Espressive Barista Integration with Webex by Cisco Automates Employee Self-Help While Improving the Employee Experience for Webex Customers

Employees Will Have Access to Leading AI-based Virtual Support Agent to Automate Resolution of Questions, Issues, and Requests, Directly Within the Webex Experience

SANTA CLARA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Espressive, the pioneer in artificial intelligence (AI) for enterprise service management (ESM), today announced that it is partnering with Webex by Cisco to simplify the workday and help power hybrid work. Espressive Barista, the company’s AI-based virtual support agent (VSA), is now an embedded app available directly within Webex, providing Webex customers with a single source of truth for answering all employee questions across their organizations. This integration will automate the resolution of employee questions, issues, and requests while enabling help desk agents to stop monitoring public channels. With Barista, organizations can leverage Webex for employee self-help and experience greater help desk and employee productivity.

“According to Gartner research, hybrid work environments have resulted in a 33% reduction in employee productivity along with a 25% increase in IT service management call volume,” said Pat Calhoun, founder and CEO of Espressive. “Enterprises need to address this quickly, and with today’s announcement they are equipped to do that. Espressive Barista deployed as a native app in Webex provides employees with a single place to go for receiving immediate assistance 24/7 across 14 departments and in 9 languages, simplifying the hybrid work experience.”

Webex and Espressive Barista Improve Employee Experience Through Automation

The pandemic has driven an imperative for improving the employee experience considering the rise of the new hybrid workforce where employees can work from anywhere at any time. Collaboration tools like Webex are now a necessity and have been widely adopted over the past year to support distributed teams, facilitate remote work, ease communication, and bring employees together.

“Today’s hybrid work environment increases the need for streamlined experiences across multiple businesses apps,” said Anurag Dhingra, Chief Technology Officer, Cisco Webex. “Now with Espressive Barista available as an Embedded App within Webex, users can receive immediate answers to questions and resolution to issues during their meetings and collaboration experience.“

The integration of Espressive Barista with Webex provides much-needed relief for support teams across the enterprise who are experiencing a 25% increase in repetitive questions from hybrid (i.e., remote and in-office) employees. Barista automates employee self-help so employees receive immediate responses to questions and assistance with requests within Webex. Barista also automates repetitive work for help desk agents, significantly improving employee satisfaction while reducing internal support costs.

Espressive Barista Represents a Paradigm Shift in the Delivery of AI-based Employee Self-Help

The rise of hybrid work underscores the importance of providing exceptional employee experience through digital technology. Espressive Barista is an AI-based virtual support agent powered by an advanced natural language processing (NLP) engine and sophisticated machine learning capabilities that enterprises can leverage to automate the resolution of employee questions, issues, and requests. The Barista Employee Language Cloud can recognize over 2 billion phrases out of the box. Unlike traditional virtual support agents (VSAs) that are only optimized for IT, Barista supports 14 departments across the enterprise and can interact with employees across nine languages. This means enterprises can deploy Barista in as little as six weeks with a measurable ROI on day one.

In addition to being available as an embedded app on Webex, employees can access Barista on a browser, portal, email, or phone via their desktops (Windows or Mac) or on mobile devices (Android or iOS). With Barista, employees can get the help they need no matter where they are and from whichever communication tool they prefer.

About Espressive

Espressive, the pioneer in artificial intelligence (AI) for enterprise service management, a 2019 Gartner Cool Vendor, and a 2020 Forrester New Wave Leader, redefines how employees get help by delivering exceptional employee experiences. Barista, the company’s virtual support agent (VSA), brings the ease of consumer virtual assistants, such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home, into the workplace. Barista automates resolution of employee questions, issues, and requests with personalized experiences that result in employee adoption of 80 to 85% and reduced help desk call volume of 50% to 70%. Espressive is backed by Insight Partners, General Catalyst, and Wing Venture Capital, and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California. Visit www.espressive.com for more information.

Contacts

Media Contact
Pam Njissang

Bhava Communications for Espressive

510-214-3436

espressive@bhavacom.com