Guest Blog by Bertrand Lafforuge, CEO and Co-founder, Konverso
When looking for virtual assistants to solve business issues, one important element to remember is: knowledge is key. Complex machine learning algorithms and natural language processing, two important pillars of artificial intelligence, are most effective when combined with a knowledge base and an enterprise knowledge management system.
In the race to build AI-powered assistants, the industry has focused on providing platforms to enable clients to develop their own chatbots with a strong emphasis on cognitive services such as sentiment analysis and natural language understanding. But many players of the AI industry fail to realize the importance of a high-quality knowledge base and of an enterprise-class knowledge management system. Therefore, virtual assistants built out of these platforms must go through a labor-intensive process to learn the client specific knowledge. Additionally, a knowledge update can also be cumbersome to manage and difficult to scale.
A more vertical and direct approach
Konverso understands that a strong enterprise knowledge management system is essential for an effective virtual workforce. For this reason, we have partnered with Upland Right Answers to use their IT Service Desk knowledge base to offer a virtual 
assistant that is immediately effective at optimizing your IT support functions. Konverso’s Kbot integrates directly with RightAnswers’ Knowledge Management System that includes Knowledge -Paks which provide more than 90,000 accurate knowledge solutions to issues on more than 600 software applications. With this integration, Kbot begins the first day on the job with access to one of the most extensive knowledge bases on the market.
Konverso’s Kbot also possesses machine learning capabilities which allow it to build on this knowledge base and quickly learn to fix solutions specific to our client company. Since, according to Upland, 40-50% of employee requests to the IT Desk are recurring, the Kbot facilitates employee self-service by automating the responses to these requests at a higher than 80% effective rate. This result is an average of 30% fewer calls to the service desk, enabling service desk employees to focus on more challenging tasks. Kbot also leverages its machine learning capabilities to categorize emails and tickets to the service desk to eliminate bottlenecks and accelerate treatment of incidents and requests. While RightAnswers provides an extensive and customizable knowledge base, Konverso makes using this knowledge base easier and more effective for both employees and service desk agents. The Konverso-RightAnswers partnership is one that truly offers more than the sum of its parts.
For more information around Kbot powered by RightAnswers, and to learn why a powerful enterprise knowledge management system is essential for an effective virtual workforce, watch the on-demand webinar “Top 5 Reasons Why Chatbots Should Be Powered by Knowledge Management
About the Author:
Bertrand Lafforgue is the CEO and co-founder of Konverso where he leads strategy, sales, partnerships, and business development. Konverso has developed a vertical chatbot powered by artificial intelligence to augment the Service Desk team to better support millions of employees every day.
To connect with Bertrand, visit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bertrandlafforgue/