TuVox Speech Central

Since last summer when we launched TuVox Speech Central, people have been sending me stories about really bad IVR and ACD systems that they call into.

I’ve been keeping a running list of some of the most offensive (and untrue) statements ever uttered by these abominations of automation. Here are a few worth noting:

1. Your call is important to us. Really? If it was truly important to you, I think you’d staff adequately, or at least give me an automated system to use.
2. For quality purposes, your call may be monitored or recorded. I’ve been hearing this little gem for years, and I’m still waiting for the quality to show up. A better way to word this might be “We record. Don’t sue us.”
3. Please listen closely, as your options have changed. No, they haven’t, and please take this annoying little message off its permanent place at the front of your menu. It’s delaying me from actually listening closely to the options, which I repeat, are exactly the same as they were the last time I called.
4. Did you know we have a website? No kidding. Welcome to 1995. Let me guess: its www, then your company name, then dot-com. Note to ACD administrator: please delete this non-informative announcement as soon as you read this.
5. Your call will be handled by the next available representative.Absolutely not true. The next available representative will handle the guy that has been waiting longest. Think about it.
6. Due to unexpected call volume… You can use this excuse probably once a year. Why, then, do I hear this message every time I call your call center?

Well, that’s all I can think of for now. Please let me know if I forgot any. And if you are responsible for an ACD or IVR, I would suggest killing some or all of these useless clichés of modern life.

I will pay you cash money.

TuVox Podcast:

In my Blog entry Knee Jerk Customer Service on August 7th, I described how I dumped my wireless carrier after 5 years of cell phone bliss.

Apparently, some wireless carriers are also breaking up with their customers — if they call too often.

Check out Sprint Drops Customers Who Call for Help Too Often on NPR from July 11th:

Day to Day, July 11, 2007 · Cell phone service provider Sprint is dropping some of its customers who frequently called customer service with problems. The company sent letters to about a thousand customers telling them it was time to move on to another provider.

What is also interesting is the shocked and stunned reaction of the dumped customers on the Sprint Users Discussion Board.

Back in August, I posed the question:

Are their systems and business processes just too knotted up to deliver proactive customer service?

Or, do they just take their customers for granted?

I’m starting to think there is a third option: they see their customers as a nuisance.

In my last two articles, I floated the idea that fixing your call routing and eliminating touch-tone menus is the best way to improve your call center automation and satisfaction rates.

Then I went on to prove my case with some simple math.

Now the obvious question: Where in the world do I start?

There is a way to stick your toe in the water. You can outsource call routing leaving your IVR alone (for the time being) and have the routing application work seamlessly with your IVR and your agents. Outsourcing may or may not include physically locating the application outside of your enterprise.

Not only does this approach free you from having to make a capital investment, it allows you to run a small sample of your callers through the application and measure customer satisfaction before expanding traffic.

A huge added benefit in starting with routing is the visibility you can obtain into your callers’ intentions. Rather than a broad picture of how callers navigated a touch tone maze, you’ll see details about what they’re thinking when they call. The wealth of information you obtain will help you improve the routing application and give you a clear road map showing where to leave well enough alone, and what are your best candidates for new speech applications.

Another question: Are others in your business doing this?

Maybe, maybe not. But callers’ expectations are changing and if you are too focused on your competitors you might miss the bigger picture. As a consumer, I use natural language call routing when I call my bank, when I book my air travel, when I need to speak with an expert who can help me with my camera, when my iPod breaks, when I need to get support for my iPhone, when my phone bill doesn’t seem right, and even when I call my insurance company to report my teenager’s fender bender.

One thing is for sure: I’m going to expect as much when I call your call center, and if you force me to navigate a touch tone menu nothing that happens next is going to make me happy.

In my last article, I put forward the idea that the best way to improve your caller experience is by fixing your call routing and eliminating touch-tone menus. Now, let me give you the economics behind this approach.

Let’s assume your call center takes one million calls per month, your IVR is offered 30% of those and completes half. Let’s also assume that a call completed in automation saves your operation $1.00 per call.

A speech application which improves your call completion rate in your IVR by ten percent will yield a total additional saving of $360,000 per year — not bad.

But what could happen if you apply the same efforts to improving your routing experience? If a natural language routing interface can increase the calls offered to your IVR by the same 10%, your return almost doubles to $600,000.

The math works because fixing the top of the funnel has a multiple effect over tinkering with the bottom. Now that the cost of Natural Language call routing is on par with other applications, clearly routing is the biggest bang for your buck.

Now, if you take the same scenario and combine a 10% increase in calls offered from a natural language routing application with the 10% increase in call completion from your world class automated speech application, the total saving becomes $1,080,000.

This number approaches the ROI you enjoyed when you first implemented your old IVR, but that’s not the biggest benefit. Natural language routing allows twelve million (as apposed to 180,000) of your customers to receive a better caller experience regardless of whether the call is ultimately automated or handed off to a customer service agent. Done right, this positive experience will give your company the opportunity to associate your brand with 12 million more positive experiences every year.

You might be thinking a call routing approach has ten thousand more opportunities for something bad to happen. You could be right, but that same line of reasoning could have been used when you opened up your first call center. Not having a call center was not an option because you would eventually lose customers if they couldn’t get the information they wanted via the phone.

Now the bar has been raised and the same principle applies: you will eventually lose customers by not allowing convenient and timely access to the information callers require.

Read the next article in this series

Why is it that when businesses think of applying speech technology to their organization, their first thought is about replacing touch-tone IVR applications, some of which may be functioning perfectly well?

If your operation is like most call centers, you probably had someone responsible for your ACD routing and someone else designing your IVR. Maybe there’s a third person who has developed the CSR procedures for handling calls. The caller doesn’t view this as three separate experiences, so why shouldn’t you also be viewing the entire encounter from ‘hello’ to ‘goodbye’?

Here’s part of the problem in not taking a holistic view:

If you’ve decided to create the most compelling speech application known to man, and stick it underneath a DTMF driven routing application, you may still be forcing callers to navigate through six DTMF menus before they’re exposed to your world class application. So, you’ve already lost most callers before they hear the first “how can I help you”.

You’d literally be building a treasure for improving efficiency and satisfaction and burying it under six feet of dirt, leaving your callers with an arcane treasure map. There isn’t a caller in the world (other than Paul English and gethuman.com) who wants to take the time to learn your call navigation schema.

Perhaps the map is as important as the treasure? I’d argue that the map is a great deal more important and here’s why:

The promise of voice self-service is not the elimination of touch-tone (yes, you read that right). It’s the eradication of menus, and these menus negatively affect a great deal more callers at the top of your application than they do at the bottom.

Read the next article in this series.

Just this morning, I read an entry on the Customer Service Blog “Customers Are Always” that made a pretty bold claim about having a live customer service answer the phone on the first ring.

Normally, I agree with Maria Palma, and I heartily applaud her for carrying the banner for improving customer service.

However, in this case, I couldn’t disagree more. Here is the quote:

Is it possible to have a live agent answer the call on the first ring? You’re darn right it’s possible!

It is neither possible nor practical to answer every call with a live agent. The reason is simple: Call Volumes.

Just ask 1-800-Flowers.com how many calls they take on February 14th. Or, ask Apple how many iPod calls they receive on the day after Christmas.

In order to have a live agent answer the call on the first ring you would need to have hundreds or thousands of call center agents waiting for calls to come in on that single day. And when no agent is available, what do you get? Music on hold.

If done correctly, automation can (1) handle unpredictable and uneven call volumes and (2) make your existing call center agents more productive. When your customers’ needs are handled quickly and efficiently, they will thank you and they will become repeat customers.

Secrets In Providing Superior Caller Experience

Not too long ago, I picked up a Gartner report on IVR and speech recognition that had some pretty amazing findings.

Not surprisingly, when customers have problems, they immediately reach for the phone (versus going to a website and trying to dig for an answer). But you already knew that.

Much more interesting, though — if wait times are more than two minutes, callers strongly prefer using speech-enabled IVR applications rather than waiting for a representative.

So it seems that speech-enabled IVR systems have found their killer app(s) — the stuff that touchtone systems can’t do, or that normally require agent assistance. Except, um, there aren’t any agents available.

Obvious candidates for speech recognition are things like address change, step-by-step troubleshooting, and open-ended call routing.

Unfortunately, not all speech-enabled IVR applications are created equal. Some are highly frustrating, causing the caller to unnecessarily repeat information or to wade through endless menus before arriving at a place where self-service can finally begin.

So here are a few tips on creating a great caller experience:

1. Make it Conversational

The bottom line is this — in order for speech-enabled systems to deliver a superior caller experience, they must be conversational. That means: let callers ask for what they need, understand their questions and quickly resolve their issues. Oh, and by the way, do it faster than a live agent.

2. Give Control (no, really)

Callers also want to feel in control of the process (I know I do). Every caller should be able to give commands such as wait, go back, next, or (most importantly) live agent!!! at any time. Otherwise, the system is just as bad as the “voice mail jail” systems that are being replaced.

3. Be Different

For competitive reasons, it seems that every company wants to offer differentiated service to their customers. Next generation IVR systems identify certain customers and handle calls according to business logic.

Here’s a great example — understand that an airline passenger is in the middle of a trip, and offer their next flight information proactively. If you haven’t tried it, call the American Airlines “Know Me” application sometime. You will be truly impressed, trust me.

4. Do Your Agents A Favor

Finally, If a caller needs to speak with a live agent, the interaction has got to be productive. The agent should already have access to all the information the caller has provided to the IVR. Nothing is more annoying to a caller than inputting all account information into the system and, after failing to resolve the issue, being routed to an agent who asks for the same information all over again.

Download the rest of the article here.

5 Best Practices In Providing Superior Caller Experience With Speech