This is the second installment of Dena Skrbina's post on how consumers, having been conditioned by the ATM experience, are expecting an increasingly high level of sophistication from phone self-service.

Advancements in speech recognition have made it possible to provide an automated phone service that is conversational, allowing the user to express their request in a natural way.  Current text-to-speech technology no longer sounds robotic or stilted as in previous decades.  With current speech technologies, today's IVR can truly blend the ease of conversation with the efficiency of automation.

The proliferation of mobile phones adds yet another dimension to consumer expectations for phone self-service. For most consumers, the mobile phone has becoming their central communication device- not just for voice calling, but also for web browsing, text messaging, email, entertainment and social networking.  Users are acquiring more sophisticated phones and becoming proficient with mobile technology.

 For example, texting was once strictly an activity for the younger generation. Today it has become trendy with adults over 45. One study shows that 60 percent of adults over 45 say they're just as likely to use SMS as they are to make voice calls.  In light of the mobile evolution, today's phone self-service not only needs to be convenient and personalized like the ATM, but also needs to be accessible anywhere using the mode that suits the mobile user at any point in time - via voice, touch tone or using a mobile application.

While driving to a lunch appointment, a consumer wants learn if an overdue payment was received.  He dials his bank and says "Was my payment received?"  While dining at a restaurant, that same man might prefer to press the corresponding touchtone menu choices, or even want to send a text message "Was my payment received?" And just before bedtime, he may prefer to use a mobile application to view the answer from his mobile phone screen.  A growing number of today's consumers expect that any self- service task can be accessed in any mode at any time.

So, where is phone self-service heading?  Initially, consumers will expect a wide-scale deployment of natural language understanding for voice interactions.  With the explosion of web and voice search, conversational phone self-service is becoming a must.  Similar to the web, users must be able to express their request in their own words. IVR interactions must use high-quality, conversational text-to-speech. While maintaining simplicity, IVRs must deliver secure access to consumer information, protecting callers' identity using biometric voiceprints.

IVRs today must consider the mobile phone, touch screen and text messaging as extensions of the automated experience.  The phone provides an even more suitable venue for marketing and sales, allowing businesses to make compelling and relevant offers to consumers. In the future, IVRs will become location aware, meaning they can know if the user is in a moving car or happens to be standing two blocks from their bank branch.  The IVR will use location information to provide only the appropriate options, interaction modes and the most relevant marketing offers.

Today both the IVR and the ATM are widely accepted and known for convenience.  ATMs, however, are exceptionally immobile, accessible only by those willing to travel the blocks or miles to the nearest machine.  With explosive trends towards the convenience of anywhere access, there's no doubt mobile phone will become the preferred choice for a wider array of tasks. Your phone might someday even become your own personal ATM, a pocket version of the clunky old machine on the street corner.  Imagine dialing the bank from the comfort of your home and speaking "I'd like to withdraw fifty dollars from savings and post it on my mobile cash card" or using your mobile phone to take a picture of a check and depositing that check image into your savings account.  

Step aside ATM. IVR just might be taking over.