In today's competitive and technologically very complex business environment, many entrepreneurs choose to let go of the least important and least valuable activities for their business. This is leading to a boom in demand for virtual assistants.
What are virtual assistants?
Broadly speaking, we find two types of virtual assistants:
Human assistants who work virtually or remotely.
Non-human virtual assistants
Human assistants are usually freelance workers who are hired to perform specific tasks, such as answering calls, answering emails, answering frequently asked questions from clients, updating social networks, bookkeeping, performing translations, writing and laying out commercial materials, reporting on offers, travel organization, room reservation, support in the organization of events, creation of databases, among many other tasks. Human virtual assistants typically work remotely from a home office.
You may be interested in the 10 best virtual assistants 2023.
Non-human virtual assistants are robots that use artificial intelligence (AI) technology and support workers in diverse tasks. They are especially good at performing tasks that are very repetitive and do not require much imagination or ingenuity. In this way, a company can reserve the most creative tasks for human workers while using these virtual assistants to carry out repetitive and low-value-added tasks.
One of the best examples of virtual assistants is chatbots, programs based on natural language technology. This allows them to perform tasks such as answering messages or calls from clients, answering frequently asked questions, or finding and ordering unstructured information and returning it in natural language, among many other tasks. A variant of these chatbots would be voice bots, which are activated bots that respond with voice. As well as with electronic equipment such as smart speakers, smart watches, cars, etc. Some are already very famous for being the personal assistants of the general public on their phones and computers. Some examples of virtual assistants of this type are the following:
Siri
Alexa
Google Now
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Bots to Maximize Time.
1. TrackinTime. Time tracking bot
This is used by hourly professionals who need to make their time profitable. By creating bots, billing and payroll work is simplified. With a simple and elegant product, it helps companies manage their most valuable resource: time.
2. TrackingTime Bot for Microsoft Teams
With this seamless integration with Microsoft Teams, business teams of any size can not only track their time. They can also see what their colleagues are currently working on.
3.Chatbot for Google Workspace
The TrackingTime bot for Google Workspace allows you to create tasks, record time, and monitor project progress. Plus, it will enable you to see what your team is working on. Therefore, you can invite your team members to Gmail, Drive, Docs, and Meet according to your needs. Everything is in one place.
4.AsistenciaBot
AttendanceBot es una solución de seguimiento de tiempo sencilla. Está diseñado específicamente para Slack, Microsoft Teams y Google Workspace. Los empleados registran sus horas de trabajo directamente en un canal con comandos simples como «in» y «out»
ChatBots: Automation and Sales Support
They are mainly used in sales or support. For example, to accelerate traditional lead generation processes through automation. Chatbots can now be found anywhere on the web. When we visit a new website, a virtual assistant often greets us. And it invites us to dialogue from the lower right corner of the screen.
The leading providers of this type of chatbots are Zendesk, Drift and, above all, Intercom. Intercom is a comprehensive business messaging platform. It has long made a name for itself in the IT industry. Therefore, it is trendy among startups and SMEs. In addition to “Inbox” for email and live chat support, the solution comprises other by-products. "Platform" for user analytics, "Messages" for the automation of personalized marketing and sales campaigns, and "Articles" for creating a customer service portal.
You already know a bot that frees us from all those annoying tasks that we don't like will help us focus entirely on creative and value-added activities is still far off. However, bots don't need to be so futuristic to perform valuable services. Its success on enterprise chat platforms proves its real value to businesses.