In the midst of rapid technological advancement, Vocalcom stands out as a major player in enhanced customer relations. On the occasion of the company’s 30th anniversary, Karine Palacios, Chief Product Officer, explains the revolution brought by agentic AI through Hermes, their omnichannel platform. Interview.
Vocalcom is a global success story with a real uniqueness: our expansion has not been through centralization, but through proximity. We have followed our clients wherever they set up – Africa, Latin America, the Middle East – with a strong local presence. The result: presence in 47 countries and a platform, Hermes, designed for diverse environments often overlooked by industry giants.
Hermes is an omnichannel platform that handles both inbound and outbound interactions – a true 50/50, which is rare. While many focus on customer service or sales, Hermes covers the entire cycle: marketing, acquisition, support, collections. This comprehensive coverage generates a wealth of data that feeds concrete, useful, and non-gimmicky AI modules.
Agentic AI isn’t AI that “shines in demos,” but AI that acts. It assists the agent, the supervisor, the end customer, with clear objectives. We’re not talking about a passive assistant, but about specialized autonomous agents, which have four superpowers: memory, awareness of the present context, goal orientation through an iterative process, and interconnection with business tools. In short, it’s AI that understands, learns, acts, and collaborates.
Let’s take a typical case: a customer, Martina, tries to renew her insurance contract online, unsuccessfully. Sofia – our AI agent – knows she has failed several times, that she takes public transport at 6 p.m., and that WhatsApp is her favorite channel at that time. Result: at 6:30 p.m., she receives a personalized notification, interacts with a chatbot that qualifies the request, then is redirected to the right agent – one skilled in both digital support and voice conversations. The agent is assisted in real time: Sofia provides context, advice, and the right tools. In the future, AI will allow Sofia to participate in a conversation between two humans to help them achieve their goals, transparently and in compliance with regulations. Result: contract renewed, satisfied customer, efficient agent, compliance, and transparency.
This is our 4As strategy: Analyze, Anticipate, Automate, Assist. But while many stack disparate modules, we seek unification. Agentic AI will make intelligent building blocks communicate with each other – in a fluid ecosystem. Hermes offers an open architecture with numerous APIs, making it easy to integrate AI throughout the customer journey. This design is ideal for agentic AI technologies, enabling real-time automation, a unified customer experience, and seamless collaboration between humans and machines.
Version 7 of Hermes will be a platform where specialized AI agents collaborate to achieve complex goals. A living, agile, proactive system. Humans remain at the center: we don’t automate for automation’s sake. We act to simplify, streamline, and “hyper-personalize.” Ultimately, every interaction can be enriched and predictive, without overloading teams. It’s the promise of a truly augmented customer experience, where humans and AI join forces to invent “Collaborative Intelligence,” serving both customer and agent satisfaction.
