CXone SmartAssist Powered by Amelia

CXone SmartAssist Powered by Amelia provides intelligent virtual agents (IVA) for voice and chat interactions, as well as interactions on certain Digital Experience channels. SmartAssist virtual agents understand complex interactions and respond to them with human-level comprehension. They can replace live agents to handle customers' questions and solve problems.

CXone SmartAssist uses Amelia, an industry-leading AI bot solution. You can integrate SmartAssist with CXone using Studio scripts and Virtual Agent Hub.

You can use CXone Recording to record SmartAssist voice interactions.

Conversation Flow for Voice and Chat

The beginning of the conversation is different for voice and text virtual agents: 

• For voice virtual agents, contacts The person interacting with an agent, IVR, or bot in your contact center. call a phone number and reach your organization. The contact may be connected directly to the virtual agent, or they might need to choose an option in an IVR Automated phone menu that allows callers to interact through voice commands, key inputs, or both, to obtain information, route an inbound voice call, or both. menu. Once the conversation with the virtual agent begins, the contact's utterances What a contact says or types. are transcribed Also called STT, this process converts spoken language to text. into text so the virtual agent can analyze them. The virtual agent's responses are converted to synthesized speech using a text-to-speech Allows users to enter recorded prompts as text and use a computer-generated voice to speak the content. service before being sent to the contact. Transcription and speech synthesis can happen in CXone or, in some cases, in the provider's platform.

• For text virtual agents, contacts start a conversation using a chat window. The location of the chat window varies depending on the specific channel A way for contacts to interact with agents or bots. A channel can be voice, email, chat, social media, and so on. you use. For example, it might be located on your website or the contact could start the conversation from the location of a third-party service, such as Google Business Messages. The contact's utterances are already in text format, so they don't need to be transcribed. They're passed on directly to the virtual agent.

After the conversation has started, the virtual agent analyzes the contact's utterances to understand the purpose or meaning behind what a person says. This is known as the contact's intent. When the intent is identified, the virtual agent sends an appropriate response to the contact.The method of sending a response depends on whether it's a text or a voice virtual agent: 

• Voice: Requests and responses are sent back and forth between the virtual agent and the contact. CXone stays connected to the virtual agent service throughout the conversation, but does not participate in it. CXone waits for the signal that the conversation is complete or that the contact needs transferred to a live agent. This is the SIP Protocol used for signaling and controlling multimedia communication sessions such as voice and video calls. backchannel method of connection.
• Text: Requests and responses are sent via Virtual Agent Hub and the script with each turn. This option allows for customization of the virtual agent's behavior from turn to turn.

At the end of the conversation, the virtual agent sends a signal to the Studio script. It can signal that the conversation is complete, or that the contact needs to speak with a live agent. If the conversation is complete, the interaction ends. If a live agent is needed, the script makes the request. The contact is transferred to an agent when one is available.

Once the conversation is complete, post-interaction tasks can be performed, such as recording information in a CRM Third-party systems that manage such things as contacts, sales information, support details, and case histories..

Prerequisites

To use SmartAssist with CXone, you need:

• An account with Amelia.
• A fully configured and trained Amelia virtual agent.

Required Components

Using SmartAssist requires the following components: 

• CXone: CXone must have a configured voice channel A way for contacts to interact with agents or bots. A channel can be voice, email, chat, social media, and so on. to use with the integration.
• Virtual Agent Hub in CXone: Virtual Agent Hub holds the configuration information for connecting to your virtual agent A software application that handles customer interactions in place of a live human agent. provider. This includes choosing the options you want to use for TTS Allows users to enter recorded prompts as text and use a computer-generated voice to speak the content. and transcription Written form of a voice or digital interaction, if your integration requires these services.
• Studio scripts: You need at least one script that includes a virtual agent Studio action. The action must be configured with the connection information for your virtual agent. The point of contact for the channel you're using with the integration must be configured to use this script.
• SmartAssist: Your SmartAssist virtual agent (Amelia) must be fully configured in the provider's platform. See the prerequisites on this page for any specific requirements.

SmartAssist and Digital Channels

If your channel supports it, you can include rich media Elements in digital messaging such as buttons, images, menus, and option pickers. content in the messages. The type of rich media that can be sent differs from channel to channel, as shown in the following table.

	AdaptiveCards	HTML & Markdown Text	Rich Link	Quick Replies	List Picker	Time Picker	Form message
Apple Messages for Business
Digital Chat
Email				Uses fallback text
Facebook Messenger
WhatsApp
Google Business Messages

Supported:

Not Supported:

Learn more about digital channel support for rich media.

When you want to include rich media content in text virtual agent responses, configure it in your virtual agent's management console. It should go in the configuration for each response that will send the rich media.

Rich media content is sent as JSON. When building your rich media JSON, follow the schema for the digital channel you're using. The schemas are different for each channel. Find the JSON for the media content you want to use, then add it to the response message configurations that you create in the Amelia configuration console.

Some JSON schemas are provided in the Virtual Agent Hub online help. You can use the Digital Experience JSON mirror tool to verify your JSON before adding it to your scripts or virtual agent.

Custom Scripting Guidelines

Before integrating a virtual agent The meaning or purpose behind what a contact says/types; what the contact wants to communicate or accomplish, you need to know: 

• Which script you want to add a virtual agent to.

• The virtual agent Studio action you need to use.

• Where the Studio actions must be placed in your script flow.
• The configuration requirements specific to the virtual agent you're using.
• Any script-specific requirements for your virtual agent, including: 

  • When nesting JavaScript within the JSON payload in Amelia virtual agents, use single quotes instead of escaping double quotes with a backslash ( \" ).

  • JSON structures must be "contentType": "dfoMessage", where the M in Message is capitalized. It won't work with a lower case m.

• How to complete the script after adding the virtual agent action. You may need to: 
  • Add initialization snippets as needed to the script using Snippet actions. This is required if you want to customize your virtual agent's behavior.
  • Re-configure the action connectors to ensure proper contact flow and correct any potential errors.
  • Use the OnReturnControlToScript branch to handle hanging up or ending the interaction. If you use the Default branch to handle hanging up or ending an interaction, your script may not work as intended.
  • Complete any additional scripting and test the script.

You may be able to obtain template scripts for use with virtual agent integrations from NICE CXone Expert Services. If you need assistance with scripting in Studio, contact your CXone Account Representative, see the Technical Reference Guide section in the online help, or visit the NICE CXone Community site.

Supported Studio Action for Text Virtual Agents

The TextBot Exchange action is for complex virtual agents or for when you need to customize the virtual agent's behavior from turn to turn. It monitors the conversation between the contact and the virtual agent A software application that handles customer interactions in place of a live human agent. turn by turn. It sends each utterance What a contact says or types. to the virtual agent. The virtual agent analyzes the utterance for intent The meaning or purpose behind what a contact says/types; what the contact wants to communicate or accomplish and context and determines which response to give. TextBot Exchange passes the response to the contact. When the conversation is complete, the action continues the script.