IVR

 IVR systems both DTMF and speech recognition are one of those "we all hate but we all depend on" technologies.

Let's be truthful: most customers including ourselves prefer to talk to live agents than to interact either via touch or voice prompts or keying in words with machines no matter how " intelligent" they are.

Yet IVR systems, when set up and programmed right can be acceptable to and in some cases welcomed by customers if they permit to get the information and services they need quickly, easily and accurately. And there are new tools such as outbound IVR notifications, also known as outbound IVR, and IVVR (interactive voice and video response) that can add value to the customers' experience.

CosmoCom is a leading-edge supplier of multichannel customer interaction technologies including inbound and outbound IVR. TMCnet recently interviewed Steve Kaish (News - Alert), CosmoCom Vice President, Product Management and Marketing on IVR and IVVR trends and development.

TMCnet: What trends are you seeing in the use of IVR via contact centers and what are the drivers?

SK: There are three main trends I see:

1.  As business becomes increasingly fast-paced and competitive, call centers are making more modifications more often to their IVR to respond to those changes;

2.  As self-service and sophisticated routing applications become more pervasive, integration with multiple back-end systems is becoming increasingly common and important;

3. The need for business agility and lower operations costs has made seamless integration between the IVR and the rest of the contact center infrastructure (ACD, CTI (News - Alert) services) more important.  When the IVR flow and ACD routing rules are managed in a single interface, and the IVR collected info is automatically part of CTI info for screen pops, the cost of and complexity of initial implementation and day-to-day operations is dramatically reduced.

TMCnet: Discuss DTMF IVR versus speech recognition. What role do you see each of them? Or do you see speech recognition gradually supplanting DTMF? What customer interaction types do you forecast being managed by DTMF? Speech rec?

SK: DTMF will still maintain the lion's share of routing applications due to its economics. Continued focus on good design practices and appropriate use of the technology will continue to provide good payback.

Advances in speech recognition and application design will help speech-enabled IVR continue to grow for self-service applications and routing applications where significant amounts of data are gathered in the IVR prior to routing. However, its adoption for self-service apps is being slowed because those who find it most acceptable - the younger generation - prefer to do self-service business online rather than via the telephone, while the older generation still often chafes at anything but live human interactions.

TMCnet: Outbound IVR, chiefly customer notifications is emerging as new interaction tool. Discuss its purposes, benefits, implementation challenges and application deployment best practices. Do you see it supplementing or supplanting other channels and if so which ones and why? Where does it fit in the interaction spectrum?

SK: Outbound IVR is among the fastest growing apps in the contact center space today. Simple applications such as appointment reminders, political advertising, and telemarketing abound. More sophisticated uses enable automated interaction between the caller and the IVR, such as acknowledging an appointment or completing a survey.

The most sophisticated applications provide the " opt out to agent" capability, enabling the customer to request an immediate connection to a customer service representative (CSR (News - Alert)) [agent]. The CSR needs full screen pop that includes standard customer information and any additional information collected from the customer if there was first an automated interaction. For sure, some of these applications supplant traditional outbound dialing by a CSR. However, they also enable a whole new set of applications that previously may not have been cost-effective to do with live personnel, thus contributing net growth to the contact center industry.

TMCnet: IVVR is beginning to appear as a new interactive solution. Outline its purposes, benefits, implementation challenges and deployment best practices. Do you see it being widely adopted and if so why and in which roles? Where does it fit in the customer interaction spectrum?

SK: IVVR is but one component of video contact center applications. At CosmoCom (News - Alert), we see the current focus for video communications solutions in niche applications where video adds significant value compared to a simple voice interaction. Such applications abound in the healthcare market. By enabling health care providers to engage in video interactions for patients at their homes, we wind up with more frequent interactions between patients and providers, and at a lower cost.  This can improve the overall quality of care and patient satisfaction, while simultaneously assisting to meet the increasing pressure to better control health care costs. IVVR can be used to offer instructions to patients, either as a self-service application or while being coached remotely by a care provider. Another area where video is crucial to the interaction is in signing to hearing-impaired callers. IVVR makes traditional IVR accessible to the hearing impaired.

The adoption of video as a " nice-to-have" complement to traditional IVR applications has the greater long-term market potential. [Yet it is] hampered by concerns for CSR " appearance" requirements, as well as privacy concerns for both the CSRs and the callers.

Let's be truthful: most customers including ourselves prefer to talk to live agents than to interact either via touch or voice prompts or keying in words with machines no matter how " intelligent" they are.

 

Yet IVR systems, when set up and programmed right can be acceptable to and in some cases welcomed by customers if they permit to get the information and services they need quickly, easily and accurately. And there are new tools such as outbound IVR notifications, also known as outbound IVR, and IVVR (interactive voice and video response) that can add value to the customers' experience.

 

CosmoCom is a leading-edge supplier of multichannel customer interaction technologies including inbound and outbound IVR. TMCnet recently interviewed Steve Kaish, CosmoCom Vice President, Product Management and Marketing on IVR and IVVR trends and development.

 

TMCnet:  What trends are you seeing in the use of IVR via contact centers and what are the drivers?

SK: There are three main trends I see:

1.   As business becomes increasingly fast-paced and competitive, call centers are making more modifications more often to their IVR to respond to those changes;

2.   As self-service and sophisticated routing applications become more pervasive, integration with multiple back-end systems is becoming increasingly common and important;

3.  The need for business agility and lower operations costs has made seamless integration between the IVR and the rest of the contact center infrastructure (ACD, CTI services) more important.  When the IVR flow and ACD routing rules are managed in a single interface, and the IVR collected info is automatically part of CTI info for screen pops, the cost of and complexity of initial implementation and day-to-day operations is dramatically reduced.

TMCnet:    Discuss DTMF IVR versus speech recognition. What role do you see each of them? Or do you see speech recognition gradually supplanting DTMF? What customer interaction types do you forecast being managed by DTMF? Speech rec?

SK:   DTMF will still maintain the lion's share of routing applications due to its economics. Continued focus on good design practices and appropriate use of the technology will continue to provide good payback.

Advances in speech recognition and application design will help speech-enabled IVR continue to grow for self-service applications and routing applications where significant amounts of data are gathered in the IVR prior to routing. However, its adoption for self-service apps is being slowed because those who find it most acceptable - the younger generation - prefer to do self-service business online rather than via the telephone, while the older generation still often chafes at anything but live human interactions.

TMCnet: Outbound IVR, chiefly customer notifications is emerging as new interaction tool. Discuss its purposes, benefits, implementation challenges and application deployment best practices. Do you see it supplementing or supplanting other channels and if so which ones and why? Where does it fit in the interaction spectrum?

SK:   Outbound IVR is among the fastest growing apps in the contact center space today. Simple applications such as appointment reminders, political advertising, and telemarketing abound. More sophisticated uses enable automated interaction between the caller and the IVR, such as acknowledging an appointment or completing a survey.

 

The most sophisticated applications provide the " opt out to agent" capability, enabling the customer to request an immediate connection to a customer service representative (CSR) [agent]. The CSR needs full screen pop that includes standard customer information and any additional information collected from the customer if there was first an automated interaction. For sure, some of these applications supplant traditional outbound dialing by a CSR. However, they also enable a whole new set of applications that previously may not have been cost-effective to do with live personnel, thus contributing net growth to the contact center industry.

TMCnet: IVVR is beginning to appear as a new interactive solution. Outline its purposes, benefits, implementation challenges and deployment best practices. Do you see it being widely adopted and if so why and in which roles? Where does it fit in the customer interaction spectrum?

SK:  IVVR is but one component of video contact center applications. At CosmoCom, we see the current focus for video communications solutions in niche applications where video adds significant value compared to a simple voice interaction. Such applications abound in the healthcare market. By enabling health care providers to engage in video interactions for patients at their homes, we wind up with more frequent interactions between patients and providers, and at a lower cost.  This can improve the overall quality of care and patient satisfaction, while simultaneously assisting to meet the increasing pressure to better control health care costs. IVVR can be used to offer instructions to patients, either as a self-service application or while being coached remotely by a care provider. Another area where video is crucial to the interaction is in signing to hearing-impaired callers. IVVR makes traditional IVR accessible to the hearing impaired.

 

The adoption of video as a " nice-to-have" complement to traditional IVR applications has the greater long-term market potential. [Yet it is] hampered by concerns for CSR " appearance" requirements, as well as privacy concerns for both the CSRs and the callers.