Parrotforce envisioned their Virtual Assistant (VA) service to be completely automated through phone calls, emails, text messages and more. They wanted a customer management system where everything could be tracked - from notes and tasks to hours and currently active VA’s.
When we received this project, there was minimal automation, scattered data, and a multiple of spreadsheets tracking customer hours and resource data. There were more than 8 services that Parrotforce used to run their service that Simublade would have to integrate or replace. The most complex piece of the puzzle would be an intelligent routing system. Currently everything was manual - phone calls and messages were being routed to personal numbers so there was no way Parrotforce could offer a true 24/7 service. Depending on the hour, customers would have to use an alternative number to reach their VA or VAs would have to access a shared email address.
Simublade created a solution that intelligently routes requests from a multiple of communication channels (calls, messages, emails and even Trello boards) directly to dynamically assigned personal assistants. The routing system quickly identifies the correct resource based on a variety of factors and connects them with the customers request for a seamless customer experience. Of course, popular services change from time to time, so the platform is extensible to utilize new services that have API access.
After assessing the client’s pain points and speaking to managers and VAs, we suggested that we go one step forward and create an intelligent end to end pipeline for their entire workflow. We envisioned an automated data pipeline that was service agnostic, allowing for endless integrations with popular communication channels that customers might utilize. Customers could use their communication platform of choice, while the platform automatically would route and notify the appropriate resources of incoming requests.
We first scoped out the system design that would intelligently route customer requests to the appropriate VA’s. This included scoping out a flow that would be able to handle the change of virtual assistants - thus allowing Parrotforce to be a 24/7 service. We identified Twilio as the perfect PaaS solution to help route phone calls and SMS messages. Integrating with the platform would allow us to tell the service when and who to route the call or SMS based on who was calling as well as a host of factors to determine the appropriate VA at the time. In addition, we scoped out seamless routing of emails and API integration with Trello.
The team worked on this product for over 1 year using Agile, enabling us to iteratively deliver a high quality product in a rapidly moving space. We strive to use the latest technology to deliver cutting edge solutions. Our team utilized Node.js to build out the entire backend infrastructure of the platform.We created a RESTful backend that integrated with the multitude of services. Node.js was a perfect fit for this solution as it was designed with real-time, push-based architectures in mind. The web application front-end was built using React, a JavaScript framework that is perfectly suited for complex real time web interfaces.
The solution was tested throughout the development lifecycle by our own QA team as well as Parrotforce managers and employees to ensure we were delivering a high quality experience. Through a collaborative effort by our Product Managers and Parrotforce we were able to identify features and changes to create a phenomenal product for the client. For example, we had originally scoped and developed the ability for VAs to individually take notes. However our Product Managers noticed a common theme amongst VA’s was to share notes with each other. To take care of that, in a later iteration we developed a notes sharing feature to create a more seamless experience.
After deploying the final version of the product, we interviewed Parrotforce’s customers and VAs to see how they were using the platform and to solve any individual problems they might have. We gathered unique insights into how customers were using the platform and created a plan for future additions.
Simublade continues to provide lifecycle support to the platform with real-time analytics, bug-fixes, feature additions and more.
With the platform Simublade created, Parrotforce is able to effectively route thousands of requests daily without missing a beat. In addition, the intelligent routing and conversation processing allows Parrotforce assistants to more effectively and intimately help customers. Parrotforce has streamlined their operations and improved customer service immensely due to the enhancements introduced with the platform. No more manual bookkeeping, no more lost requests.
Product Research 
Scoping
Development 
Testing/Review
Deployment
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