TuVox Speech Central

In grim economic times, the last thing a company can afford is to be serving-up poor customer service.  While this may seem like an obviousness to many –when business slows, why risk losing a customer ?– time after time companies cut costs in customer service, only to be shocked, shocked, when people buy elsewhere.

Yet call centers continue to close.  A quick scan of recent headlines shows a mixed bag of closures, relocations, and outsourcing.  And while some of these closures may be the result of shifting business needs (e.g., from catalog to on-line shopping), it’s probably fair to say that many customer service cutbacks are the result of simple shortsightedness.

At the same time, companies have an obligation to turn that penny over twice before spending: in an economic downturn, the customer may be king, but ROI is queen.  

TuVox On-Demand Speech applications offer companies the ability to  increase their ROI through a hosted IVR solution while simultaneously increasing the quality and speed of their customer’s call center experience. Saving money plus increasing service equals an ideal way to survive (and thrive) in a cloudy economy.

Thousands of unemployed Coloradans won’t receive their unemployment checks because they can’t get through to the call center, KWGN in Denver reports. One lady heard nothing but a busy signal for five-plus days.  The sound you hear is me repeatedly wacking my forehead with a telephone receiver as a result of reading this sorry tale of woe.

“We are just swamped with calls, more than we can take”…”many of the calls tying up the phone lines can be answered in the claimant handbook.” 

This is precisely the kind of problem that can be solved by one a TuVox speech solution.  The unemployed have enough problems in this economy without having to deal with this kind of nonsense.

TuVox can help solve Colorado’s problem, and we put our money where our mouth is with our Guaranteed Success Program.  We’d have one of our implementation team members call them, but their line’s busy.

And so it goes…

I just read an interesting article by John I. Todor, Ph.D., on the blog The Perfect Customer Experience.

The entry places some tangible, scientific figures behind what we all intuitively know to be true: whether you provide good or bad customer service, your customers are going to talk about it. Here are a few interesting nuggets:

70% of word of mouth occurs “face-to-face” and only 8% occurs online.

Overwhelmingly, consumers have positive things to say about brands by a margin of more than 6 to 1. This contradicts the common notion people spread negative experiences more than positive.

78% of consumers rank word of mouth as credible at a level of 7 or higher on a 10 point scale.

Why is word-of-mouth marketing powerful?

We trust word of mouth because the person telling us puts the experience in a context that is meaningful to us. Since the peer-to-peer relationship is based on trust, the message is credible. So remember, the next time you’re stuck waiting on hold, or transferred around, or told to call back because the system is down: The Power of Word-of-Mouth.

I’ve written at great length about how you can have the “best of both worlds” — cost-saving automation AND high caller satisfaction.

I’ll concede that there are millions of ways to implement automation poorly and there are relatively few ways to do it right.  It’s a challenge, to be sure.

So I was happy to read an article at Next Generation Power and Energy that talked about exactly that.

“We’ve seen customer preferences shift in accepting technology over the years. Customer feedback now clearly shows that in many cases, customers prefer using technology for some transactions when it’s designed well.” says Tucker Mann, Vice President Customer and Market Services, Progress Energy.

It’s refreshing to see a public utility out in front of this issue.  Utilities have gotten a bad rap for their customer service, and now it seems companies like Progress Energy are leading the charge.

Kudos, Progress Energy!

You may have seen the press release or the article mentioning the Speech Technology Award won by Time Customer Service.

Time Customer Service is the global customer service, information systems, marketing services, and subscription fulfillment operation of Time, one of the world’s largest publishing companies, with a stable of titles that includes Time, People, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, Money, Health, Entertainment Weekly, Essence, National Geographic, and Southern Living.

Time Customer Service has been able to automate 51 percent of all name and address change calls and 71 percent of all cancellation calls, equating to roughly 2 million calls previously handled exclusively by live agents. That has led to a 40 percent reduction in costs and increased call center capacity.

This award marks the fifth consecutive Speech Technology win for TuVox, following the “2007 Implementation Award” for Telecom New Zealand, the “2006 Most Innovative Solution” award for the TuVox Perfect Router deployment at Canon USA, the “Best Speech Application Award” in 2005 and the Speech Solutions CHALLENGE II Usability victory in 2004.

“Recipients of the Speech Technology magazine’s Speech Industry Awards are recognized for accomplishments that stand out from the crowd,” says David Myron, editorial director of Speech Technology magazine. “They have distinguished themselves through their individual accomplishments, service to the industry and the implementation of truly innovative new applications using speech technology.”

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.

Driving and any other activity shouldn’t go together because it’s really not multitasking but “distracted driving.”

Yet in our busy lives today, we are all trying to squeeze out that extra few minutes while we are driving. For example, while driving to work,

I want to make my credit card payment since it is already overdue by a day

or the stock market is crashing and I need to enter my order to cover my 1,450 cubes (QQQQ) short position?

or I am trying to find the nearest office products store to buy the special lamp we need for our LCD projector

Frequently, when I reach my credit card provider or my stock broker or my favorite office products store on the phone, I am served by the so-called all-efficient DTMF-IVR. “Thanks for calling (Your) Bank credit card. To ensure quality service and accuracy, your call will be recorded. Please enter your 21-digit account number followed by the # sign now…..” Now, if talking on a mobile phone without a hands-free device is considered distracted driving, I think keying in information using “touch-tone” while driving would rate as extremely dangerous! And considering that mobile phone keyboards continue to shrink in size – its almost impossible to key in numbers accurately while driving!

In California, beginning July 1, we all have to use hands-free devices – no more Touch-Tone while driving! Click here for more information.

I think businesses that serve me and you – our credit card bank, our stock broker and our office products store have a golden opportunity to help us here. Adding natural language speech automation to the contact center can serve us anytime (24 x 7), anywhere; provide a pleasant caller experience; and enable the service in a manner where we don’t need to key in information, we can just speak it.

That’s why I say “Don’t Touch-Tone and Drive, Just Speak It!”