributes facilitate managing

knowledge items.
Knowledge management services. Knowledge management services are the facilities

included within a virtual assisted-service product for creating, editing, and managing
knowledge items.
Samples and examples simplify and speed the deployment and management of a virtual
assisted-service product through predefined and packaged knowledge items. Samples and
examples may be general purpose, domain specific, and/or language specific.
Answers for IntelliResponse Virtual Agent

We describe Answers for IntelliResponse Virtual Agent in Table C. Our analysis follows the table. Note that most of the capabilities that IntelliResponse VA provides for the Answers section of
our evaluation is provided by its ANSWERS component.
IntelliResponse VA Answers
Criterion
Knowledgebase
Knowledge Model

Description
IntelliResponse VA uses either a single knowledgebase that supports all channels

and all languages or multiple, language-specific, channel-specific, or applicationspecific knowledgebases.
The knowledgebase contains knowledge items, which are Responses, and

findability/matching items, which are Representative Questions, Canned
Expressions, and Criteria.
The knowledgebase may be partitioned into Interfaces to support multiple

languages and to support separate product lines and/or applications. Each
Interface contains knowledge items and findability items, although Canned
Expressions are shared across Interfaces.
IntelliResponse VA supports the languages supported by Google translation.
For reuse and management, IntelliResponse VA organizes Responses within a

hierarchy of Categories and Canned Expressions within a hierarchy of Canned
Expression Categories.
Administrators and analysts create, edit, publish, and remove RQs, Responses,
Criteria, and Canned Expressions to deploy and manage an IntelliResponse VA
virtual agent. IntelliResponse VA provides services for these tasks and tools that
administrators and analysts use to perform them.
Responses are the answers to customers questions. Each Response has a Title
and a Body. The Title, a text string, is the primary question that the Response
answers. The Body is the answer. A Response Body may include text, hyperlinks,
media, Titles of and links to other Responses (related Responses), and/or the Body
of other Responses (appended Responses). A Responses Body may be
implemented within an HTML table.

IntelliResponse VA Answers (continued)

Criterion
Knowledge Model
(continued)
Description
Responses have Last Modified Date, Last Modified By, Locked Date, and Locked
By properties to facilitate their management and reuse. Administrators use
Responses Titles to find them and work with them. IntelliResponse VAs reports
also identify Responses by their Titles.
Responses have three types of relationships: Related Responses, Appended

Responses, and Suggested Responses. Administrators specify related and
appended Responses. IntelliResponse VA automatically generates Suggested
Responses.
Related Responses are a list of selected Responses that will always be

displayed in addition to the primary answer. These are Responses that are
directly related or Responses that the company wishes to promote.
Appended Responses are the textual content of other Responses appended to

the end of a given Response.
Suggested Responses are Responses generated by IntelliResponse VA when

the matching algorithm cannot find a One Correct Response. IntelliResponse
VA presents them in a You may be interested in or a May I suggest list.
Representative Questions, Criteria, and Canned Expressions are IntelliResponse

VAs findability and matching items.
o
Representative Questions are the set of prototypical questions that customers

most commonly ask within the form and syntax that customers most typically
ask them.
Criteria are matching rules. They are expressions of terms, Canned

Expressions, and wildcards connected by AND, OR, NOT, and GROUP
operators.
Canned Expressions are words and phrases that customers commonly use
within their questions. CEs also include the most common synonyms, stems,
and misspellings.
A hierarchy of Categories and Subcategories classifies knowledge items and

facilitates knowledge management. Each Interface has its own Category hierarchy
for Responses. Note that the matching algorithm does not use Categories to help
find answers.
Canned Expressions can be classified across Interfaces within a hierarchy of

Canned Expression Categories and Canned Expression Subcategories to facilitate
their reuse and management.


18 Product Review
IntelliResponse VA Answers (continued)

Criterion
Knowledge
management
services
Samples and
examples
Description
Create, edit, delete Interfaces, Representative Questions, Responses, Criteria,

Canned Expressions.
Suggest substitute terms in RQs (ACES Automated Canned Expression

Substitutionautomated recommendations for modifying the terms in RQs).
Assign Representative Questions to a Response, generate Criteria for RQs

automatically.
Lock/unlock (check-out/check-in), preview, test, enable/disable (publish/retire)

Responses.
Create, edit, delete Response Categories and Canned Expression Categories.
Create, assign, update, view, and remove Tasks. Tasks have due dates, assigned
to, status, and comment properties. IntelliResponse VA can link Tasks to customer
questions, customer sessions, or Responses.
IntelliResponse packages ACG templates that contain industry-specific and applicationspecific Responses, CEs, Criteria, and RQs. These have been developed from
IntelliResponses experience in more than 450 implementations within financial
services, higher education, and utilities industries and account management, billing,
and staff support applications.
Table C. We describe Answers for IntelliResponse VA in this table.

IntelliResponse VA answer technology is very good. Capabilities approach those found in general-purpose knowledge management systems, and, in fact, thats how we last evaluated IntelliResponse VA. Strengths are a knowledge model that is well suited for virtual agent applications, a large
set of powerful knowledge management services with high levels of automation, and reusable samples, which further speed and simplify deployment.
Offering few properties for managing answers remains a limitation, although a minor one. Authors and editors find Responses by their Titles through the Categories hierarchy. Responses have
identifiers but no names or other identifiers. Properties for change management have been improved
significantly since our last evaluation, and IntelliResponse VA now implements version control
through its Locked properties and Lock service. Name, ID, author, created date, created by, and, perhaps, assigned date and assigned to properties would help answer management, especially for large
deployments.
Virtual Agent Knowledge Model
Customers ask questions; in response, virtual agents deliver answers. IntelliResponse VAs
knowledge model supports exactly these interactions. Responses contain the question, the answer,
and some, but not too much, related information. Responses three types of relationships provide additional, related information, or alternative information when virtual agents dont have the answers.


(Note that Body of Responses can be extended to include data from external applications through
Web Service programming. Well discuss that topic in Customer Service Integration, below.)
Powerful and Automated Knowledge Management Services
Knowledge management services are excellent. IntelliResponse VA packages services required
to support a knowledge lifecyclecreating, editing, and deleting knowledge resources and for publishing, archiving, and managing changes to knowledge items. IntelliResponse VA also has innovative servicesAutomatic Criteria Generation (ACG) and Automatic Canned Expression Substitution
(ACES)that generate matching rules and the terms and phrases that the rules contain
automatically. Triage helps authors and editors manage and refine Responses to reflect the actual
questions that customers ask. Test services give authors and editors feedback about how effective
RQs and Criteria will be in matching customers questions to Responses.
Specification of matching rules is the most difficult and time consuming design time task for initial virtual agent deployment. Its a task that usually requires the assistance of the virtual agent suppliers consultants. Not the case with IntelliResponse VA. ACG generates the rules completely for
every Response from a set of RQs. Illustration 5 shows an example.
Automatic Criteria Generation
5. This illustration shows an example of ACG from the RQs for an RQ about ordering policies.


20 Product Review
Criteria generated by ACG use the words and phrases contained within the RQs specified by
knowledge authors and editors or reused from IntelliResponse VAs ACG templates. Automatic
Canned Expression Substitution suggests additional or alternative words and phrases based on IntelliResponses industry and application experience and expertise. Illustration 6 shows an example of
ACES suggestions.
Canned Expressions
6. This illustration shows the suggested substitutions for the terms in the ordering policy example in Illustration 5.
Testing facilities are very good. IntelliResponse VA provides three levels of testing services. The
Interactive Test service presents the Responses that match a specified test question. Results are color
coded, yellow for Responses that fully match the most words in the question, green for Responses
that fully match but with fewer words than yellow, and red for Responses with partial matches. See
Illustration 7.


Test Output
7. This illustration shows the output of Test.
The Individual Response Test tests a Responses Criteria against a specified question. Results
are a number from 0 to 1.0. A result of 1.0 indicates that the Criteria satisfy the question. A result
less than 1.0 indicates that the Criteria do not satisfy the question and should be reevaluated. The
Validate All test produces a report that, for each Response, presents Titles of other Responses that
match the Responses Criteria equally well or better than the Responses own Title.
Triage helps authors and editors refine and improve matching by assigning actual, unanswered
customers questions to existing or to new Responses, ensuring that those questions will be answered
the next time that customers ask them. The Triage process starts with a list of unanswered questions.
Authors and editors drag an unanswered question to a Response to add it to the RQs for that Response and Test it to ensure that the Criteria for the newly refined set of RQs really does match the
Response. (See Illustration 8.) Then they use ACG to regenerate the Responses Criteria, ACES to
refine the Criterias terms and phrases.


22 Product Review
Triage
8. This illustration shows the Triage step of adding a new RQ to a Response.
Reusable Samples
ACG templates give authors and editors a boost in specifying RQs and Responses, the only
knowledge management tasks that they must perform to deploy an IntelliResponse VA virtual agent.
Each industry or application ACG template contains Responses (Titles and Bodies), RQs, and CEs
the knowledge resources required for an initial IntelliResponse VA virtual agent deployment and
those (CEs) to help the ongoing knowledge improvement process. These reusable samples come
from IntelliResponses long and experience and deep expertise developed from helping 155 clients
deploy IntelliResponse VA since 2001. IntelliResponse will release an ACG template for telecommunications soon. It will cover Internet, telephone, television and mobile, and billing/accounts.
ANALYZING AND MATCHING QUESTIONS
The technologies that analyze customers questions and match them to the best answers are core
mechanisms of virtual assisted-service products and services. These are the technologies that deliver
fast and accurate answers. Evaluation of their implementation and application is critical to comparison, differentiation, and selection.
We evaluate analyzing and matching question using these criteria:
Approach, which provides a high-level description of analysis and matching.


Question syntax supported, which describes and analyzes the supported types and
supported languages of customers questions. Most basically, an offering might support
keywords queries in English, for example.
Question analysis and matching provides the details of analysis and matching
technologies and processing.
Analyzing and Matching Questions in IntelliResponse VA

In Table D, we present the approach, question syntax supported, details, and answer presentation
for Analyzing and Matching Questions for IntelliResponse VA. Our analysis follows the table.
Analyzing and Matching Questions in IntelliResponse VA

Criterion
Approach
Description
The goal for analyzing and matching customers questions is to find the best match, the
One Right Answer. In fact, IntelliResponse VA may return one, multiple, or no right
answers.
IntelliResponse VA uses machine learning technology for analysis and matching.
IntelliResponse VA matches the important words within customers questions against the
words in the Criteria of the Responses in its knowledgebase.
The new i.Suggest feature helps find answers more quickly by matching the important
words from partial questions as customers type them.
If IntelliResponse VA does not find a matching Response, then the virtual agent delivers an
I dont know answer that offers actions for customers to take to get answersescalate to
email, chat, or telephone, for example.
Question syntax
Customers enter questions as text stringskeywords, phrases, or sentencesin their

preferred language or, on mobile devices, in speech.
Question analysis
and matching
IntelliResponse VAs question analysis and matching process follows these steps:
1. Normalize the question by removing spaces, punctuation, special characters, and by
converting all capitals to lower case.
2. Compare the normalized question against the Criteria of all Responses in the
appropriate knowledgebase Interface.
3. Build a matched list of Responses with Criteria that match the words in the
normalized question.
4. Count the number of matching relevant words and matching total words for each
Response in the matched list.
5. Present the Response that is a full match with the highest matching relevant word
counts and total word counts as the One Right Answer.
Table D. We describe how IntelliResponse VA Analyzes and Matches Questions in this table.


24 Product Review
IntelliResponse is very good at analyzing and matching customers questions with knowledgebase answers. At initial deployment, IntelliResponse delivers One Right Answer 80 to 85 percent of
the time. Matching accuracy improves to 90 percent and higher with experience as knowledge authors and editors refine RQs through the Triage and testing process that we described in the Answers
section of this report, giving the matching algorithm better information to use.
The new i.Suggest feature can speed the matching process by matching partial questions as customers type them and presenting them in a list below the text box. As more words are typed,
i.Suggest refines the matches by eliminating low probability options and moving and highlighting
the highest probability matches to the top of the suggested list of matching questions. If a user selects
one of the suggestions (most likely the first option), then i.Suggest considers the selection to be the
correct answer. i.Suggests processing differs significantly from search suggestion. Search suggestions match keywords in customers question. i.Suggest matches question intents. For example, as
we show in Illustration 9, if a customer types close to close a credit card account, i.Suggest
match will present possible answers that also include cancel by recognizing in its Criteria that the
intent is the same.
i.Suggest has demonstrated its usefulness and value where customers, especially customers in
Japan, typically search by keyword, or for internal agents who want to type the minimum number of
characters/words to find a correct match.
i.Suggest
9. This illustration shows how i.Suggest speeds the matching process by suggesting questions as customers
enter their questions.


Note that the matching algorithm does not include some features found in search engines such as
spelling correction. Rather, knowledge authors and editors accommodate typos, misspellings, slang,
and idioms within Criteria, although ACG automatically generates stems.
CUSTOMER SERVICE INTEGRATION
Through integration with external customer service applications, virtual agents can escalate to
assisted-service chat or contact center telephone channels, deliver virtual assisted-service on social
networks, and/or can answer a wider range of questions, such as questions that involve the data in
cases and accounts. Integration makes virtual agents more powerful, creating a richer, broader, and
deeper virtual assisted-service experience. Integration lowers cost to serve, deflecting/avoiding highcost integrations with real agents.
We evaluate customer service integration by examining the packaged integrations and the integration mechanisms between virtual assisted-service products and these types of external customer
service applications:
Case management
Contact center
Knowledge management
Account management
Social networks
Customer Service Integration for IntelliResponse Virtual Agent

We describe the customer service integration for IntelliResponse Virtual Agent in Table E. Our
analysis follows the table.
Customer Service Integration for IntelliResponse VA

Application
Integration
Case management
Packaged integration with Salesforce Service Cloud, planned for general availability
in the spring of 2013, allows IntelliResponse VA to create cases and send e-mails.
Transcripts of virtual agent sessions are transferred to Salesforce Service Cloud
along with case information.
Assisted-service
Contact center
Through integration chat and email response management applications, customers

can escalate to live assisted-service when the virtual assisted-service of
IntelliResponse VA virtual agents cannot answer their questions.
IntelliResponse VA packages integration with these chat applications:
ICE Chat
Liveperson
Oracle Live Help on Demand
IntelliResponse VA packages integration with this email management application:
Emailtopia


26 Product Review
Customer Service Integration for IntelliResponse VA (continued)

Application
Integration
Assisted-service
Contact center
(continued)
Integration with the Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service and Salesforce Service Cloud
contact center applications enables the deployment of IntelliResponse VA on agents
desktops to help agents answer customers questions.
Knowledge
management
IntelliResponse VA does not package integration with knowledge management

systems.
Account management
IntelliResponse VA does not package integration with applications such as CRM

systems that provide account management capabilities.
Social-service
Through integration with online community applications, community members can

escalate to the virtual assisted-service of IntelliResponse VA virtual agents when their
peer community members cannot answer their questions.
IntelliResponse VA virtual agents can be deployed on these online community
applications:
Jive
Lithium
IntelliResponse provides documentation for deploying IntelliResponse VA virtual

agents on clients corporate Facebook pages.
Table E. We describe the customer service integration of IntelliResponse VA in this table.

Customer service integration for IntelliResponse VA is good and improving. The tightest are the
planned and soon to be available integration with Salesforce Service Cloud for case management and
the integrations with chat and email management applications and online communities. While there
is no packaged direct integration for account management, IntelliResponse VA provides two approaches for this integration. First, the integrations can be accomplished indirectly through chat. For
example, customers might ask a virtual agent about the charges on a bill. The virtual agent, having
no answers for those questions would provide a link to escalate to chat. Then the chat agent would
answer the question by accessing the billing system. Second, and more directly, IntelliResponse offers custom but reusable integration through Web Services interfaces available to all customers, or
programming performed by its professional services staff. This integration approach creates interaction templates containing tokens that represent data to be accessed by (any) external application that
was a by-product of the customer interaction. Their access passes parameters extracted from customers questions that identify the external application and the data. This is a clean and elegant integration approach. IntelliResponse might consider packaging this integration for the leading CRM suites.
Illustration 10 shows an example of Web Service integration between IntelliResponse VA and Oracle RightNow Cloud Service.


Customer Service Integration
10. This illustration shows an example of Web Services integration between IntelliResponse VA and Oracle Live
Help.
Note that, while customer service integration in IntelliResponse VA does not package facilities
to pull account data from CRM and other external applications, CRM CONNECT pushes valuable
account management information to themthe question/session interaction data and the intent codes,
which are identified by its matching engine. This is information that can help in the understanding of
customer preferences and in the targeting of customer service and marketing campaigns. Currently
CRM CONNECT provides packaged integration to Oracle RightNow Cloud Service and Salesforce
CRM.
ANALYTIC FUNCTIONALITY
Its critical to measure, monitor, and analyze the tasks and activities that virtual agents perform
in answering customers questions. Analysts use the results of this analysis to understand customer
behavior and virtual agent effectiveness and to refine/tune the knowledge and search facilities of virtual assisted-service systems. Virtual assisted-service products must support this operations-analysisrefinement loop.
The factors that we evaluate for analytic functionality are:
Instrumentation, the collection of data about customer actions and virtual agent
responses.
Reports, which present information derived from instrumented data about customer
behavior, virtual agent behavior, virtual agent performance, search performance, and


28 Product Review
knowledge performance. We look for a large packaged set of useful reports, tools for
customizing packaged reports, and tools for creating new reports.
Analytics that apply algorithms to instrumented data to uncover deeper insights than is
possible with reporting.
Analytic Functionality for IntelliResponse VA

In Table F, we evaluate the analytic functionality for IntelliResponse Virtual Agent. Our analysis
follows the table.
IntelliResponse Virtual Agent Analytic Functionality

Factor
Description
Instrumentation
IntelliResponse VA is comprehensively instrumented. The product logs all activities by all

usersquestions and emails from customers; knowledgebase actions by authors, editors,
and administrators; and email/case management activities by agents. The product also logs
information about the Responses that it delivers to customers. In addition, the product logs
Web Services-based requests. The instrumented data is organized within a datamart that is
implemented within an RDBMS. Reporting tools access the datamart. IntelliResponse
Systems does not publish the schema of the datamart.
Reports and
Analytics
IntelliResponse Answer Suite includes five levels of reports and analytics.
Dashboard presents the highest level view of question activity for an IntelliResponse
VA deployment through three displays that present customers questions by channel
and source, top answers, and number of customers questions over time.
Reports. IntelliResponse VA packages three sets of predefined reports: Common

Reports, Advanced Reports, and System Usage Reports.
o
Common Reports are organized into General Reports, Knowledgebase Reports,

Admin Reports, User Reports, Response Hit Frequency Reports, Question
Reports, and Task reports.
Advanced Reports let analysts define a query on instrumented data to collect

and present information on customers questions and emails, Responses,
Canned Expressions, Users, and IntelliResponse VAs sent emails.
System Usage Reports present Questions and Special Inquiries (customers

emails) by hour of day and day of week in a bar chart.
IntelliResponse Analytics perform deep analyses on system performance, Response

Categories, question analysis, and Response sequence.
VOICES, a new and separately packaged and priced IntelliResponse VA feature,

uses NLP and statistics technologies to identify the themes/topics in customers
questions. Its presents the results within visual and interactive, word cloud-style
charts.
Table F. We describe IntelliResponse VAs analytic functionality in this table.


Analytic functionality in IntelliResponse is excellent, a key strength and differentiator of the

product. Instrumentation is comprehensive. Large sets of predefined reports present information
about virtual agent resources, usage, and performance. Powerful and configurable analytics provide
deep insights that help analysts understand the effectiveness and efficiency of virtual agents and
themes and trends in customers questions. Limitations that we found in previous versions, missing
reports on ACG and RQs, for example, have been addressed, and attractive and useful capabilities
have been added. The best of analytic functionality in IntelliResponse VA are the large and very useful set of Common Reports and the new VOICES feature.
Common Reports
Common Reports provide insight on every dimension of an IntelliResponse VA deployment
customers, knowledge staff and their work on the knowledgebase, customers questions, virtual
agent answers, and deployment usage and performance. This is a set of 24 predefined and, for the
most part, preconfigured reports that are organized by the resources or functions for which they present information. Their names define the data that they present. We list them in Table G.
Common Reports
Type
Reports
Summary (Total figures for the number of: Inquiries, Special Inquiriesemail
escalations, Responses, and Distinct Users to date)
Special Inquiry
Response Listing
Response Listing by Category
Response Link Validation
Response Interrelationships
Response Interrelationships by Category
Email Activity by Admin
Content Modification by Admin
Representative Question Modification
Response History
User
Registered User Special Inquiry (email) Activity
Response Hit
Frequency
Response Hit Frequency Overall
Response Hit Frequency Timeframe
Response Hit Frequency by Category Overall
Response Hit Frequency by Category Timeframe
General
Knowledgebase
Admin


30 Product Review
Common Reports (continued)

Type
Question
Task
Reports
Question Listing
Unanswered Question Listing
Question Listing by Category
Question Listing by all Responses
Question Distribution by Country
Question Distribution by Region
Questions Emailed to Friends
Addresses from Questions Emailed to Friends
Task Summary
Table G. We list IntelliResponse VAs Common Reports in this table.

You can see by the list in the table that all of the Common Reports can be useful and important
to the management of an IntelliResponse VA deployment. The Response Interrelationships Knowledgebase Report, the Representative Question Modification Admin Report, and the Unanswered
Question Report can be especially useful. We show examples of each in Illustrations 11, 12, and 13.


Response Interrelationships Report
11. This illustration shows an example of a Response Interrelationships Report.
Representative Question Modification Report
12. This illustration shows an example of a Representative Question Modification Report.


32 Product Review
Unanswered Question Listing Report
13. This illustration shows an example of an Unanswered Question Listing Report.
IntelliResponse Analytics
IntelliResponse Analytics reports do more and deeper analyses than Common, Advanced, and
System Usage reports in four areas: performance, Response Categories, Question Analysis, and Response Sequence. For example, its Unanswered Question Analysis (see Illustration 14) summarizes
unanswered customers questions for a specified Interface during a specified timeframe. Compare its
analysis to the straightforward list of the Unanswered Question Listing common report.


Unanswered Question Analysis Report
14. This illustration shows an example of an Unanswered Question Analysis Report.
VOICES
As we mentioned in Customer Service Best Fit, VOICES is IntelliResponses new Voice of the
Customer (VoC) offering. It applies NLP and statistics analytics to customers questions on web,
agent, mobile, and social channels to identify their themes or topics. VOICES then presents the results of this analysis within visual and interactive word cloud-style charts.
Analysts specify the number of themes they want VOICES to identify and a date range of the
customers questions that they want VOICES to analyze. VOICES output is a set of themes, which
are presented as text, within visual theme bubbles. (See Illustration 1, above.) The size of the set is
the specified number of themes. The size of a theme bubble is proportional to the number of customers questions that contain the theme; more questions produce larger theme bubbles. Analysts can
hover over a theme bubble to display the number/amount of questions that contained its theme. Ana-


34 Product Review
lysts can click on a theme bubble to display question detail, the actual Voice(s) of the Customer(s).
(See Illustration 15.)
Question Details
15. This illustration shows how users can drill down to the underlying originating questions.
In addition, within the Compare view, analysts can identify the themes that are increasing or decreasing in customers questions over a specified time period, either month-over-month or day-overday. Month-over-month comparisons help analysts understand theme trends in web site or product
usage, for example. Day-over-day comparisons can help identify and understand customer service issues. Illustration 16 shows an example of VOICES Compare view.


Compare View
16. This illustration compares how themes are trending over selected periods. Blue shows increasing themes,
yellow decreasing themes.
VOICES is an attractive, useful, and high-value application. Customer service, product, and
marketing will use VOICES to develop, implement, measure, analyze, and refine their strategies,
programs. Significantly, it leverages IntelliResponse VA resources; it stands on IntelliResponse
VAs shoulders. The data that IntelliResponse VA instruments for its reports is exactly the data that
is the input for VOICES. VOICES is a powerful analytic application for IntelliResponse VA, a significant strength and differentiator.


36 Product Review
PRODUCT VIABILITY
A viable product is widely used and well proven. It has a regular release cycle with significant
improvements in each new release. Its development approach combines in-house expertise for building components that add value and differentiate it, and uses third-party commodity and open source
components that shorten and simplify the development effort. A viable products supplier can articulate a product strategy and provide details of short and medium term product plans.
For product viability, we consider four evaluation criteria:
Version history
Release cycle
Development approach
Product strategy and plans
IntelliResponse Virtual Agent Product Viability

We present our evaluation of product viability for IntelliResponse Virtual Agent against these
criteria in Table H. Our analysis follows the table.
IntelliResponse Virtual Agent Product Viability

Criterion
Description
Current version
IntelliResponse Virtual Agent 6.2
November 2012
Previous versions
IntelliResponse Answer Suite 6.1
January 2012
June 2010
October 2007
Product introduction
IntelliResponse 1.0
February 2001
Development
approach
IntelliResponse does the development of all the components of IntelliResponse VA inhouse.

IntelliResponse has a research organization in addition to its development
organization. Its research organization considers and prototypes advanced
technologies and has responsibility for patent application and management.
IntelliResponse VA is on a cycle of one major release and two to three minor releases
or patches per year.
IntelliResponse holds or has applied for patents on its core analysis and matching
technology i.Match, on i.Connect its Automatic Criteria Generation, and on Automatic
Canned Expression Substitution (ACES). The firm is currently writing a patent
application for i.Suggest.


IntelliResponse Virtual Agent Product Viability (continued)

Criterion
Plans
Product strategy
Description
In the short and medium term, IntelliResponse plans these improvements for
IntelliResponse VA:
Version 6.3, planned for May 2013, addresses numerous feature requests by
clients
VOICES V2, planned for summer of 2013
OFFERS V2, planned for summer 2013
General availability of IntelliResponse Virtual Agent for Salesforce CRM

planned for spring 2013
ACG Template for Communications
Version 7.0, planned for winter 2014. Will be the next major version
For the long term, IntelliResponses product strategy has these elements:
User experience. Improve the relevance and accuracy of answers and the
richness of the virtual agent experience.
VoC. Deepen the analysis, expand the scope of questions analyzed, and
make it easier for more users to extract insights and value.
Customer self-sufficiency. Continue to make IntelliResponse VA faster and

easier to deploy and manage.
Table H. Product viability factors for IntelliResponse Virtual Agent are presented in this table.
IntelliResponse Virtual Agent is a viable product. IntelliResponses development organization
has taken it and its predecessor products through many new releases and has continually added many
significant improvements in the 12 years since the 2001 introduction. IntelliResponses research
organization (yes, a research organization) has lead the exploration of advanced technologies that
have become IntelliResponses key IP, IntelliResponses core functionality, and its key
differentiators.
IntelliResponse has attractive plans to extend the value of IntelliResponse VA beyond customer
service to CRM and to marketing and for making its offering ever easier and faster to deploy.
IntelliResponse is a viable offering today and will continue to be so into the future.


38 Product Review
COMPANY VIABILITY
You want to license a viable customer service product from a viable company. A viable
company is a going concern with increasing revenue, profits, numbers of customers, and numbers of
products.
Company viability is a little more difficult to examine than product viability because its more
subjective and its more difficult to obtain source information. For example, what is the effect of a
companys age on its viability? Also, because private companies are not required to disclose their
financials, its quite difficult to assess financial performance and health.
The criteria for evaluating supplier viability are:
Company background
Customer and staff growth
Financial performance
IntelliResponse Company Viability

In Table I, we summarize company viability factors for IntelliResponse, Inc. Our analysis
follows the table.
IntelliResponse Company Viability

Criterion
Description
Founding
2000
Ownership
Private
Number of employees
65
Open positions
Product lines
IntelliResponse VA
Customer base
450 virtual agent deployments in 155 accounts

Table I. Company viability factors for IntelliResponse are presented in this table.
IntelliResponse is a small, privately held, 13 year old company. Based on its 155 account
customer base with 450 deployments, which, by the way, is the largest in the virtual agent
market, and on IntelliResponse VA and licensing, we estimate that IntelliResponse had
revenue of more than $10 million in its fiscal year 2013, which ended on January 31,
2013.
While small is commonly a company viability issue, IntelliResponse is a viable company.

Its business has been growing rapidly over the past few years. 2013 was its best year ever
for customer growth and revenue. It has positioned itself in a hot market segment.
IntelliResponse VA is a leader in that segment with clear and significant competitive
advantages. Product plans will make IntelliResponse VA more attractive for more
applications in its target market.


THE BOTTOM LINE

In Table J, we summarize our evaluation and analysis in the Virtual Assisted-Service Report
Card on IntelliResponse Virtual Agent.
Virtual Assisted-Service Report Card for IntelliResponse VA

Criterion
Customer service
best fit
Evaluation
Key strengths
Key limitations
Drivers:
One Right Answer
Fast and easy deployment. Specification and management of answers and the
questions that typically match them are the key tasks that client organizations
perform to deploy virtual agents. Deployments can be completed with little or no
consulting services from IntelliResponse.
Virtual agents that support many channels and that understand questions and deliver
One Right Answer in many languages and in speech.
VoC analytics that deliver useful, high-value insights to customer service, product,
and marketing staff.
Attractive to B2C organizations of any size, especially for those organizations in
financial services, higher education, and utilities and for account management and
billing, and staff support (HR, benefits, payroll) applications.
Answers
Exceeds requirements
Knowledge model wellsuited for virtual agents

Powerful services with
high levels of automation
Question analysis
and matching
High accuracy, low

complexity
i.Suggest makes it easier
for customers to ask
question.
Customer service
integration
Meets requirements
Analytic functionality
Exceeds Requirements
Comprehensive
instrumentation
Large sets of predefined,
useful reports
Useful, high-value
analytic applications


40 Product Review
Virtual Assisted-Service Report Card for IntelliResponse VA (continued)

Criterion
Product viability
Evaluation
Key strengths
Key limitations
Development and real

research
Patents on core and key
technologies
Attractive plans
Company viability
Meets requirements
Table J. The Virtual Assisted-Service Report Card on IntelliResponse Virtual Agent summarizes our analysis and
evaluation along the major criteria of our framework for customer service.
IntelliResponse VA earns an excellent report card. Answers, Question Analysis and Matching,
and Analytic Functionality are the key strengths of the offering. Product viability is very good, too.


About Mitchell Kramer and Patricia Seybold Group
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MITCHELL I. KRAMER is a Senior Vice President and Senior Consultant at

the Patricia Seybold Group. Kramer currently focuses on customer
relationship management technology, architecture, and analytic applications
as well as the computing infrastructure and information technologies that
support this customer-centric domain. Kramer applies his experience and
expertise to help customers evaluate, compare, and select CRM products and
develop approaches toward successful implementation. Product vendors
continue to leverage Kramers skills and insights to develop product
requirements, to better understand the competitive environment, and to
assist in planning and delivering marketing programs.
Kramer draws on his extensive primary and secondary market research in the architecture,
design, evaluation, and selection of enterprise-wide distributed computing infrastructures.
In consulting engagements, Kramer often uses the technology frameworks hes developed with
corporate IT organizations to help them with architecture and product selection decisions. He
frequently works with companies to help them determine product requirements, market and
product positioning, competitive analysis, and customer satisfaction. Kramer has successfully
managed company launches, product introductions, and business and product repositioning. He
has also developed and documented business plans for raising capital and for mergers and
acquisitions.
Patricia Seybold Group

Trusted Advisors to Customer-Centric Executives
If you're a visionary customer-focused executive, the Patricia Seybold Group should be your first
choice for ongoing strategic advice, business and technology guidance, customer experience best
practices, and help with customer-centric initiatives.
Founded in 1978 and based in Boston, we provide consulting, research and advisory services,
peer groups, and interactive workshops. We help clients to design and continuously improve
their customer-focused business strategies and processes using our proven consulting
methodology, Customer Scenario Design.
The CEO and founder, Patricia Seybold, is the New York Times best-selling author of
Customers.com and The Customer Revolution. Patty's latest book, Outside Innovation, is
now available.
Patricia Seybold Group
P.O. Box 783
Needham, MA 02494
Phone: (617) 742-5200
Fax: (617) 742-1028
Email: feedback@customers.com
Web: http://www.customers.com/



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IntelliResponse Virtual Agent 3

Mobile device support

IntelliResponse Virtual Agent branding

i.Suggestvirtual agents suggest answers as customers type their questions

IntelliVoicespeech-enabled virtual agents on mobile devices

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i.Suggest is a major enhancement to the products question analysis and matching

IntelliResponse announced IntelliVoice on November 9, 2012. IntelliVoice is a new feature of

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IntelliResponse Virtual Agent 5

Customer service best fit

Virtual agent approach

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Customer Service Best Fit for IntelliResponse Virtual Agent

Customer Service Best Fit for IntelliResponse Virtual Agent

Customers ask questions as text strings of words and phrases. IntelliResponse VA

IntelliResponse VA uses the translation facilities of Google for language support. As a

IntelliResponse VA uses rules-based machine learning technology to match customers

IntelliResponse Virtual Agent deploys in the cloud. IntelliResponse uses SSAE16/SOC3

IntelliResponse VA supports these browsers:

Microsoft Internet Explorer

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IntelliResponse VA supports Apple IOS and

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IntelliResponse Virtual Agent 7

Customer Service Best Fit for IntelliResponse Virtual Agent (continued)

ANSWERS is the virtual agent

CRM CONNECT delivers summaries

The base IntelliResponse VA suite

OFFERS and VOICES are optional

Integration provides integration of

VOICES is a Voice of the Customer

i.Match question analysis and

i.Connect automatic generation of

i.Suggest predictive analysis and

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Customer Service Best Fit for IntelliResponse Virtual Agent (continued)

Engagement. Useful, enjoyable, and actionable customer experience.

Answers. Relevant and accurate answers to customers questions.

Access. Broad support for channels and languages.

Insight. Collection and analysis of customers question to identify actionable insights

IntelliResponse Virtual Agent competes most closely against:

Creative Virtual V-Person

Nuance Nina Web

Oracle RightNow Cloud Service

One Right Answer.

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IntelliResponse Virtual Agent 9

Attractive to B2C organizations of any size, especially for those organizations in

One Right Answer

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Language and Speech Support

Specify Representative Questions in