Speech-World
Call Center Applications
Panel
Kipton Heuertz
Vice President Product Marketing, Americas
Eicon Networks Corporation
www.eicon.com/divaserver
Current Applications for
Speech
• IVR - Call Center Self Service
o
o
Obtain information: stock quotes, sports, news,weather, horoscopes,
account balances
Conduct transactions: place orders, check order status, locate stores, make
reservations, transfer funds, balance inquiry, etc.
• Automated attendant
o
o
“For sales, Press 1 or say ‘sales’”
“Say the name of the person or department you’re trying to reach”
• Dial-by-voice – Internal Dialing
o
Speak the person’s name or extension
• Messaging
o
o
o
Browse, List and Play messages
Reply to email and voice messages – cross modal
“Read me my urgent messages”
Speech Recognition
Application Segments
2007
Total End-User Revenue
IVR 33.5%
2002
IVR 55.1%
Telco OS
19.1%
Messaging
47.5%
Telco OS
11.1%
Messaging
33.8%
$458.3 million Total
$2,497.1 million Total
Source: Voice Information Associates, ASR in Telephone Applications, the World-wide Market
AAA reduces Call Duration and
drives down cost of service
using speech from Nuance…
Call Duration
3.50
minutes
Agent
1.37
minutes
Speech
Results: Call Duration
> Reduced call duration by
54% from agent to speech
> $1.90 saved per call (on
average)
…and increases Agent
Productivity so they can focus
on more complex tasks
Annual Hours Saved
Member
Maintenance
2355
1131
Auto Travel
Number
Validation
Call Steering
ETA Inquiry
592
368
327
Results: Agent Productivity
> Nearly 5,000 hours of agent
time saved across multiple
application areas
> Productivity improvements
equivalent to 5 FTEs
Key Steps to selling speech
solutions
Identify customer
needs and
opportunities
• Cost reduction, improved
customer care, new
services, security, etc.
• Other objectives:
measures of success,
brand image, etc.
• Customers’ interest for
communication, service
• Competitive advantage
Understand callers’
needs and habits
• Call-type frequencies
• Call completion rates
• Tasks automated by
touch-tone
• Major reasons for
transferring to agents or
drop-out hot-spots
• Information passed to
CTI
Engage in a
Discovery
opportunity
• Explore the specific
opportunities of your
situation
• Develop statement of
work
• Provide proposal for
moving forward
Speech Engines
Speech engines are the heart of the speech business.
They provide for recognition between humans and
computers. The main player for North America is:
• Nuance/Scansoft
Voice Development Platforms
Voice development platforms provide GUI-based
programming environment to build speech enabled
applications
• Vocalocity
• Intervoice
• Envox
• Nuance NVP
• VoiceGenie
IVR Solution Providers
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Intervoice
Genesys
Avaya
Cisco Call Manager
Edify
Aspect
Interactive Intellegence
• ComputerTalk
Speech/Voice Boards
Speech boards provide the communication to the public
telephone network. They are also used to give telephony
applications more horsepower for more intensive
applications. Recognized global six companies….
• Eicon Networks
• Intel/Dialogic
• Aculab
• Brooktrout
• NMS Communications
• Audiocodes
Market Needs for Growth
• Need to get more users to utilize self-service
o
o
o
Self-service must be a better alternate than going to a
live agent
Truly understanding the needs of the callers - and
meeting those needs!!!
Create a quality user experience
• Provide solutions that meet the real needs of their
customers, not just sell them technology.
• Pre-packaged speech applications
• Customizable speech applications