Archive for the 'case study' Category

“Welcome Back, Steve,” said the friendly…computer??!

Published
by
Steve Pollock
on June 19, 2007
in caller experience and case study
. 0 Comments

Steve Pollock

Personalization Arrives in the Voice Channel

It’s amazing how quickly you get used to personalized customer service. Most merchants and companies I do business with have a personalized web experience. On Amazon, Netflix, eBay I’m greeted by name. My recommendations are highly tailored and my account information is readily accessible.

I’ve been waiting for this for years on the phone, and it’s finally happened.

I was just greeted by name when I called American Airlines IVR. It’s about time!

American has just deployed a really amazing new system that has some really cool features. My favorite is one of the simplest – I can opt-in so my cell phone is recognized, so I’m immediately identified and authenticated.

“Thanks for calling American Airlines. Welcome back, Steve.” It’s very cool. Better yet, I get proactive service – when I’ve got a flight coming up, I automatically get flight status. When I land, I’m offered help with lost baggage. If I need to be rebooked, it is handled automatically. The most common options are menu-free – they’re proactively offered.

The phone has taken a huge step forward.

Are you an American frequent flyer? Try it! You can get information on the American Airlines website.

This system was designed using multiple personalization techniques. A series of dynamic features are used to create a highly personalized experience. Some of the personalization features include greeting by name and context-specific menus – so that I’m only offered appropriate choices at any point.

The other key element of a next-generation personalized experience is what we refer to as ‘anticipating intent’. The American application looks at your current status to see if you’re flying; if you’re between legs of a trip; if you’ve just landed; if you’ve got an upcoming return flight, etc. On top of your status is event-based information – are planes late, have you been re-booked. The combination of these may result in a high probability reason for a phone call.

Anticipating intent allows American to offer service without having to present a menu selection. This is very forward-thinking and breaks significant new ground for a phone system.

This is the phone system of the future, here today.

Solving the Touch-tone Problem

Published
by
Laura Bramschreiber
on April 4, 2007
in case study, how-to's and webcasts
. 0 Comments

Laura

Every now and then, I get to work on really great speech-enabled IVR systems, that even callers like to use. Recently, I learned from Telecom New Zealand, the major telephone carrier in a country of about 4 million people, that their callers really like their new system.

Today, Telecom New Zealand provides millions of subscribers with local dial tone, plus long distance service, plus Internet service, plus mobile services, plus a variety of other value-added services.

So it stands to reason, their subscribers are calling for a myriad of product offerings and for a multitude of reasons.

After adding more and more items to their touch-tone system, they started to get the feeling that their touch-tone menu system just wasn’t cutting it anymore.

So, how did they handle this problem? They implemented a conversational call routing system. The results were really stunning:

  • The number of callers that “zero out” dropped to almost nothing
  • Customer satisfaction with speech is three times greater than with the old touch-tone IVR
  • Huge jump in CSR efficiency due to reduced re-work and misroutes

So, if you’re interested, here is a 20-minute streaming webcast that describes the problem facing them, and how Telecom New Zealand solved it. Just enter your name & email and you get FREE access.

In this streaming webcast, you’ll learn how Telecom New Zealand (TNZ) was able to simultaneously improve customer satisfaction, improve CSR efficiency and increase customer self-service.

If you don’t have time to check out the webcast, here is an interesting article that appeared on Destination CRM, entitled Chatting Up Customers Down Under.