How to Use Power Virtual Agents to Build Your Own Chatbots

September 10, 2020 Joe Little

The newest tool in the Power Platform suite of applications is Power Virtual Agents. As you look for ways to compete in a digital world, you need to create the best possible experience for both employees and customers. And every year, virtual interactions become a more central part of these experiences. Whether people are interacting with your business through a website or an app, they expect digital tools to make the process easy and personalized. 

 

What is Power Virtual Agents?

Microsoft Power Virtual Agents makes it possible to create sophisticated chatbots which can address common customer or employee questions – without writing a single line of code. Simply use the guided interface with included templates, or start from scratch, to create an intelligent virtual agent. You can set up Power Virtual Agents to offer customers (or employees) fast answers and service while freeing up your teams to focus on other tasks.

 

Deploy chatbots quickly

Power Virtual Agents allows ordinary users to quickly create and deploy chatbots using a no-code approach in a graphical interface. This tool revolutionizes the process of creating virtual agents because no developers or data scientists are needed to get started. Instead, your subject matter experts themselves can directly design and publish the bots to engage with employees or customers.

 

Activate process workflows

This tool isn’t just to answer questions. You can use Power Virtual Agents to automatically initiate processes in back-end systems, so user requests can be fulfilled or processes can begin immediately. Power Virtual Agents can be connected directly to services and systems with pre-built connectors; when combined with Power Automate, users can create custom connectors for chatbots to perform complex workflows in any part of your business.

 

Be conversational with built-in AI

One characteristic that sets intelligent chatbots apart is the ability to build conversations that flow naturally for the user. Microsoft’s robust, conversational AI makes it easy to design chatbots that are capable of this simply by providing a few examples of the topic. Machine learning allows the virtual agent to recognize the topic when it’s introduced, even if the user doesn’t write the exact trigger phrases and topics.

 

Analyze performance and customer sentiment

Power Virtual Agents includes analytic tools to help you monitor the performance of the bots in order to continuously improve them. Additionally, there are analysis tools to help identify common user requests or complaints and measure customer satisfaction and sentiment. This enables you to understand customer needs on a deeper level and adapt your experiences to their needs.

 

How Power Virtual Agents works with other Power Platform apps

As part of the Power Platform stack, the functionality of Power Virtual Agents is interwoven with the capabilities of Power BI, Power Apps, and Power Automate. Power Virtual Agents can work closely with Power Automate to deliver information to back-end systems, send complex issues on to employees for resolution, and initiate processes based on customer requests. Virtual agents can also be connected to custom apps created using Power Apps.

 

Learn more about building modern business solutions with Power Platform

For over 30 years, Western Computer has been dedicated to empowering businesses with technology solutions, services and support. Microsoft Power Platform is an incredible toolset that enables businesses to compete in a whole new way – by putting the ability to build solutions into the hands of everyday users.

When you combine Power Apps, Power BI, Power Automate, and Power Virtual Agents, organizations like yours can quickly develop unique, cost-effective solutions to solve problems or pursue new opportunities. Contact Western Computer today to speak with an expert about the possibilities Power Platform can offer your business.

About the Author

Joe Little

Joe Little is Technical Solution Architect with Western Computer. With over 30 years of software experience, Joe has performed many roles throughout his career in several functional areas including pre-sales, architecture, development, implementation, and support. Joe believes the Microsoft Power Platform is a powerful solution that allows users to make small changes that have a huge impact on a business’s bottom line, such as viewing their data in new ways and creating workflows that help further automate their processes.

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