Insight from the Customer Experience Experts

Call costs: self-service vs. agent-assisted. You do the math.

Donald Davis — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 05:01:00 GMT

Did you know that today the cross–industry average cost of a call fully completed through self–service is $.50 or less, compared to an agent assisted transaction which averages $5.50 per call. And in many industries, the cost of an agent handled...(read more)

Cloud computing – the secret weapon that enables massively scalable speech applications

Nuance Expert TIPS — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:11:00 GMT

Cloud computing is beginning to penetrate many industries, including CRM and in particular the interactive voice response (IVR) market. Forrester Research has said that cloud computing is one of the top 15 technology trends to watch in 2010, especially...(read more)

Why you should brand your IVR even though your customers don't call that often

Rebecca — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:16:00 GMT

As a practitioner of Nuance's Voice Identity Program (VIP), I've written about extending corporate brands to the IVR, given webcasts on the topic, and do honestly believe it's a good practice. That's why I'm often surprised by resistance...(read more)

When touchtone automation isn’t good enough

Jeff Foley — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:33:00 GMT

Today thousands of contact centers are saving even more money by increasing call automation and they continue to keep their customers happy. What's their secret? They have designed their automation system around their customers' needs. Overwhelmingly...(read more)

Beam me up Scotty: Will we ever reach the speech recognition capabilities we saw on Star Trek?

Lauren Hodgson — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:20:00 GMT

I've watched speech technology develop for more than 20 years. Like you, I've seen a lot of advances. Trivial by today's standards, some 20 years ago early commercially viable speech recognition systems just recognized yes/no in response to...(read more)

Man vs. Machine: How do people prefer to get customer service?

Nuance Expert TIPS — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:35:00 GMT

Companies worldwide will spend more than $100 billion in customer care in 2009. Despite the significant investment companies are making, consumer satisfaction rates for customer care are extremely low. When it comes to self-service options by phone, a...(read more)

Livin' on a Prayer

Rebecca — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 17:02:00 GMT

Oh, we're half-way there Oh, oh, livin' on a prayer Take my hand; we'll make it I swear Oh, oh, livin' on a prayer - Bon Jovi No, I'm not reminiscing about my junior prom. This Bon Jovi song came up in conversation at work today, as...(read more)

The End of Passwords and PINs: Could Your Voice be the “Spoken Token?”

Nuance Expert TIPS — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 17:06:00 GMT

Imagine you're paying for a purchase with your credit card over the phone through an automated system - how can a "machine" tell if it's really you calling, rather than someone who just stole your wallet? Consumers reported fraud losses...(read more)

Why the Speech Team Hates Business Rule Transfers

Tom Hicks — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:21:00 GMT

Business rule transfers; you know what they are. You have a caller coming into the IVR, making a good faith attempt to self serve, then Wham... they get told "please hold while I forward your call to ..." People building speech-enabled applications...(read more)

True Stories of “WOW”: Customer Experience @ Zappos.com

Ilene Kaminsky — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 00:08:00 GMT

True Stories of "WOW": Customer Experience @ Zappos.com - In preparation for an in-depth analysis of Customer Experience and its connection to customer loyalty and satisfaction, the Nuance Creative Services team decided to take a look at online-based or "non-brick and mortar" companies for best practices. What we found in this true story, are best practices and creative options that can raise the "WOW" factor of your customers' experiences.

...(read more)

Key Tips for Evaluating Analytics Packages (and, Why an “Easy Does It” Approach is Best)

Lauren Hodgson — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 18:52:00 GMT

Analytics are a key tool to help drive improvements in your phone channel - ultimately leading to lower costs, fewer calls to agents, a more "friendly" IVR that callers are happy using, and event helping to effectively measure customer satisfaction.

But choosing the right analytics "package" can be challenging. How do you determine what the business value of an analytics investment will be for your particular situation? And what kind of package should you invest in to prove out that business value?

Let's be honest - vendors want you to commit long-term to using their analytics tool. After all that's their business right? So if there's great business value for you in such a long term commitment, great. But, if you're not sure - here are a few tips for getting started with Analytics and figuring out what their business value is to you.

When evaluating analytics packages (and vendors), consider the following: (Keep in mind that the pricing for each are ballpark amounts, but should include both consulting services and tools.)

Snapshot
As the name implies, this approach takes a snapshot of your data (typically a week or two worth of data), analyzes that data and then provides you with an analysis of how your phone channel is working. You can then use that data to make IVR and/or agent-side improvements. Calendar time for analysis is about 6-12 weeks. And at $75k-$150k, this is the least expensive way to use analytics and still get some actionable results to help improve your call center.
Single Cycle
This approach does everything that a Snapshot approach does, but it also includes another analysis after you make improvements. This ability to measure the same metrics before and after changes allows you to really nail down the business value of your analytics investments and can help you justify any further investments. Calendar time is typically 6-12 weeks for the initial analysis and an additional 4-6 weeks for the follow-up analysis. Ballpark pricing is $150k-$200k
Continuous Improvement
This final approach runs an ongoing set of "Single Cycles," one after another and establishes ongoing trend patterns for your analytics metrics. Although vendor tools typically can show an analytics metrics dashboard in Snapshot or Single Cycle as well, metrics trending over many quarters is only possible with a Continuous Improvement approach. This approach is ideal because you can build it into your company governance process. This allows you to continuously drive improvements into your phone channel based on observed ongoing trends of your Key Performance Indicator metrics. These engagements are typically a one-year contract to deliver about a cycle a quarter. Ballpark price is $400k-$1M.

In my opinion the best approach is to try a Snapshot or Single Cycle to first prove out the business value of an analytics investment. If things go well, you can then consider investing in a 12-month Continuous Improvement engagement. Don't rush into making a long-term investment in a 12-month engagement simply because "it seemed like a good deal" or "it was part of an upgrade" - chances are it will end up as nothing more than "shelfware."

Don't Believe All the Hype

Donald Davis — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:58:00 GMT

Just the other day I was thinking about all of the buzz words and hype that inevitably pop up every couple of years around the latest "new thing" for contact centers.

I have been doing this long enough to remember the TQM craze and how that was going to revolutionize the way we did business. Then came CRM - again changing the landscape of how we interact with customers.

Now, the latest buzz word is "Customer Experience."

First, let me say that "Customer Experience" is not new to the contact center. The most successful contact centers have always fully embraced the idea of happy, loyal customers as invaluable assets. They have always strived to make sure that every interaction with their company meets (and exceeds) their customers expectations.

But as part of the "new" Customer Experience buzz there's now a lot of talk about Web 2.0 and Unified Communications. Unified Communications refers to both real-time and non-real-time delivery of communications based on the preferred method and location of the recipient. While Web 2.0 leads one to believe that customers will be flocking to use things like Twitter, Web chat and other social mediums to interact with companies. These Web 2.0 "hypesters" (my new word) want us to believe that Twitter users will be tweeting with companies and agents as a way to have meaningful customer service interactions.

I have to admit though, I'm just not buying it. Back in the 90s we were told how the universal agent was going to be able to handle Web questions, emails, take voice calls and mix a mean Tom Collins. Although some companies made inroads into realizing this state of nirvana, it has not been the norm and for a lot of good reasons.

Maybe I'm just too old or have heard too many "next big things" that never really lived up to their hype. But what I really think is that I'm one of those people who believes that all that companies need to do is treat customers like they were a critical element to the survival of the company to the exclusion of everything else.

A great "Customer Experience" is achieved by using well-trained agents, relevant technology and good old common sense - to make customers feel meaningful and to provide timely, accurate information to them. That's what makes customers happy with our companies.

Doesn't it make sense that if we provide intuitive customer service channels that are accessible, usable and relevant to customers' situations that we wouldn't have to hype the latest and greatest "new trend" to try and hold market share?

Excuse Me Dear, But Your Stock is Up and Your Package has Arrived

Rebecca — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:03:00 GMT

I was chatting with a colleague yesterday, and he was excited about the evolution of Bluetooth devices – specifically how they could eventually become a stand-alone channel for outbound communications from companies to their customers, whispering sweet nothings like stock quotes and package delivery updates into their ears. After I got over my fear of wifi-induced brain damage, I realized that I probably would wear a Bluetooth earpiece if this happened.

Of course there would have to be an "Important Data Delivery" mode on these devices which users could toggle on and off -- I'm not up for hearing “Darling kiss me” in one ear and “NUAN is up 4 points to $15.23” in the other. But imagine turning 4 or more steps into one!?!

For me, a spontaneously speaking voice would be replacement for: 1) hearing my ringing phone, 2) finding it, 3) telling my toddler for the fiftieth time that day that the phone is Mommy’s and not hers, 4) answering the phone, 5) giving my toddler her fifty-first reminder, 6) telling the outbound application that I am indeed a human being, and 7) finally listening to the information.

That all said, such a day is still some years away. The reason I bothered to mention it, however, is because our customers need to know that we at Nuance aren’t just thinking about what’s possible today, tomorrow, next month, or just next year. We’re busy trying to fathom, influence, and optimize the future of communication. And when members of our Business Consulting Services team sit down with you for a strategic planning session, we’re willing to go as far out of the box as you want us to.

Speech Self-Service: Which Tasks Do I Do First? (Part 2)

Tom Hicks — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 14:46:00 GMT

In my last post I talked about two important rules of thumb that we use to identify transactions that would be good candidates for speech automation self service – Following the Traffic and How Long is a Typical Call. The benefits are high. Choosing the right transactions will deliver the highest savings and customer satisfaction. But, choosing the wrong functions will waste resources and could cause customer satisfaction problems.

Now let's take a look at the technology and the business considerations:

What Can the Technology Do?
To be honest, speech automation finds recognizing email IDs very challenging (but it will come eventually). If you have a high volume transaction, and it's short and repetitive, check with us to get an idea of how well the technology can handle that transaction. We have created amazing applications, like name and address, that you might not think would work well but they do. Understanding the technical feasibility needs to be included in the business use as well. While speech may not provide 95%+ success rates on a given task, that might be okay for your specific business needs. For example, if I’m sending a contract letter out to a customer, I may need accuracy higher than speech can provide on the “name” field. But in many other cases, the only people seeing the customer names are agents, so a minor misspelling would be tolerable. Understanding what the technology can do relative to your business needs is an important consideration.

What Are Other Business Constraints?
We see a good number of cases where a transaction has all the potential of becoming a successful self-service call, but other “business reasons” override this automation and the call end up going to an agent. In most cases, there is a well thought out reason – the caller will be provided a sales opportunity, they are behind on payments, etc. Basically, the business wants to speak to that person, so automation is skipped either for specific callers or the entire function is not automated. We see this in sales functions, dispute cases and complaints, etc. You know your business and the value of speaking with the caller – you’ll need to do the analysis on whether this outweighs the possible benefits from automation.

By starting with these simple rules of thumb, you can start laying out your plans to bring self-service benefits to your company and your customers.

The Whole Enchilada (or, The Value of Whole-Call Recordings)

Rebecca — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:34:00 GMT

One type of Business Consulting project I frequently participate in is called an IVR Optimization. During these engagements, we do our best to identify barriers to an application's success...however that may be defined. Our research includes:

interviews with company stakeholders
reviewing system logs & reports
placing test calls
monitoring caller interactions (when possible)

I want to talk a little about the last bullet. On the whole, most of the companies we've done Optimizations for have had easy access to caller/agent recordings. This is a great resource for identifying automatable tasks, or for understanding why callers reach an agent for tasks that are already automated. We'll hear comments like "I just want to make sure the payment went through" (design flaw) or "I tried to use the system but it sent me to you" (business rule issue) or "I hate those automated phone applications" (unfortunate reality).

What's surprising, though, is how rarely we get access to whole-call recordings. Instead, we're left with logs and reports to figure out what's going on in the IVR. But even when those logs include speech data, which obviously doesn't happen when we're optimizing a DTMF application, there are so many stones left uncovered with this kind of information.

To be honest, it's kind of fun to listen to whole-call recordings because you can hear callers talking in the background, such as while they're on hold. A few gems that come to mind include the caller who was overheard saying "I'll bet I can convince this agent to give me a refund if I start crying..." and the one who swore up a storm when he thought nobody was listening but never had the courage to tell the agent he was even a little bit upset. But this important research tool is about much more than eavesdropping. Here is a sampling of important caller experience issues that can only be discovered through whole-call recordings:

Misroutes
It's very enlightening to compare what callers tell the IVR they want to do with what they tell agents they want to do. Consider the caller who chooses the "question about my bill" option and gets a line-by-line description of what each item in the bill represents, but what she really wanted was to dispute a charge. Or what about the caller who chose "discuss a lost or stolen phone" when he actually wanted to complain that his replacement phone wasn't working right? Both of these situations could be fixed by subtle changes to the menu options, and would never have been identified without whole-call recordings.

Audio issues
If you rely on speech recognizer logs and utterance capture alone, you'll never know if there are underlying platform issues that are preventing speech from reaching the recognition engine in the first place. That's what we found in one engagement with whole-call recordings available. Callers were talking and talking, and the system kept replying "Sorry, I didn't hear anything." Based on traditional data, this looked like a working system that was appropriately throwing no-speech errors...but not when we turned to whole-call recordings.

Non-players
Not all failures to cooperate with an IVR are because callers don't like automation. For example, listening to whole-call recordings into a healthcare provider line demonstrated that many failures to respond to a prompt correlated to another phone ringing in the doctor's office. Rather than listening to the quick snippets of background noise that make it into the processed audio the speech recognizer gets, whole-call recordings give a more complete picture of the kinds of distractions that accompany typical customer calls.

If you want your IVR to truly be "optimized," then please adopt a whole-call recording solution...or let us craft one for you as part of a project with Nuance Business Consulting. I can't tell you what we'll find, but rest assured we've never before walked away empty handed.