Tips for Spotting a Customer Need for
Speech-Enabled Call Rounting & Speech-Dialed Directories

By: Larry Lisser, VP-Sales & Marketing, LocusDialog (www.locusdialog.com)

Look for some of these conditions at your clients’ sites: 

1.   Overloaded operator stations?  Check to see what percentage of calls coming in are internal in nature.  To date, industry averages suggests the number is about 35% or higher.  A packaged speech telephony application will divert these calls away from live operators and reduce or avoid incremental live call handling costs.

 

2.   Looking for cost reductions without compromising customer service levels?  Front end speech enabled call routing will transfer calls successfully while allowing callers to use their voice to control the call, 24 hours a day.

 

3.   Implementing a dial plan change?  Speech Dialed directories will eliminate the resource costs inherent in re-training the user population of the new dial plan.

 

4.   Adding Port capacity to an existing auto-attendant/voice mail system?  If any of the existing ports are used to support an auto-attendant application, research a packaged speech telephony solution.  You may end up recommending a similar costing solution that delivers a much higher return.

 

5.   Triaging Calls into a Contact Center through DTMF or live operators?  A packaged speech telephony application can triage calls to the skills-based agent groups or to an IVR application through a voice user interface, all at costs that produce rapid ROI models and improved customer service levels.

 

Speed dialing can also address that “zero out” problem.  Touch tone-based telephone response systems have long since passed the point of positive investment return when deployed to reduce costs and respond to customer service expectations.  Packaged speech telephony systems, however, consistently result in fewer “zero-outs”, whether during or after business hours.  In fact, noted telecom analysts Frost & Sullivan have ascertained that more than half of callers who almost immediately skip a touch-tone system will select to remain connected with speech!  Result? Delighted callers and increased return on telephony investment dollars.

 

Despite an economic climate that was particularly damaging to new technologies the US speech recognition market continued to grow in 2001, according to In-Stat/MDR.  The market, as a whole, continued to embrace speech recognition products in 2001 as a means of lowering costs, providing greater customer service, and launching new, innovative, products.  “We are just on the cusp of a speech recognition revolution,” says Brian Strachman, a Senior Analyst with In-Stat/MDR.

 

INSTAT/MDR – 6/02