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Pete Jakob IBM Software Group Marketing Manager (UK, Ireland & South Africa)



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The rise of the answering machines

Call centres may not be the sexiest things, but as John West of Fluency explains to Pat Sweet, they are the lifeblood of customer service for many an organisation.

Does anybody like calling a helpline? Probably not, but businesses still need them. After all, if customers are going to spend their money on a product or service, they want a line of communication with the companies providing them. But many customers give up when faced with an automated menu of options, never making it through to a real person.

It’s not much better for call centre staff, who field misdirected calls from customers who, by the time they make it through the automated front end of the system, are spoiling for a fight.

So why do companies continue to rely on the system? The argument goes something like this: maximise the efficiency of call centre staff, and minimise the amount of time spent getting to the query itself, an automated system can filter through the callers right from the start. In other words: it can save time and money.

The trouble is, it may be a false economy. After all, most dissatisfied customers don’t bother complaining, they just change suppliers. If someone is put off because of an automated, button-pushing nightmare, that may push even more people to the competition.

This may be about to change, according to John West, head of products for Fluency Voice Technology (www.fluencyvoice.com). In future, calls may be handled in a more traditional way – by listening to the customer from the start. Instead of choosing from a set of numbered options, callers will simply say what they want.

It will still be an automated system – there will be a computer at the other end, rather than a person. The difference is, developments in speech recognition technology now allow a computer to understand and respond to typical call centre requests for information such as name and address, ID or account number. These kinds of predictable exchanges are tedious for call centre agents, but too many options can lead to an endless list of sub-menus from which to choose in the old automated system.

However, these kinds of questions are ideal for speech recognition systems because they require only a limited number of possible exchanges and the information can be verified in different ways. For example, a system might ask for a customer’s surname and postcode. By matching the two, the computer can be certain the correct person has been identified. Not only is this easier, it’s also quicker. Case in point: Fluency Voice Technology has implemented its Virtual Speech Agent (VSA) Suite™ for an investment company, which has seen the average time taken to establish the caller’s identity cut from three minutes to 50 seconds, with consequent cost savings.

“The computer can also recognise alphanumeric characters that you can’t input using a phone, such as postcodes. Many organisations include letters as well as digits in their customer reference numbers, and in the past that has limited their use of automated self-service systems,” says West.
 
Once the speech recognition system knows who is on the other end of the line, it can go on to make offers of help based on a series of prompts. For example, Fluency provides the service for an insurance company that offers a broad portfolio of products. In the past, callers would be faced with around eight items on a touchtone menu if they wanted to get advice. Misunderstandings and mistakes meant that calls were often sent through to the wrong desk, which was frustrating and time consuming.

The Fluency application now steers calls towards the right agent with the right skill set by asking customers to say what sort of insurance they want to discuss – car, travel, or medical – and confirming their reply.  

“Using your voice is a natural way to interact and speech recognition allows companies to offer callers a more pleasant and a more efficient type of self service,” agrees Duncan Ross, international voice solutions manager with IBM. And with the right technology in place, it can cut down on mistakes and streamline the process. For example, if the system cannot recognise what the customer says, then it will ask a clarifying question, such as, “I’m sorry, did you say car?” This kind of steering has produced a 98 per cent success rate in getting the caller to the right person.

And voice specialists like Fluency can even produce a persona that matches a company branding – a sober voice for a bank, or more playful options for a holiday company. It’s even possible to include “push” messages based on previous interactions. If the database shows that a current caller placed an order four days ago, the computer might automatically comment, “Your delivery was dispatched yesterday.”

The potential for speech recognition is only limited by the imagination of the system designers – it’s already possible to combine this technology with a browser on a mobile phone, so callers can check Web pages on the move and hear the information read out to them. The only question is whether it can keep pace with customer expectations. Because if it does, there’s no doubt they will voice their appreciation.


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