“A PA for everyone, that is the idea behind Exact Assistant”

Work smarter, not harder. This is Exact’s motto. That is why Exact’s business software has been making use of artificial intelligence (AI) since 2017. Until recently, AI mainly created insights and automated tasks based on machine learning, but with the introduction of Generative AI, users can now also engage in dialogue with the software. “Developments in the field of AI have taken a tremendous leap in recent years, especially since the introduction of ChatGPT in November 2022,” says Joep Hoeks. “Like everyone else, we found this new generative form of AI extremely impressive and asked ourselves how disruptive its advent would prove to our industry. We soon came to the conclusion that we should not be thinking of it as a threat, but rather as an opportunity. What can this new AI application do for us? What can we do with it? And how can we use GenAI to add value for our customers?”

An AI team was formed and immediately started brainstorming. This soon produced a long list of possibilities. “Then we started experimenting. What is feasible and what do our customers need most?”, André Ekas continues. “For example, 24/7 customer support, so questions about the software do not have to wait until the next business day for answers. We explored those matters in more detail and that resulted in our first use cases. Ultimately, this led to four practical applications, namely a navigation feature, a notification feature, a support feature and an information feature. Exact Assistant helps users of our software to find their way around Exact Online and proactively shares warnings, such as accounting discrepancies or outstanding invoices. In addition, it answers all your ‘how-to’ questions and helps you prepare for meetings or customer visits. It also retrieves information from Exact Online and combines this with external sources approved by Exact, such as industry reports from banks and trade associations.”

In addition to functionalities, user-friendliness was another important aspect of Exact Assistant’s development. Joep explains, “A good user experience is very important. However fantastic your features may be, if your tool is too complicated in practice, no one will use it. The first pilot with Exact Assistant was far from perfect. However, we then made some huge advances together with our UX team based on user feedback. We were told users wanted to call up Exact Assistant themselves and not have it appear on screen by default. We redesigned the progress bar which shows that Exact Assistant is working for you. We made the deliberate choice not to use a speech bubble anymore. After all, you are not chatting with a real person, so we do not want to give that impression. Additionally, Exact Assistant does not answer questions letter by letter, but all in one go. Your old conversation is shown when you start a new one, so you know where you left off. We also provide suggestions, conversation starters, because we saw that users sometimes find it difficult to know how to start talking to Exact Assistant.”

Exact Assistant is currently available to 120,000 Exact Online users in the Netherlands and Belgium. By the end of 2024, it should be available to all users of the software, close to 500,000 altogether. André: “We are doing a staged roll-out, because we also wish to learn from Exact Assistant ourselves. How is the tool used? What features could be optimised further? We know that customers consult Exact Assistant regularly and appreciate its usefulness. Exact Assistant is asked about 500 questions each day. Are the answers provided by Exact Assistant of sufficient quality? We monitor this using a ‘thumbs up, thumbs down’ feature, for example. In this way, customers can indicate whether they find an answer useful. That feedback is very instructive for us as well and we use it to optimise Exact Assistant further. In addition, and I think this is a very good sign, we see that 99% of people who consult Exact Assistant do not contact our customer service afterwards. That is wonderful and that is why we are doing this. A PA for everyone, that is the idea behind Exact Assistant, to allow everyone to work more efficiently and improve the quality of their work.”

When asked what makes him proudest, Joep answers, “The fact that our company needed only six months to turn a rough concept into a real, working solution that can truly help our customers in their work. From Technology to Marketing, we really relied on our collective brainpower to get this far. And we are making further advances. First, we intend to roll out Exact Assistant to the mobile version of Exact Online and other Exact products. Our dreams are bigger than that, though. Although you can have Exact Assistant prepare for meetings with customers now, would it not be marvellous if Exact Assistant could also create a contact report for you and directly link tasks for colleagues and process the time sheet for you? That’s the kind of thing we’re thinking about. We are exploring and experimenting with the possibilities, and we expect to make some of them a reality in the near future.”