VoltDelta is a leading developer and applicant of automated voice and hosted contact center solutions. In late February 2010 its DeltaTouch OnDemand platform for directory assistance and enterprise customer care answered its 10 billionth call in North America. The majority of these calls it says engages end users with directory assistance voice recognition dialogues then completes the calls or transfers them to agents via VoltDelta’s (News - Alert) VoIP-enabled call distribution and management infrastructure. More DeltaTouch-enabled calls it says “have been processed with voice recognition dialogs over a period of seven years than there are people on earth!...with 99.999 percent reliability.”

TMC recently met and interviewed Steve Chirokas (News - Alert), executive director, marketing enterprise services and solutions, VoltDelta to get his take on IVR/speech rec issues and trends:

TMCnet:        What key issues are you seeing with implementing live agent and IVR (including speech rec) platforms in contact centers? 

SC:      The key issues are cost savings and customer satisfaction (no surprise). We see that in many cases you have to reset expectations on IVR first. Many people have had a bad speech recognition experience in the past. This tends to carry forward to at least initial evaluations of contact center technology to a point where it negatively impacts cost savings expectations.In our case we not only have exceptional VUI design, but also patent pending speech recognition technology (CrystalWAVE) that delivers triple bang for the buck:

a) More accurateb) Reduced tuningc) NLU [natural language understanding] -like characteristics without SLM (Statistical Language Modeling) building i.e. it strips out extraneous wordsThis value helps to build a foundation of confidence for the IVR application on its own.But, IVR applications do not usually exist as independent entities. Transfers to an agent may be required or even desired. In the VoltDelta case we employ our own call recording technology to provide the agent with a "heads up". This can happen with a quick key word or phrase presentation to the agent, or the agent could listen to a longer recording. The bottom-line is a more seamless automation to agent experience primarily be eliminating the always annoying ask to repeat detail.Also agent training and awareness of the speech application is sometimes overlooked, but is very important. Agents need to feel comfortable, not threatened by the IVR. If the transfer occurred due to misrecognition the agent should never disparage the application. The goal is to encourage re-use of the IVR versus an immediate "zero-out" on the next call.

TMCnet:        It has been observed that many IVR/speech rec applications are fragmented i.e. they are not integrated with the ACDs/routing. Is this indeed the case? Aren't there routing/switching solutions that have integrated voice/IVR?

SC:      When we referred to "fragmented" we are speaking about core contact center technologies.  We consider those to be ACD + agent management, voice recognition, SMS (in many cases confirming a voice rec. interaction for mobile callers) and call recording. Many if not most of our competitors rely on partnerships, particularly for speech recognition applications and call recording.

TMCnet:        What are the impacts of such fragmentation on operating, capital,support costs, performance, productivity?SC:      Customer satisfaction, particularly during transitions from automation to agents, is at risk [with fragmentation].  In the VoltDelta case we can provide the agents with a heads-up via call recording.  This also improves agent productivity and helps reduce handle time by minimizing the need to ask callers to repeat themselves.Costs are another issue.  If a vendor is using a [Verint (News - Alert)] Witness system for example, they must pay to cover that cost.  VoltDelta uses its own technology in this area.Flexibility is enhanced with VoltDelta's platform as calls are simply extended (as opposed to being transferred) between platform resources.  Cost savings also result by avoiding off platform transfers.Reporting will also be impacted if partnerships are required for core activities.   For example, a call to the VoltDelta platform is track and recorded as a single entity, even if there are transfers from the IVR to an agent.  Vendors using partners are usually limited to tracking each leg of the call, usually making it difficult to capture the entire experience. Deployment speed is also enhanced with VoltDelta's converged platform.Please note however that VoltDelta also embraces partner solutions such as for workforce management and CRM integration.  These are important components but not necessarily "core" as the ACD, IVR and call recording are.

TMCnet:        Outline the Volt Delta solution for contact centers including how it meets these issues

SC:      VoltDelta provides a hosted solution for Virtual Contact Center infrastructure and voice recognition solutions. Key differentiators working to make VoltDelta’s solutions superior include:*       Resource-based customer care

Call handling is optimized by considering agents, automation and SMS messaging as a unified resource based on VoltDelta technology. Calls may commence in automation, extend to agents, and trigger SMS confirmations with voice recording with reports tracking every step. (Other vendors generally focus on what they consider core strength with partnerships required for a complete range of solutions).

*       CrystalWAVE - (Weighted Average Voice Evaluation)

Patent-pending voice recognition employs multiple simultaneous grammar evaluations with context sensitivity for superior accuracy and reduced tuning for more complex (not yes or no) voice recognition dialogues.

*       Call + Agent Screen Recording

A single customer call is recorded and tracked through any transfer. A GUI interface displays transfer points with an ability to point and listen to any portion of a call. Also, agent screen recoding links the agent perspective with caller audio. VoltDelta recording technology means efficiency for tracking and storing the voice of the customer.

*       Customer Aware (News - Alert) Call Personalization

Identifying the caller with an ability to modify call handling works to improve customer satisfaction, compress handle times and reduce overall costs. Caller preferences, previous action and caller identity derived from ANI-related detail is utilized for personalizing interactions.

*       Robust OnDemand Infrastructure with International Reach

VoltDelta has a VoIP and TDM architecture with massive scalability supports large distributed contact centers and home agents located literally anywhere. U.K and German data centers in addition to redundant VoltDelta facilities in North America provide a widegeographical coverage.