LONDON, Aug. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Desktop robots are transforming sales, administrative and back office tasks, creating a diverse workforce of virtual employees together with humans who appreciate the help their virtual colleagues can offer.
Automation anxiety is out there. But according to Oded Karev, General Manager of NICE Advanced Process Automation Solutions, there is little need for it: the robots are not taking over. Talking in a recently released video, Mr Karev explained how office automation involves robots that can help humans rather than take their jobs. And with their help, everyone - employees, customers and business owners - are better off.
NICE's robot NEVA (Nice Employee Virtual attendant) is a desktop robot. Desktop automation technology gives employees real-time guidance and support, enabling human workers to more easily achieve their KPIs and performance goals. NEVA frees people from repetitive, non-value-add tasks so they can give better service and do things faster, focussing on the things humans are good at such as creative thinking and complex decision making.
Traditional software robots are limited in what they can do without human intervention. But NICE's desktop robots are far more flexible and bring greater value, not least because they are designed to work in collaboration with humans, rather than instead of them. And it is this collaborative feature, along with the human-like interface, that reduces automation anxiety as employees learn that NEVA is there to help them rather than replace them.
Mr Karev gave an example in the video. NICE works with a large British telco. Their sales people want to complete sales calls to get a quick sale. However, inventory checks are an important part of the sales process because there is a need to check that the appropriate equipment is in stock. This check takes time so employees tend to skip it and this can lead to sales that fail.
But since using NEVA, the number of unfulfilled sales has dropped to almost zero. This is simply because NEVA does the inventory check for the sales person, warning them if stock levels are low and giving them the opportunity to upsell to a different package.
The value of desktop robots, their ROI, is measured in terms of increased efficiency such as a reduction in the time taken for a human to complete a process. Even if only a few seconds are saved, if the process is something that is undertaken multiple times a day by thousands of employees, a saving of a few seconds can be a big saving across the organisation.
But, as Mr Karev emphasised in the video, the value doesn't stop there. Efficiency drives customer satisfaction and positive NPS. Employees are more engaged at work. And, importantly, compliance is greatly increased as employees are reminded not to skip key steps.
In the video Mr Karev explained how automation is a journey. Businesses need to start small and scale up. Using the NICE system, a robot can monitor activities and send data to a central database where routines and patterns are identified. From this quick wins can be created. And once these have been accepted as valid, it's possible to scale to enterprise wide use of robot assistants that undertake the routine tasks, freeing humans to do more creative and complex work.
To learn more about desktop automation, watch the video of Oded Karev's interview.
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