Post co-written by Madeleine de Place & Coralie Martinez Referred to as the “black gold of the 21st century”,...
17 August 2023
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How to Create Chatbots Using Power Virtual Agents in Just a Few Clicks
Post co-written by Madeleine de Place & Coralie Martinez
With the development of the Internet and new technologies, companies now face a new phenomenon: immediacy. Today, customers, suppliers, and employees expect answers to their questions in increasingly shorter timescales. As a result, the digitalization of companies is one of the keys to how responsive they are. One of the most popular tools they have is chatbots.
Power Platform, Microsoft’s suite of low-code/no-code tools, includes Power Virtual Agents, a bot creation solution. A bot, also called a chatbot, is a conversational agent that automatically responds to predefined questions and requests without human interaction. For example, a chatbot can be used to find out about a restaurant’s opening times, train departure times, if a product is available in store, etc.
In this new post in our Power Platform series, we’ll tell you more about Power Virtual Agents (PVA).
An Introduction to Power Virtual Agents
Power Virtual Agents (or PVA) is the Power Platform solution to creating and adding a bot to a website in just a few clicks.
This ready-to-use solution can be used not only on a website but also on a variety of different communication channels: Teams, social networks, Telegram, etc.
PVA is simple and intuitive, and business units can use it without the need to call in development experts. For example, HR, marketing, or sales teams can use this solution independently to meet their needs. However, you can still add more advanced Microsoft services to this tool to make it even more useful.
What Are the Benefits of Power Virtual Agents?
PVA has many benefits that make it a valuable tool for businesses:
- No technical skills are needed: You don’t need to know how to develop to create a chatbot with this low-code/no-code solution. The platform is extremely intuitive, so anyone can create a bot in just a few minutes.
- Reduced costs: Teams no longer have to answer questions, so they can focus on tasks that add value instead.
- 24/7 availability: Setting up a bot means that questions can be answered anytime without waiting for someone to be there. This improves customer satisfaction.
- Hundreds of connectors: Microsoft provides a wide range of connectors so that PVA can be used by as many people as possible. This means that the tool works with most communication channels: websites, social networks, Teams, intranets, and so on.
- 100% customizable: PVA allows you to configure all settings so the chatbot fits your company’s image perfectly.
Power Platform: Use Case Examples
There are many possible uses for chatbots with Power Virtual Agents. Anything is possible, and companies have a powerful tool at their disposal to quickly answer queries from customers and employees, etc.
Here are a few examples of how Power Virtual Agents can be used:
- Sales support with product-related questions
- Information about a store’s opening days and times
- Questions sent to Human Resources (paid leave, health insurance, etc.)
- HR certificate requests
- Technical support
- Supplier questions about invoicing
- Recruitment management
- Etc.
In a broader sense, when a company or department frequently receives the same questions, it makes sense to provide a bot to answer them automatically, thereby freeing up teams to focus on other tasks that add more value.
How Does Power Virtual Agents Work?
With the help of a graphical interface, the user creates the questions and answers configured in the chat visually. You can use existing templates provided by the tool or create your chatbot from scratch. Users are guided step by step through the creation process.
The solution is based on the recognition of keywords or predefined questions configured in the tool.
Finally, we recommend that you monitor the bot’s results and performance to continuously improve and refine the questions and answers.
Source: Microsoft documentation
How Much Does Power Virtual Agents Cost?
Microsoft offers a monthly pricing plan for 2000 sessions. You can also add additional modules of 1000 sessions.
See Microsoft’s price list to find out how much Power Virtual Agents costs.
Power Virtual Agents lets you create an intelligent bot without writing any code. From creation to going live, you are guided through the process step by step.
Coralie Martinez – Power Platform Domain Director at Cellenza
Want to learn more about Power Platform? Find out more about our Power Platform Discovery package, or contact us!
And to see how Power Platform can speed up the transformation and modernization of enterprise information systems, have a look at the other tools in this low-code/no-code solution.
