Augmented Agent is an AI-based software entity that simulates human conversation by suggesting relevant replies to the customer service representative (CSR) in response to customer input during a live chat. The agent analyzes and matches the text pattern of customer input with lists of available common phrases, knowledge articles, and page push entries, and then suggests some of the most probable replies to the CSR.

The following figure illustrates a use case for the Augmented Agent, displaying a suggested reply to a customer request in a live chat session:

Pega Intelligent Virtual Assistant (IVA) is the chatbot technology at the heart of the Augmented Agent feature; IVA interacts with an application by sending and receiving text entered by users. When the customer sends a request in a chat session, the IVA or bot logic captures and routes the customer request to Customer Decision Hub (CDH). CDH predicts customer behavior during live interactions and responds accordingly to the customer. You must integrate CDH with Pega Customer Service to enable Suggested replies and next best actions.

CDH packages Natural Language Processing (NLP) models under a text analyzer rule. NLP takes customer interaction and processes it for:

• Sentiment analysis
• Text(topic) classification
• Intent analysis
• Entity extraction

Customer Decision Hub uses Adaptive Models to give a score to every relevant suggestion that the Augmented Agent makes to the CSR, and then adapts that prediction. A Topic Model then analyzes the customer’s utterances and automatically classifies the customer queries into appropriate categories.

The figure above shows how CDH predicts the customer’s behavior and suggests a probable reply to their request, using the Suggested replies option. For example, when the customer asks, Can I pause my service temporarily?, the text analyzer looks for an appropriate topic model and suggests the Pause Service topic from the Common phrases Adaptive Model. Based on the customer utterance, the Augmented Agent suggests the most probable response to the CSR. The CSR can then send the suggested response to the customer.

You can use Customer Decision Hub with Pega Customer Service to drive upsell, cross-sell, and retention offers, and provide additional guidance to representatives on the next best action for the current customer and context. You must have a CDH license to integrate CDH with Pega Customer Service.