Archive for the 'how-to's' Category

Now it’s getting personal.

Published
by
Steve Pollock
on August 26, 2008
in caller experience and how-to's
. 0 Comments

There’s little doubt that personalization (automatically delivering relevant information) and customization (controlling the display) have been a boon for surfing the web. We get more relevant information, find things more quickly, and are more likely to stumble (or Stumble) upon things of interest.

This works for the web experience because we get the thing we’re looking for immediately, and the elements brought to us via personalization are unobtrusive. For example, on the Google search results page, the main results are in the center of the page, with relevant ads at the top and on the side. On an Amazon.com shopping page, the item we chose is at the top of the page, and recommendations/substitutes are below.

Note that in both cases, the design allows direct access to complete the desired task – getting information or completing a transaction – we’re interested in, and puts the other information nearby – in case we need it.

What about the telephone?

The key difference from a communications point of view between visual and audible content is fast random access vs. linear, fixed speed listening (delivery). Audio requires attention, where graphical content is less demanding. It’s ok if your eyes wander a bit while you think and return to a page, but if you get distracted while listening you often need to listen again. This attention makes audio a bit more involving and more personal than a pure graphical presentation. Both these qualities – linear delivery and the involving nature play key roles in the use of personalization.

Arguably, the most critical factor to consider when using personalization techniques on the phone is the relevance of the information you provide. The relevance test is more important for callers than for web visitors due to the qualities of each channel. Highly relevant personalization strategies will add value by shortening calls, increasing automation, and providing increased customer satisfaction. However, if the relevance isn’t high enough, you’ll be presenting information to the caller which is potentially “in the way” of the caller’s objective. If you have any information to present which may not be relevant, be sure to consider presenting it only after the caller has completed their primary task.

Be sure to check out the new TuVox personalization module, a great way to get together the data and rules you need for a highly relevant set of offers.

Where to Start? Outsource Your Call Routing.

Published
by
Rick Davison
on August 28, 2007
in caller experience and how-to's
. 0 Comments

Rick DavisonIn 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.

How To Dig Up That Treasure

Published
by
Rick Davison
on August 17, 2007
in caller experience and how-to's
. 0 Comments

Rick DavisonIn 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.

Current IVR

 World Class
IVR		 Natural
Language
Routing		 Routing &
World Class
IVR
Total Monthly Calls 1,000,000 1,000,0000 1,000,000 1,000,000
Calls Offered 300,000 300,000 400,000 400,000
Calls Automated 150,0000 180,000 200,000 240,000
Annual Savings $1,800,000 $360,000 $600,000 $1,080,000

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.

Tell Me Again: Why Do I Need VoIP?

Published
by
Abhijit Barde
on June 19, 2007
in how-to's
. 0 Comments

Abhijit BardeRecently, I was helping out on a project for one of our customers. The customer had on-premise IVRs at multiple call centers with multiple phone numbers from multiple carriers landing at each site.

The customer wanted a CTI-integrated, fully-redundant hosted speech solution to automate just a part of the call flow, with the existing call flows still being serviced by the respective IVRs.

And… all of this in the TDM world!!!

The sheer complexity of the solution boggles the mind. We were discussing crisscrossing tie-lines, bridging calls back-and-forth, with CTI servers at multiple locations. It was just too complicated. Of course, we figured it out, but it’s a very complex solution.

I was fantasizing how much easier things would have been if the IT group was open to (and had justified budget for) a VoIP based solution. Nowadays, even though most IT groups have some plans to roll out VoIP based solutions, many don’t have a comprehensive plan to migrate contact center infrastructure.

An all-IP solution for contact centers comes with the promise of universal routing, pre-treatment of calls, centralized voice portals, reduced infrastructure costs. Imagine not having to deal with terminating circuits, “take back and transfer” costs and expensive CTI infrastructure.

The key thing to remember is that companies must have an enterprise-wide vision to rollout the all-IP solution. In my experience, most companies start-off with a pilot projects with specific purpose and then future projects become dependent on the choices made previously. I have seen VoIP plans getting quickly derailed due to inability of legacy hardware to be upgraded or due to interoperability of the hardware/software choices from various vendors.

To start out on the right foot, it is crucial to align with the right IP open standards at the enterprise level. This will pave the path to the future possibilities via interoperability of newer applications. SIP has been becoming a dominant standard in the VoIP market place. Its popularity can be attributed to lower complexity, higher extensibility and better scalability.

Continue reading ‘Tell Me Again: Why Do I Need VoIP?’

5 Best Practices to Make Your Knowledge-Base “Talk”

Published
by
Steve Pollock
on June 1, 2007
in caller experience and how-to's
. 0 Comments

Steve

Putting a Voice to your Key Support Knowledge

We need to acknowledge that there are two clear classes of callers. First, the web-oriented callers who have already tried all our web resources, were unable to solve their problem, and are now on the phone. Those callers need to be directed to an agent and encouraged to continue to use self help.

Second, are callers who have not used the web - either it’s not convenient (they’re mobile) or they just didn’t bother. In any case, BOTH know there’s a website. Just telling them there’s a support website is a waste of their time and precious telecom costs.

That’s a shame, when it’s relatively easy to help callers with knowledge base content right on the phone. Or, just a way to guide callers to specific information online - not general message, but a specific page that will help.

The question is:
Why aren’t companies making this information available over the phone?

If you’re in charge of providing telephone-based support at your company, I have to ask — are you leveraging this information across all customer interaction channels, including Web self-service and voice self-service?

The reality is that some customers will use Web support and some won’t. In many cases, customers have tried Web support, but couldn’t easily find a solution.

Others might not have tried Web support at all — some customers are unable (not near a computer, technologically challenged, etc.) and a few are unwilling — they would prefer to speak with a live customer service representative at any cost.

For these reasons, your technical support line continues to ring (and ring). And every call handled by a live agent is costly, cutting into ever-narrowing profit margins.

When customers have reviewed all your Web articles, and are willing to wait any length of time, it is difficult to decrease the business impact of these calls.

For all other callers, however, using voice automation to access your knowledgebase can save up to 90% per call.To successfully automate a large percentage of routine technical support calls, there are five key best practices to keep in mind.

Download the rest of the article here.

5 Best Practices to Make Your Knowledgebase “Talk”

It’s All About The Caller Experience.

Published
by
Nick Ezzo
on May 23, 2007
in caller experience and how-to's
. 0 Comments

Nick EzzoSecrets 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 “Remember 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

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.