Customer Virtual Assistant

Feature Overview

Customer Virtual Assistant (CVA) feature enables the IVR platform to integrate with cloud-based speech services. This feature supports human-like interactions that enable customers to resolve issues quickly and more efficiently within the IVR, thereby, reducing the calls directed towards agents.


Note
The Dialogflow ES GCP project trial version should not be used in a production environment.

In a traditional IVR, customers can interact with the IVR in the following ways:

  • VVB Media Services-Based Interaction: Prompts are played locally by VVB by downloading WAV files. User inputs are captured using DTMF grammar.

  • ASR-Based and TTS-Based Interactions: Prompts are played by the external media server over MRCP Synthesis command for Text-to-Speech (TTS) functionality. The responses are recognized by external media server based on predefined grammar provided by Asynchronous Speech Recognition (ASR).

CVA-based IVR enables a new mechanism to leverage cloud-based-AI-enabled speech services. CVA provides the following speech services:

  • Text-to-Speech: Integration with cloud-based TTS services in your application for Speech Synthesis operations. CVA currently supports Google Text to Speech service.

  • Speech-to-Text: Integration with cloud-based ASR services in your application for Speech Recognition operations. CVA currently supports Google Speech to Text service.

  • Speech-to-Intent: CVA provides capability of identifying the intent of customer utterances by processing the text received from Speech-to-Text operations. CVA offers this service by using cloud-based Natural Language Understanding (NLU) services. CVA currently supports Google Dialogflow service.

Getting Started

This section explains the prerequisites and the documentation resources for CVA.

Prerequisites

Enable Speech Services (For Non-OEM Users)

To enable speech services, follow these steps:

  1. Log in to your Dialogflow account at https://dialogflow.cloud.google.com/.

  2. Scroll down on the homepage and click Project ID of your Dialogflow agent.

    This takes you to the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) homepage.

  3. Select APIs & Services from the left pane (through the hamburger menu).

  4. Select the API services (such as Cloud Text-to-Speech, Cloud Speech-to-Text, and Dialogflow) to be enabled.

  5. Click Enable to enable the selected API for the given Project ID.

Generate JSON Key (for Non-OEM Users)

To generate the JSON key, follow these steps:

  1. In the GCP homepage, select IAM & Admin from the left pane (through the hamburger menu).

  2. Select Service accounts which shows the list of your enabled services.

  3. Select the service for which the JSON key is to be generated.

  4. Click the ellipsis menu on the right and click +Create Key.

  5. Select JSON as Key type and then click Create.

    The key is downloaded.

For best results:

  • Migrate your Dialogflow Agent to Enterprise Essential (Console Left Bar > Migrate from Standard to Enterprise Essential).

  • Enable the enhanced Speech Model in Dialogflow console (Settings > Speech > Enable Enhanced Speech Model and Data Logging).

If this option is enabled, speech recognition data is shared with Google. For more information see https://cloud.google.com/speech-to-text/docs/enhanced-models.

Provision Google CCAI with Unified Contact Center Enterprise (for OEM Users)

To provision Google CCAI with Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise, follow these steps:

Procedure

Step 1

Log in to the Cisco Commerce Workspace (CCW) portal https://apps.cisco.com/Commerce/ using your Cisco ID and place the order for Google CCAI.

Step 2

Complete the CCAI provisioning form and submit to get a CCAI account with Cisco.

Note

 

When the CCAI provisioning request is approved, an email (CCAI Onboarding Provision Status Update) is triggered to the user. This email includes the account details and the CCAI Provisioning Document which explains the steps to configure the CCAI account and services.

Step 3

Configure the CCAI account and integrate the CCAI services with the Contact Center application by following the CCAI Provisioning Document. For any further assistance, contact the Cisco CCAI onboarding team or send an email to: cisco-ccai-onboarding@cisco.com.

The service account provided by Cisco allows the CCAI customers to leverage the following APIs to integrate with the Contact Center applications:

  • Dialogflow API

  • Text-to-Speech API

  • Speech-to-Text API

Documentation Resources

The following table lists the reference documents for CVA.

Information

Resource

Sample CVA Application

See https://github.com/CiscoDevNet/cvp-sample-code/tree/master/CustomerVirtualAssistant.

Design Considerations

Design Considerations for Integrated Features > Customer Virtual Assistant Considerations section in Solution Design Guide

at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/unified-contact-center-enterprise/products-implementation-design-guides-list.html.

CVA configuration in Unified CCE Deployment

Operations Console (NOAMP) section in CVP Administration Guide at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/unified-customer-voice-portal/products-installation-and-configuration-guides-list.html.

TTS Prompt Cache Management and proxy setting for Speech Server

VVB Operations Guide at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/virtualized-voice-browser/products-maintenance-guides-list.html.

Proxy settings for VXML Server

See the VXML Server Configuration > Proxy Settings in VXML Server for Customer Virtual Assistant section in CVP Configuration Guide at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/unified-customer-voice-portal/products-installation-and-configuration-guides-list.html.

Configuration of Call Studio elements for CVA

The following chapters in CVP Element Specification Guide at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/customer-collaboration/unified-customer-voice-portal/products-programming-reference-guides-list.html:

  • Dialogflow Element

  • DialogflowIntent Element

  • DialogflowParam Element

  • Transcribe Element

CVA Speech Configuration APIs

See CVA Speech Configuration section in VVB Developer Guide at https://developer.cisco.com/site/customer-voice-portal/documents/virtual-voice-browser/.