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Article : Speech-Enabled IVRs - Technology At Its Best

IVRs are not new. Heck, they've been around for a decade now. Ever since increasingly more customer interactions have been handled over the telephone, rather than in brick and mortar locations, customer-facing businesses have sought to apply more efficient and effective means of handling these interactions. For years, the IVR has been key in furthering automated telephonic customer service.

What is new is the growing realization among call center IVR users that, though speech recognition software is more expensive that traditional IVR software, it is well worth the investment. While long development times and high costs had once been obstacles to the widespread utilization of speech-enabled IVRs, this condition is no longer the case. Today, as much as 50 – 60 percent of the application is pre-packaged by industry applications, leaving a smaller portion that requires customization. This has resulted in achieving returns on investments (ROIs) being decreased from 12 to 15 months to more like 4 to 6 months.

Study Objective
Recognizing the growing popularity of speech-enabled IVR solutions, BenchmarkPortal, in association with Purdue University's Center for Customer-Driven Quality, conducted a customer experience study on this topic in May 2005, sponsored by the Edify Corporation, a provider of speech recognition applications.

Our main objective in conducting the study was to document best practices in IVR speech solutions in call centers. We set out to analyze the impact of speech recognition on the operational efficiency and effectiveness in comparison to touch-tone-only IVR operations. We also wanted to analyze the customer satisfaction level of call centers that employ speech-enabled IVR solutions as compared with call centers without speech-enabled IVRs. Specifically, we theorized that documentation of these best practices would ensure companies got the most out of their speech-enabled IVR deployments.

Methodology
We created a survey instrument to collect IVR management practices information using consistent criteria. The survey was fielded to our International Benchmarking Community of thousands of call center professionals in 43 different industries worldwide. Sixty-one call center professionals responded to our in-depth survey.

Based upon the call center professionals' responses to an initial set of questions that qualified the size of the organization and its call volume, participants were guided to one of three survey branches that included:

  • Speech-enabled call centers,

  • Touch-tone based call centers that plan to implement speech solutions within the next 12 months, and

  • Touch-tone based call centers that currently do not have plans to implement speech.

Demographics
The call center professionals who participated in this survey represent a broad cross-section of the entire call center industry. The average number of full-time equivalent agents in call centers participating in this survey is around 150.

Best Practice Recommendations
We define "best practices" as those planned workflow delivery steps that have been proven to achieve the highest effectiveness and efficiency for a given process. We uncover best practices by gathering targeted information on specific call center processes from a wide variety of centers. We collect our data through the use of comprehensive surveys.

Seldom is one call center doing better in all areas than all others. More typically, effective centers are doing one or more things really well but may be unaware of the creativity and effectiveness of others. Our research discovers the best practices and makes them known to those interested in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of their center.

The following are best practices we discovered via this study:

  • It is considered best practice for call center leaders to benchmark their centers' call-handling statistics before and after the implementation of a speech solution. This practice enables leaders to determine the impact that the solution achieved, and permits them to more accurately calculate the solution's return on investment (ROI).
     

  • The choice of a speech solution vendor should not be dictated by cost alone. The following criteria are also important to consider when selecting a vendor:

  • Vendor's ability to fit call center's needs

  • Simplicity of use

  • Vendor references

  • Reliability

  • Best practice dictates that call center leaders should consider "an increase in caller satisfaction" as the primary deliverable of an effective speech solution. We recommend that leaders require vendors to provide verifiable data that illustrates how their speech solutions increased caller satisfaction within call centers that purchased their solution.
     

  • Best practice dictates that call centers that utilize speech solutions collect caller satisfaction data and monitor for caller satisfaction of their "virtual agent."
     

  • When calculating the cost of adding a speech solution to an existing IVR, it is recommended that call center leaders take into consideration the cost savings a well implemented and maintained solution will deliver. Our study documents a dramatic, positive impact on call center metrics, ranging from a 19% to a 51% increase, following the implementation of an IVR speech solution. These metrics include IVR success rate, customer input of account information, and percentage of customers using self-service (as noted in the following chart).

  • We recommend that an IVR speech solution be considered as a viable initiative that will likely reduce the average amount of time it takes an agent to handle a call. Participant responses indicated that the call length for agents dropped by 16%, while the average length of IVR calls increased by 10% (see the next chart).

  • It is considered best practice for call centers that utilize speech-enabled IVRs to offer an automatic help or coaching option. This option will likely increase the number of system users over time and produce higher caller satisfaction results.
     

  • It is considered best practice to track, measure, and respond to the customers' perceptions of your speech-enabled IVR. We recommend that call center leaders also track:

  • Call flow

  • Success rates

  • Voluntary opt-outs

  • Hang-ups

  • Routing errors

  • Involuntary opt-outs

  • We recommend that leaders in speech-enabled call centers market their IVR technology to their customers and educate their customers on its features and benefits in order to ensure and increase the acceptance rate among present and future users of it.

Wrapping It Up
Those call center leaders and industry experts who are familiar with speech-enabled IVRs will likely not be surprised by this study's resulting data, which revealed that, while only 24% of respondents indicated that their call centers currently utilize speech-enabled IVR systems, a full 63% will have a speech–enabled IVR in their call center within the next 12 months. This speaks to the positive impact of speech recognition on operational efficiency and effectiveness.

Arguably, the most telling endorsement for speech recognition can be discerned by comparing leadership satisfaction levels within speech-enabled IVR call centers as contrasted with the satisfaction levels of those call center leaders whose IVRs are not currently speech-enabled. More than 65 percent of respondents to our survey who were in speech-enabled IVR call centers indicated that their satisfaction level with their IVR was satisfied or very satisfied. Compare that to less than 44 percent of respondents to our survey who were in non-speech-enabled IVR call centers that indicated that they were satisfied or very satisfied with their IVR system. Further, while less than 13 percent of speech-enabled IVR center leaders indicated that they were dissatisfied with their IVRs, 30 percent of non-speech-enabled IVR center leaders indicated that they were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. For those looking for a resounding validation of speech recognition's value, there you have it!


About BenchmarkPortal:
Company LogoBenchmarkPortal is the source for Contact Center best practices with our Benchmarking, Education and Consulting services. Our mission is to help you run your center more efficiently and effectively. We are still continually growing our database, already the world's largest, for call center metrics by conducting data drives twice a year to have the most up to date information in the industry.
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