Speaking Up For Cost Savings In
The Call Center: VoiceXML Takes On The Dinosaur Of Legacy IVR
By Eric Jackson, VoiceGenie And VoiceXML Forum Marketing
Committee
Most enterprise call centers and service providers today are saddled
with aging, proprietary IVR systems that are costly to maintain. These
providers are trying to keep up with changing customer demand. As a
result, many are looking to the open-standard of VoiceXML to help them
deliver lower costs and improved customer self-service.
In fact, we may look back on the summer of 2003 as a key transition point
where almost every major call center, enterprise and service provider has
made a decision to move from legacy IVR to open standards, next-generation
IVR. These open and more flexible telephony platforms are based on the
three-and-a-half-year-old standard VoiceXML. Among the many benefits
promised by the VoiceXML standard are faster application development and
deployment cycles and less costly hardware and professional services costs
than traditional IVR.
With VoiceXML, the standard language for creating telephony voice-user
interfaces, speech recognition application development is greatly
simplified by using familiar Web infrastructure and tools. Any telephone
can access VoiceXML applications via a VoiceXML Gateway.
By way of a little history, the VoiceXML 1.0 specification was established
in March 2000 by AT&T, Lucent, Motorola and IBM, and then evolved by
the W3C to VoiceXML 2.0 in October 2001. The W3C is preparing to announce
a release of version 2.1 shortly. Over 400 companies have joined the
VoiceXML Forum, the industry body responsible for VoiceXML advancement,
marketing and education. VoiceXML's swift adoption is due to its open
nature. There can be significant cost savings in creating, modifying and
personalizing VoiceXML applications compared to proprietary and
traditional IVR and other methods. Ease of application development allows
companies to leverage in-house resources rather than employ specialized
developers.
Some reasons VoiceXML is seen to be surpassing proprietary IVR include the
following:
- Over three-and-a-half-years-old, VoiceXML has attained the maturity
it needs for large-scale, carrier-grade deployments;
- Most developers confirm VoiceXML is at least three times faster in
terms of application development compared to traditional IVR;
- VoiceXML offers off-the-shelf applications;
- VoiceXML is infinitely less expensive than traditional IVR, partly
due to the fact that IVR requires a second silo infrastructure from
existing Web infrastructure, and VoiceXML does not (think of the costs
savings a financial institution can realize from having its Web
banking team also manage its IVR application, as opposed to having
separate Web banking and IVR banking development teams); and
- VoiceXML's ease of integration with existing application server
infrastructure (i.e., running VoiceXML apps off the same app servers
that Web services run off) allows for reuse of e-business investments
in a flexible, distributed architecture, rather than on a 'big iron'
legacy IVR platform seen in the past.
Aside from being deployed behind a customer's firewall on their own
premises, VoiceXML solutions can be hosted by service providers for rapid
deployment at minimal up-front cost. As needs grow, these solutions can be
migrated to on-premises platforms to maximize control and cost savings.
VoiceXML was conceived to separate application from execution. To take
advantage of the flexibility the language provides, separating
applications from the IVR is one of the major net gains. In theory, any
VoiceXML application can run off any VoiceXML platform.
The VoiceXML architecture is very similar to traditional Web-based
technologies as well as wireless technologies such as WAP. A user can call
a VoiceXML server from a phone; the user's voice actually becomes the
data in this system. On the server, a gateway translates the user's
voice input, retrieves VoiceXML pages from a content server via HTTP and
performs actions based on the interpreted VoiceXML page. The gateway may
also respond back to the user from the VoiceXML page using text-to-speech
and recorded voice.
VoiceXML Saves Costs
With VoiceXML, businesses of all sizes can be better positioned to
afford enterprise-class, state-of-the-art voice systems that can lower
costs and maximize revenue-generating opportunities.
The ROI is compelling. The cost of employing personnel to handle routine
telephone requests can average over $5 per call. The incremental cost of
handling calls with a VoiceXML telephony portal is often close to zero.
Generally, cost savings spring from VoiceXML's ability to deliver:
- Improved customer loyalty,
- Lower operating costs saved from hardware and professional services,
- Increased system performance,
- Higher automation rates,
- Reduced call wait times and caller abandons,
- Increased first-call resolution rates,
- Improved agent productivity, and
- Lower agent turnover, due to fewer mundane calls.
Shorter Deployment Schedule
In the traditional IVR model, hardware must be purchased before
application development even begins. VoiceXML applications, on the other
hand, can be prototyped on VoiceXML Gateway platforms prior to purchasing
on-premises platforms.
IVR applications take, on average, 14 to 18 months to deploy; VoiceXML
applications take, on average, 6 to 9 months to deploy (and often less).
Lower professional services costs. As a result of its proprietary nature,
IVR's professional services cost about 50 percent more than VoiceXML. An
example is included in Table 1.
Table 1. Enterprise Applications.
|
Average Cost
|
Average Time to
Complete
|
IVR Professional
Services
|
$2,500 ' $3,500
per day
|
Engaged for 9 ' 12
person-months,
|
VoiceXML Professional
Services
|
$1,000 ' $1,500
per day
|
Engaged for 4 ' 6
person-months, or completed by the customer.
|
Lower hardware and maintenance costs. Annual maintenance costs on IVR
software are, on average, 30 percent because the proprietary nature
creates monopolistic pricing. VoiceXML vendors' annual maintenance costs
on software are 15 to 20 percent. VoiceXML IVR systems run on commonly
available server hardware, ensuring that capital costs today and tomorrow
will be as low as possible.
Lower software upgrade costs. IVR software, on average, must be replaced
every two-and-a-half years, with a forklift upgrade that usually costs
about 50 percent of the initial software costs. VoiceXML software
typically delivers point releases, included in annual maintenance fees.
Lower costs for application modifications. VoiceXML is a well-documented
standard similar to HTML. Application development and maintenance does not
require specialized knowledge of proprietary telephony systems. Companies
that deploy IVR typically budget $10,000 per month for professional
services costs attributed to IVR application modifications. In the open
VoiceXML landscape, companies' existing technical staff can easily make
application modifications when required.
Lower costs for back-end integration. With proprietary IVR, companies
typically allocate 50 percent of their application development budgets
(about $250,000) for back-end integration costs. VoiceXML raises no
backend integration issues because it reuses existing Web infrastructure.
Next-gen functionality. VoiceXML solutions can employ speech recognition
or touch-tone commands to receive input from callers, while delivering
responses using text-to-speech or pre-recorded messages.
Portability. VoiceXML applications can be moved easily from one VoiceXML
platform to another, which is a portability not possible with proprietary
platforms.
Reduced facility costs. Reduced staffing means reduced facility costs.
VoiceXML customer self-service applications do not require floor space,
wiring, workstations, and the costly accommodations that large IVR DTMF-only
contact centers dictate.
Reduced PSTN charges. A major contact center expense involves the charges
paid to public telephone service providers for toll-free numbers.
Voice-driven customer self-service applications reduce PSTN expenses by
reducing the amount of time callers spend on the phone. Callers can enter
account data and other information more quickly in a VoiceXML-based VUI
than waiting to speak to a live agent, or entering digits on a telephone
key pad in the old IVR model. Callers on toll-free lines spend less time
obtaining the information they need, substantially reducing toll charges.
Call control. A major benefit of VoiceXML is that it provides
sophisticated call control capabilities, either through its sister
language CCXML or supported natively on the VoiceXML Gateway through
extensions, and allows CTI integration either at the application or the
platform level. With VoiceXML, users need not worry about working directly
with telephony cards, since they are normally controlled via the gateway
software. With some implementations, users can actually run concurrent
applications in VoIP and PSTN, providing additional flexibility.
VoiceXML In The Call Center
As customers find new ways to demand service, and as competitors and
other enterprises continue to raise the bar in customer service, call
centers are continually challenged to provide superior customer care while
controlling costs.
Forced to constantly improve service quality just to maintain status quo,
successful enterprises know they must differentiate through exceptional
customer care. Today, 83 percent of the world's Fortune 1000
corporations have call centers, and call center operations are expected to
grow 21 percent annually.
Voice empowers customers by allowing them to speak naturally into the
phone to handle their own requests 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Speech
makes the caller experience engaging and efficient, preventing customers
from 'zeroing out' to a live operator. Speech reduces hold times and
can also help agents work more productively by interacting with callers up
front to gather important customer information.
VoiceXML self-service solutions control costs by reducing staffing
expenses, facility costs and PSTN charges. But VoiceXML solutions go
beyond cost savings to make positive contributions to the top line.
VoiceXML does this by allowing organizations to extend their business
hours and market reach, to rapidly deploy revenue-generating applications,
and to free customer service, sales and support representatives so they
can focus on revenue-driving tasks.
Tips For Migrating To Open Standards VoiceXML
Due to large capital investments in proprietary systems, operators and
enterprises typically refrain from complete 'one-shot' system
replacements. Usually, a combination of existing legacy systems and new
solutions will exist for a certain period of time. This requires that new
technologies integrate well with existing legacy systems during the
migration to open standards. To migrate efficiently from legacy systems to
open standards, consider the following:
- Ensure support for a wide range of interconnection options, both
PSTN and VoIP, to enable successful operation in the legacy
environment. This strategy also allows the system to be re-deployed at
a later time.
- Ensure that strong support for DTMF as well as speech recognition
technologies is provided. Interacting with legacy systems may involve
'dialing through' existing proprietary infrastructures in order to
connect a user with services that are provided by legacy and open
systems.
- Look for superior call control and call transfer capabilities,
allowing calls to be effectively handled between open and legacy
systems. Abilities such as outbound calling, control of method and
timing for joining these calls with inbound calls, flexible support
for various transfer types (e.g., hook-flash, RLT, TBCT, transfer
connect, etc.) are critical for efficient call handling across
systems.
Eric Jackson, Ph.D. is vice president, Strategy and Business
Development, for VoiceGenie. He is
responsible for its business development, Asia Pacific and Latin America
sales, OEM partnerships, indirect sales through VARs, corporate strategy
and private financings. He is currently chair of the VoiceXML Forum
Marketing Committee and also represents VoiceGenie on other W3C and SALT
Forum subcommittees. VoiceGenie provides carrier-grade VoiceXML gateway
solutions that enable telecom carriers and enterprises to develop and
deploy sophisticated speech-enabled Internet and data services.
Sidebar
20 Popular Voice Applications
E-mail reader
Voice conferencing
Transfer funds between accounts
Track flight status
Buy and sell stocks
Apply for a bank loan
Access lab results
Locate a physician
Enable appointment alerts
Access company databases
Find business locations and auto-dial
Request product information
Change of address information
Report lost credit cards
Track packages and shipments
Gaming and lotteries
Movie and restaurant guides
Track insurance claims
Sales force automation
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