Designing self-service solutions that work

"...the success of the speech application allows our agents to concentrate on what they do best – dealing with our customers rather than simply processing payments, whilst improving productivity and enhancing customer experience and service.  Sabio designed the speech application to be as easy as possible for our customers to use, and this has certainly demonstrated itself to be the case, with the volume of customers now using the self-service system far exceeding our initial expectations.” Group Operations Director, BCW Group plc

Voice self-service solutions have grown significantly in popularity with both the contact centre and, more importantly, with consumers. The issues that have been highlighted in recent years have not been with the IVR and speech technology but with the way that these technologies have been designed to be used by the customer.

Any form of auto-attendance or ‘press one for this and press two for that’ just isn’t appropriate anymore. Customers want conversations because they feel happier when dealing with a real person, and agents gain the opportunity to up-sell and cross-sell. But a live agent for every call isn’t always realistic and for simple calls or transactions, an automated solution is totally appropriate.

The key is to understand who your customers are, how they contact you, why they contact you and when they contact you so that you can select the right automation approach to deliver an appropriate and personal customer service. It’s only at this stage that you can start to determine whether a self-service approach will match your customers’ profile or you may only automate one aspect of a call such as identification verification.

Delivering value

Voice self-service has the potential to contribute significant business benefit to many organisations. Using the latest technologies along with a caller-focused design approach, it is now possible to deploy solutions that actually improve caller satisfaction. Speech technologies can be used to automate complete functions, or can be seamlessly integrated with the call centre, allowing customers to use self-service only on appropriate tasks.

Successful voice self-service applications are designed around caller needs. Design should be user-centric, providing easy to use access to supported functionality. The most successful applications demonstrate clear user benefit, often in terms of security, privacy, convenience or cost of service. Along with delivering caller benefits, self-service solutions can also support corporate objectives around providing consistent customer interaction and the projection of a corporate image.

Systems can be deployed to utilise advanced natural language speech recognition, touch-tone (DTMF) or a combination of both. Self-service prompting is provided using pre-recorded audio or synthesised speech (TTS) as required. Access to secure services can be controlled using biometric voiceprint technologies. Whilst well designed voice self-service applications can be beneficial for the customer and the organisation, the introduction of business rules within the application can add a further dimension to the solution, and provide enhanced levels of service and business procedures. Self-service solutions deployed with CTI functionality support seamless call handling, where some or all of the transaction can be automated. This structure supports the provision of caller benefits of automation, without creating inconvenience when call completion with an agent is required.

Reduced cost of service
Voice self-service deployed within a stock trading environment exceeded an automation target of 80% of telephony trades within 5 months of live operation. Trades were executed at discounted cost to the caller when using the self-service system. The reduced handling costs provided operational margin gains for the deploying organisation along with improved customer satisfaction.

Consistent Information Presentation
Applications can be implemented to play information that is often repeated by the agent, such as greeting or compliance statements. This ensures consistent high quality delivery of key information, whilst removing some of the more laborious agent tasks.

Added security
Voice self-service is used to pre validate the caller using speech or DTMF passwords or the latest biometric voice print technology. Callers benefit from enhanced security, whilst there are operational gains from fraud control and reduced agent handling time.

Automation of low value tasks
Self-service solutions can be provided to support low value transactions, such as reporting account balance or updating address information. Callers benefit from convenience, whilst operational costs are reduced.

User Centred Design (UCD)

Customer usability is key when designing and implementing a voice self-service solution. A User Centred Design (UCD) approach enables high levels of user acceptance. The principles of Sabio’s UCD approach are simple: when designing and developing an IVR-based service, we put a great deal of focus on the end-user and their goals, measure empirically how the system is used and perceived, and adopt an interactive design lifecycle that allows for vital adjustments to be made to the system at key stages in the project lifecycle.

With this continuous focus on the end-user, the outcome is a high quality application that meets both your objectives and the needs of your customers.

How Sabio can help you

Successful voice self-service deployments require a combination of good business understanding, user-centric design, advanced technologies and effective systems integration. Sabio is uniquely positioned with a proven track record of successful systems integration together with extensive experience in the delivery of high performance speech solutions in a variety of industry sectors. Sabio can provide:

• Innovative, strategic thinking, allied with a practical delivery capability
  
• Choice of leading IVR, speech recognition (ASR), speech synthesis (TTS) and verification technologies
  
• Full delivery service including consultation, design, implementation, integration, testing, training and support
  
• User Centred Design by specialist speech dialogue designers
  
• Proven project delivery process accommodating the production of high performance speech applications

“Speech-enabling the IVR dramatically reduces the time customers spent in the automated system from around two and a half minutes to only 30 seconds. Following the new implementation, abandonment rates are down and customers get their queries resolved quicker and easier because they reach the right agent. ” Head of Operations, Homeserve GB Ltd