Your Call Is Important to Us

There's no denying that automating some calls can save a lot of money for a company and enhance service by helping callers get information such as flight times quickly. However, the investment in newer technologies such as speech recognition solutions can range from a few hundred thousand dollars to more than a million dollars, Herrell notes. The ROI from such investments can come quickly if businesses can answer more calls and avoid putting callers on long hold loops. That's why companies such as Red Lion Hotels and Countrywide Financial are investing in voice recognition software and other tools that can automate some of their calls.

Red Lion, with annual revenue of $US165 million in 2005, is installing such software as a way to save money and provide some self-service for customers seeking simple information like a reservation confirmation. It also hopes to handle unexpected surges in call volumes with automation.

The hospitality and leisure chain doesn't outsource its contact centres. It employs its own agents at a primary call centre for hotels in Spokane, Washington, and it has two others for its ticketing operations. But call volumes can be unpredictable, says David Barbieri, Red Lion's CIO. During peak times, customers looking to make a hotel reservation or to buy tickets through the concert and event service would sometimes go into an "on hold" loop if an agent wasn't available. Red Lion was concerned that customers left on hold were likely to hang up and try a competitor.

With Voxify's voice recognition software, Barbieri expects to handle sudden volume peaks without losing calls. "It's important the technology works and works quickly so that customers can have a stress-free interaction," he says.

Barbieri also expects to save $US300,000 a year by installing the software, which will go live in stages this year. He is in the process of developing application program interfaces that will link Voxify's hosted voice recognition service to his two core systems that handle reservation and ticketing transactions. Barbieri estimates that about 75 percent of the company's ticketing calls can be handled with voice recognition in the future. However, callers can request an agent anytime by pressing "0".

Experts agree that voice recognition has advanced to the point where it can be an important part of the call centre. "But the key is not to penalize the caller when they want to talk to a human," says David Brandon, senior technical call centre consultant for Forsythe Solutions Group.

Two years ago voice recognition software replaced touch-tone IVR applications that frustrated callers at Countrywide Financial, a $US15.7 billion specialist in home loans and diversified financial services. The result, says Lior Ofir, Countrywide's first vice president for emerging technology, is improved performance with more customers completing transactions. The software from Nuance has helped the company achieve a return of more than 300 percent on its $US4.5 million investment over the past two years, says Ofir. Still, Ofir knows it's important to give customers the option of speaking with a live person, especially if they're doing a complex transaction.

"We don't believe in hiding the agents," says Ofir, whose group implements new technologies for the company's US call centres. "The goal is to give our customers a clear choice." The new system, he says, recognizes about 300 variations of a request to speak with an agent, ranging from "I want to speak to a human" to "agent". Callers can also press "0" to connect to a customer service representative or the operator. In addition, Ofir says, the system uses voice analysis to detect when callers are having trouble and will then automatically switch them to an agent.