SPEECH RECOGNITION SOFTWARE LIFTS AMP’S
CALL RETENTION RATES BY 10%
Our IVR retention rates have been low compared
“
to other Computershare clients. While we had
some early teething problems to identify common
language (such as ‘talk to someone’ and ‘help’), by
working with the Computershare team we now have
several months of good call data which shows a great
increase in IVR retention rates.”
Marnie Reid - Head of Shareholder Services, AMP Limited
CASE STUDY OVERVIEW
COMPANY OVERVIEW
Country: Australia
AMP Limited (ASX: AMP), a leading Australian and New Zealand wealth management
company, is Computershare’s largest client with over 830,000 shareholders. Since
their demutualisation in 1998, Computershare have continued a healthy and
productive relationship with AMP, providing specialised and targeted registry services,
employee share plans and print and mail services.
Industry: Wealth management
SITUATION
In late 2014, Computershare conducted a pilot to update our Interactive Voice
Response (IVR) system to include speech recognition capabilities. This update
supports speech enablement by identifying verbal responses to a combination of
questions asked by securityholders over the phone, replacing the existing touch tone
functionality. Given this was a significant change, Computershare wanted to test the
product in a closely monitored trial environment before releasing to the market.
Computershare presented AMP with the opportunity to participate in the pilot, which
they accepted as part of their ongoing campaign to improve their call retention rates.
The trial was performed over the three months leading into AMP’s peak dividend
season in October.
SOLUTION
During the trial period, more than 10,000 individual caller responses were listened
to and transcribed. With this information, Computershare implemented three
batches of tuning enhancements to improve the caller experience and increase
IVR retention. The data collected allowed AMP and Computershare to continuously
refine the speech recognition and improve its accuracy. AMP were also able to better
understand the reasons that drove their securityholders to contact Computershare,
which they used to develop a targeted menu of relevant options that catered for
these queries.
As the implementation and adoption of the speech application improved, AMP
saw significant improvement in call retention rates. AMP provided sign-off for the
successful completion of the pilot and decided to keep the speech recognition
permanently.
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“One of the
challenges of the
AMP share registry
has been encouraging
our large shareholder
base to adopt IVR
technology and get
the information they
need without talking
to an agent. The
opportunity to trial
speech recognition
IVR gave us the
chance to test a
different approach and
see if our customers
would have a better
call experience.”
BENEFITS
Integrating speech recognition into an IVR system offers a more intuitive caller
experience by asking a combination of open and directed questions. It also allows for
the introduction of additional menu options, helping to cater for options that were not
previously available.
The updated IVR system enabled AMP clients to complete their request more
efficiently, whilst having the ability to transfer out to an operator if required. This
resulted in a more intuitive and versatile caller experience, and saw retention increase
by over 10% compared to 2013.
As a result of the tuning work conducted for the AMP speech pilot, Computershare
has identified that a significant volume of callers are requesting to update their
address details. While Computershare are in the process of evaluating this future
development initiative, early findings have indicated that an additional retention
improvement of 10% to 20% can be gained by building an ‘update address’ IVR
self-service facility.
Marnie Reid - Head of Shareholder
Services, AMP Limited
How can we help you?
CHANGE
HOW TO
OPERATOR
address
name
email
transfer shares
buy/sell shares
off market transfer
other enquiry
general enquiry
REQUEST
DIVIDENDS
UPDATE
various forms
transactional history
tax
holding statements
add/change DRP
cheque replacement
statement history
payment instructions
TFN
INVESTOR
login issue
registration
user ID
website nav
forgotten PIN
CONFIRM
AGM info
cost base share price
registration details
holding balance
and history
DECEASED ESTATE
deceased
The diagram above displays an example of the speech IVR for AMP. The IVR starts
by qualifying the customers’ needs by asking ‘how can we help you?‘. Based on the
response, the caller is then transferred to the next stage of questions.
AUSTRALIA
COMPUTERSHARE INVESTOR SERVICES
PTY LTD
Adelaide
ABN 48 078 279 277
www.computershare.com.au
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advantage
(08) 8236 2300
Perth
(08) 9323 2000
Brisbane
(07) 3237 2100
Sydney
(02) 8234 5000
Melbourne
(03) 9415 5000