Last week we set up shop in the Startup Zone at SpiceWorld in Austin. Two of our best and brightest product and account experts attended: Rich Graves and Mark Surles. They shared their perspectives below.
If you haven’t attended, SpiceWorld is one of the most lively IT shows with over 2,500 attendees and 1,200 organizations on hand. Various companies were represented from emerging startups (such as Serviceaide) to big brands such as Intel, Microsoft, HP, etc. What makes it lively is the passion of this community and their desire to learn and share their experiences.
While companies are using different service management solutions, one thing stood out, a strong desire to reduce the friction that still exists in servicing requests. As costs increase, frustration continues to mount. Automation is the key. The overwhelming majority of people we talked to agree that automation is needed and were keen to understand how our new Luma Automation represents a new step in automating the easy stuff.
On September 25th[RG1] , we launched Luma Virtual Agent with the new, enhanced Luma Automationresulting in an improved and differentiated solution. Unlike Chatbots which only front-end operational systems, Luma’s[RG2] Natural Language Processing (NLP) engine drives a guided conversation [RG3] and automation fulfills the business outcome. A backing service system such as ITSM or CRM is completely optional – have Luma open a ticket or not – it’s your choice. We provide a low code /no code UI that allows business analysts to create a completely automated conversational business transaction. And our differentiation is even apparent in our pricing – other vendors talk about APIs while we discuss business transactions. The result is you only pay for what you use.
In our discussions, we found people really interested in how to leverage their employees for more complex and strategic tasks. Hiring a virtual agent for entry level tasks is a win win for everyone. You can invest in training your current team, expanding their skills and capabilities while offloading repetitive and often time-consuming basic jobs. Productivity increases, and you can increase your investment in existing IT staff. In talking to the Spiceheads, we loved their sense of togetherness and openness to new ideas. This is a truly engaged community and we enjoyed our interactions with them. Feedback from the IT community is critical, both to understand their challenges as well as to continue to develop solutions that are relevant and timely.
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