How and why to build a virtual assistant for your business? A virtual assistant is a humanized figure that interacts and represents your company in contact with your target audience.
It can be anything from a character to an influencer or someone connected to your business; even a virtual figure like an avatar (in linear or 3D design). Your assistant communicates with your audience in a personalized way and taking into account the tone and voice of the brand it represents.
Several national and international brands rely on virtual assistants which, thanks to their quality and "resourcefulness," end up becoming famous and symbols of the companies they belong to. You may be familiar with, for example, Alexa, Siri, Cortana, or Lu—representatives of Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Magalu, respectively.
Having a humanized figure that personifies your brand ends up influence the psychology of the consumer who communicates with “someone” and not just a logo. More than that, virtual assistants offer several advantages. Read on.
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Advantages of creating a personalized virtual assistant for your business
Playful communication
The figure of a person leaves its more relaxed and natural communication with the target audienceExamples of your product and/or service applied to the assistant's fictional life are not only fun but also more engaging.
Generate more empathy
It is natural that human figures generate more empathy and awaken emotions in your target audience; over time, emotional bonds can be created.
Improve brand recall
Can you identify a company logo among 20 other different ones? It's a fact that the human figure helps your target audience to memorize it more easily and associate it with your business.
The assistant's name, physical characteristics, and even their language become references for association. Therefore, always try to maintain them; after all, they are part of your brand identity.
Improve customer experience
A good customer experience requires good service—fast and efficient. Virtual assistants, based on artificial intelligence and automation, they can serve multiple users simultaneously, in a standardized and assertive way.
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Tips for building a virtual assistant for your business
1. What is your brand philosophy?
Your mission, vision, and values need to influence your assistant's profile and configuration.Is your brand relaxed, youthful, and informal? Or does it value formality and tradition? What do you believe in? Where do you want to be in a few years?
The answers to all these questions need to be clear or form part of your virtual assistant's profile! Your organizational culture needs to shine through!
2. How does your brand communicate with your audience?
Think about how you, as a collaborator, employee, owner, or entrepreneur, would communicate with a potential customer or supplier. This communication needs to be played back to your assistant..
Define your brand language and voice; that is, your assistant's linguistic and communication patterns. Will they use formal language? Or might they incorporate slang and jokes into their service? Will they address their clients by their last name, using formal pronouns? Or will they use first names and nicknames?
3. Who consumes your products or services?
What is the persona for your product or service? Who is she? Where is she? How does she behave? What are her habits and values?
In an attempt to generate identification with your virtual assistant, It is essential to develop and manage it with the profile of your ideal consumer in mind..
Create your virtual assistant
By mapping the three previous questions, we arrive at the time to define your virtual assistant! There is no magic formula. In general, companies choose figures that are similar and common to their consumers' universe; and even board members or well-known influencers are turned into assistants.
Here at Matrix, for example, our Commercial Director, Pablo Cotta, was the inspiration for our virtual assistant known as Pablito! The visual identity of our director, widely known in the market by clients and partners, reinforces our brand during virtual interactions and service.
In fact, many companies ask us how to develop a virtual assistant based on a human figure from their business. Matrix Human Assistant (MHA) is ours platform for creating and managing virtual assistantsWith it, you can develop a virtual assistant from scratch, based on a human figure, which can communicate and interact in more than 80 languages and is perfect for application in customer service flows, courses and training, and/or transactional messages.
Interested? Want to learn more about MHA? Access here!
