Cloud Computing for Call Center Applications - The New ASP Model?

With moves by Amazon and Microsoft to provide companies cloud computing technology, I am wondering why there haven't been companies taking the next step to create application packages out of those clouds for the call center.

For example, here is a great list of reasons to have your IVR in the cloud from a hosted provider:

Why Consider The Cloud For IVR?
So why should you consider pushing your IVR applications out into the cloud? Talk to any provider of IVR hosting and several key themes emerge:

Scalability — With traditional IVR solutions, you have limitations related to the number of servers and lines you have in your facility. With IVR in the cloud, those are issues for your hosting provider. If necessary, you can scale massively to address seasonal concerns or other events. You can quickly add “lines” and capacity on demand. With some cloud-based providers, you may need to contact them to add capacity while in other cases that capacity may just automatically be added without you having to do a thing.

Deployment Speed — With cloud-based IVR, deploying IVR applications is no longer an issue of provisioning servers or adding lines to your telephony system. You simply upload your applications to your hosting provider, connect that application to inbound phone numbers or outbound calling —and start taking calls.
Ease Of Experimentation — Because of the deployment speed and the lack of need for equipment, it is extremely easy to “experiment” with new IVR applications. Want to try out a new call flow? A new application? It's easy to do. Want to see changes to your application happen in “real time”? Want to instantly deploy a prototype for people to try out? Again, the cloud makes all this easy.
Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery — With traditional IVR systems, what happens if you have some kind of natural disaster that impacts the office where the IVR servers are located? What if the proverbial backhoe slices through the network connection to that office? One of the strengths of cloud-based IVR is that providers typically have massively distributed and redundant networks that are specifically designed to always be there and to be able to survive these type of situations. With the right provider, you can be very sure that your IVR applications will be available to answer customer calls.

Cost Reduction — A key benefit of cloud-based IVR is, of course, reduced cost. With no equipment to purchase, there are basically no major up-front costs. By pushing the IVR applications out into a provider's network, the major IT costs are on the provider's end. You are really left with just usage costs.

Why just limit this to IVR? Why not have a full suite that covers all channels, like chat, Knowledgebase, email and CRM? It seems that there is a new opportunity for best of breed providers to team up with the cloud providers to create a new class of applications. Perhaps we will see new offerings coming out of some consolidations due to market conditions.

Airlines now getting award from GetHuman

The first group of companies have been given recognition by GetHuman in the airline business.

"The airlines that are listed below have earned membership in the gethuman Great Customer Service Club by providing superior customer service. Out of over 30 airlines that are listed on the gethuman web site, these elite airlines are the only ones that have received the votes of consumers testifying to the high quality of customer service that they are providing.

We congratulate these fine airlines that have earned membership in the GetHuman Great Customer Service Club and encourage them to continue to provide excellent customer service. (http://www.gethuman.com/GCSC_Airlines.htm)"

The winners are:

• Alaska Airlines
• JetBlue
• Southwest
• Hawaiian
• Virgin Atlantic
  

GetHuman Great Customer Service Club - Banking

If you haven't already noticed, GetHuman is now focusing on the stars of great customer service. This website mostly known for helping consumers find ways directly to humans, is now using it's consumer driven rating and ranking engine to help show the best.

The first vertical that they have started to recognize is the banking sector.

"The banks that are listed below have earned membership in the gethuman Great Customer Service Club by providing superior customer service. Out of over 30 banks that are listed on the gethuman web site, these elite banks are the only ones that have received the votes of consumers testifying to the high quality of customer service that they are providing.

We congratulate these fine banks that have earned membership in the gethuman Great Customer Service Club and encourage them to continue to provide excellent customer service." (read more)

The banks listed include:

• Commerce Bank
• Frost Bank
• RBC Royal Bank
• First Direct

What we don't see is what the user feedback was to raise these companies to this stature. Also it would be nice to see how often this category will be ranked.

Even though this is a first for GetHuman, it is still a step in the right direction of encouraging great customer service.

Customer-Focused Self-Service Not an Oxymoron

The key difference between centers that fail and those that succeed is that the former tend to focus more on contact economics, while the latter tend to focus on customer experiences, says Ken Landoline, program manager with Yankee Group’s Enterprise Research group.

“Self-service investments focused solely on cost-reduction benefits are no longer a competitive differentiator. Improving the customer experience is now the goal of leading centers. When implemented properly, self-service can be a win-win solution for the customer and for the enterprise.”...

Explore “guided speech” IVR. Regardless of how much effort the center puts into making self-service engaging and user-friendly, there will be the occasional glitch here and there, or customers who don’t feel quite ready to let go of agents’ hands entirely. In such cases, most centers make it easy for callers to opt out of the IVR and reach a live agent who can help them with the rest of the call.

The latest trend takes a much more proactive and dynamic approach to assisting customers who embark on a self-service transaction. “Guided speech” IVR —a.k.a., guided IVR, agent-assisted IVR, hybrid IVR, et al. — combines the technological potency of advanced speech applications with, when necessary, the human intelligence and understanding of live agents. In centers that use guided speech IVR, designated agents serve as invisible IVR guides —assisting the center’s speech application with recognition on an as-needed basis...

Read More

Don't give your customers hammers

Last October, a 75-year-old Manassas woman who got so fed up with her cable company and their automated phone system she that she attacked their office with a hammer.

Here's hoping that you never come to that. But if hearing things like, "please select from the following six options," makes your cringe then ABC 7/NewsChannel 8 is on your side with tip to help you get past the automation and get to the human.

"(The automated phone systems) are setup to save money as a cost saving device, they are not set up for ease of use or even to help customers in many cases," explained Voice Automation Analyst Walter Rolandi.

(source)

Hybrid Hopes

Walter Rolandi writes about hybrid architectures for IVR:

For those considering speech-rec technologies in their call centers, the first step is to understand that it is not safe to assume the technology will approach 100 percent accuracy in recognizing human utterances in a deployed speech-enabled application. So, what can those considering a move into speech realistically expect?

Many variables can affect the accuracy rate of a recognizer and great variation can be observed; most telephony-based speech-enabled systems obtain around 82 percent to 84 percent overall accuracy. This means that the average user will experience one or two recognition failures for every 10 utterances that he makes. Alone, an accuracy rate in the low-to-mid 80 percent range might seem acceptable, but most users would find that level unacceptable when considering the cumulative effect of recognition failures. In a nutshell, just two or three recognition errors during an IVR interaction can evoke a seemingly unwarranted emotional response on the user's part--and it doesn't take many mistakes to get a user angry.

Unfortunately, some of the most severe usability problems of speech-enabled systems result from speech recognition failures. The solution is hybrid architectures--it is now possible to remove all of the experience of speech failure from a speech-enabled IVR.

Voice solutions provider Spoken Communications supports a hybrid architecture in which the speech recognizer is backed up by a human who can monitor four or more interactions at once. The human guide or assistant does nothing during the interaction; most of time the recognizer is likely to get things right. However, the guide is alerted in cases where the recognizer is uncertain of what the user said... Read More

Tags:
Spoken, Call Center, IVR

Meeting GetHuman's Core Principals with Guided Technology

Let's take a look at the GetHuman core principals and talk about how new thinking and the Spoken Guided technology can actually provide a great customer experience for all customers:

GETHUMAN PRINCIPALS and HOW TO MAKE THEM WORK IN A CALL CENTER

• Humans first - In cases where a human is available, a human should quickly answer the call and determine the caller's need. If appropriate, the human can offer a self-service option to accomplish tasks and thereby merely act as a natural language interface to the system's Main Menu. Callers who prefer to use automation will elect to do so. Those requiring or otherwise preferring human assistance will have it.

How to make this work: Use a Guided Self-Service option. In Guided Self-Service every call, by definition, is answered and monitored by a human. The human just happens to be totally aided by automation, but they still have control over the call. So, you could answer every call with "How may I help you?" and have the combination of automation and human get the caller to the right place every time.

• Make it easy - The system should be so easy, convenient and efficient to use that people will willingly choose to use it. As a rule of thumb, such systems should permit the user to accomplish tasks faster than by interaction with a human.

How to make this work: Have you ever given your credit card number to a live agent who wasn't paying attention? My record for repeating my credit card number is 4 times to a live agent. If you tell a machine the "accurate" information once and the combination of technology and human agent assistance will get it right every time, without re-prompting the customer. Also, it is easier to just talk naturally, so Guided system allows natural speech, un-constrained sentences - since there is a live agent to provide context to the automation.

• Efficient prompts - No prompt content should be included unless it improves efficiency of task completion for the user. "Legalese" should not be included unless it is absolutely required by law. Cliche' phrases, which have become meaningless to consumers due to overuse and lack of trust of phone systems, should be avoided. Examples include: "Your call is important to us." "Please listen carefully, as our menu options have changed." "You can access our website to answer most questions."

How to make this work: The easiest way to ask a question is to mimic a live agent. Live agents know the best way to get the information they are looking for. Automation systems by themselves cannot handle open ended replies from callers very well. In a Guided environment all the responses have a live agent backup to provide help.

• Systems are not humans - Automated systems that try to sound human can be patronizing to consumers. When a consumer calls with a serious issue, they do not want to be greeted by overly friendly and cheery personas. Avoid using personas such as these that will annoy callers.

How to make this work: Using a Guided approach allows for a smoother interaction, because it just "gets it". This can be used with or without a persona.

• Listen to your customers - Regularly survey users on call quality. Respond to frequently heard complaints in a public, visible forum, indicating what you are changing to address the frustration. Organizations should use this data to trend improvement over time, to bonus call center executives, to impact support representatives' compensation and training, and to benchmark against the industry.

How to make this work: The Guided approach allows you to listen to customers in real-time, fix their problems, and provide feedback to the system on what should be fixed so it doesn't happen again.

• Logical flow - Self-service applications should have logical flow. For example, it is unacceptable to obtain a caller's account number, and then ask if he/she would like to open an account.

How to make this work: Live call scripts are very good and have been optimized over thousands of calls. A Guided approach allows an organization to just use the best parts of live scripts to handle calls, since each call has a live attendant when needed to provide help.

For more information about Guide technology, contact Spoken Communications at www.spoken.com

Solution to gethuman standard - making it really work with Guided Self-Service

In an article by Ian Jacobs (Analyst at Frost & Sullivan) titled, "Gethuman? Get Real." on DestinationCRM (read original here), he asserts that all callers should not be treated equally. His argument is based on the "Core Principals" that define the GetHuman standard for handling callers in a call center.

Ian writes,

"If companies treat every customer equally, customers are actually the ones who suffer in the long run. Companies that do not treat their preeminent customers better than the workaday customers will soon lose those more profitable customers, and that would be the start of a downward trend."

I agree with Ian, that if companies are going to stick with old technology and ideas then they are forced to meet out service in this way. However, if a company truly wants to be competetive, then they should make every effort to seek out new ideas and methods to lure customers away from competitors who stick with old ideas.

Let's take a look at the GetHuman core principals and talk about how new thinking and Spoken's Guided technology can actually provide a great customer experience for all customers:

GETHUMAN PRINCIPALS and HOW TO MAKE THEM WORK IN A CALL CENTER

• Humans first - In cases where a human is available, a human should quickly answer the call and determine the caller's need. If appropriate, the human can offer a self-service option to accomplish tasks and thereby merely act as a natural language interface to the system's Main Menu. Callers who prefer to use automation will elect to do so. Those requiring or otherwise preferring human assistance will have it.

How to make this work: Use a Guided Self-Service option. In Guided Self-Service every call, by definition, is answered and monitored by a human. The human just happens to be totally aided by automation, but they still have control over the call. So, you could answer every call with "How may I help you?" and have the combination of automation and human get the caller to the right place every time.

• Make it easy - The system should be so easy, convenient and efficient to use that people will willingly choose to use it. As a rule of thumb, such systems should permit the user to accomplish tasks faster than by interaction with a human.

How to make this work: Have you ever given your credit card numer to a live agent who wasn't paying attention? My record for repeating my credit card number is 4 times to a live agent. If you tell a machine the "accurate" information once and the combination of technology and human agent assistance will get it right every time, without re-prompting the customer. Also, it is easier to just talk naturally, so Guided system allows natural speech, un-constrained sentences - since there is a live agent to provide context to the automation.

• Efficient prompts - No prompt content should be included unless it improves efficiency of task completion for the user. "Legalese" should not be included unless it is absolutely required by law. Cliché phrases, which have become meaningless to consumers due to overuse and lack of trust of phone systems, should be avoided. Examples include: "Your call is important to us." "Please listen carefully, as our menu options have changed." "You can access our website to answer most questions."

How to make this work: The easiest way to ask a question is to mimic a live agent. Live agents know the best way to get the information they are looking for. Automation systems by themselves cannot handle open ended replies from callers very well. In a Guided environment all the responses have a live agent backup to provide help.

• Systems are not humans - Automated systems that try to sound human can be patronizing to consumers. When a consumer calls with a serious issue, they do not want to be greeted by overly friendly and cheery personas. Avoid using personas such as these that will annoy callers.

How to make this work: Using a Guided approach allows for a smoother interaction, because it just "gets it". This can be used with or without a persona.

• Listen to your customers - Regularly survey users on call quality. Respond to frequently heard complaints in a public, visible forum, indicating what you are changing to address the frustration. Organizations should use this data to trend improvement over time, to bonus call center executives, to impact support representatives' compensation and training, and to benchmark against the industry.

How to make this work: The Guided approach allows you to listen to customers in real-time, fix their problems, and provide feedback to the system on what should be fixed so it doesn't happen again.

• Logical flow - Self-service applications should have logical flow. For example, it is unacceptable to obtain a caller's account number, and then ask if he/she would like to open an account.

How to make this work: Live call scripts are very good and have been optimized over thousands of calls. A Guided approach allows an organization to just use the best parts of live scripts to handle calls, since each call has a live attendant when needed to provide help.

The Cost of Error in Your IVR to Increase by 40%

What does it cost every time a caller opts out of your IVR? You may need to brace yourself and your staffing budgets for 2007 and 2008. The Federal Minimum Wage hike approved by Congress this week could now make that 40% more expensive every time it happens.

What's the Problem?
Why is the cost of failure in call automation a problem to begin with? Automation in the call center today is really the opposite of what it should be. On one hand companies employ minimum wage (or higher wage) workers to answer routine and mundane questions. On the other hand you have sophisticated technology, software and hardware resources trying to figure out what humans are talking about.

It really should be the other way around. Most of the reasons for callers to opt out in the first place is confidence. One of the top requested call center IVR features by the GetHuman.com survey participants is "If the system is having trouble understanding me, connect me to a human."

Where there is a gap there is an opportunity
The opportunity is evident from any of the experiences we've had at the local grocery chain store or at Home Depot(tm) in the self-service checkout lane. The self checkout process works most of the time, but without the cashier attending 4 kiosks or more and watching for small problems that pop up from time to time, then it wouldn't. These small errors in the process result from wrong reactions to the interface by the customer, environmental problems with the hardware, or transactions that are too complex. If these errors were not recoverable at the time of transaction, then the cost of the error would be "opting out" to a one-on-one checkout with a cashier, increasing labor, wait times and decreasing confidence in the automation.

The opportunity in the call center environment is to provide a similar experience in the IVR, where a call center agent comes to the aid of the caller when they need help and then lets automation take over when they don't. This blending of automation and agent now provides for some very interesting efficiencies.

How do I lower my cost of error?
Spoken Communications provides call centers a secret weapon in the fight against the cost of error in automation. Spoken provides the only solution for call centers that has fully integrated the call center agent and speech technology together.

Spoken's Guided Speech IVR(tm) provides a self-service platform where callers are less likely to opt out because of common problems in IVRs. Call center agents handle multiple calls- silently and simultaneously while providing discreet assistance to callers in automation. Call centers can now quickly get agent productivity gains of 4x or more, change IVR opt-outs to IVR opt-ins, and guarantee the success of callers experience with self service.

What do call centers say?
Spoken Communications jointly published a Call Center Best Practices White Paper with results of a recent survey conducted by Benchmark Portal. 388 North American call centers were surveyed in a variety of industries including financial services, insurance, telecommunications, health care, technology, consumer products, outsourcing, and transportation. Over 76% of the respondents said that the caller experience would be improved if their IVR technology could successfully model their best agents by starting each call with “How can I help you?” and guaranteeing the appropriate outcome.

For more information on the best practices white paper, contact Spoken Communications at 425-679-0696 or click here

Tags:
Spoken, Call Center, IVR