U.S. telephone companies that provide directory assistance respond accurately to caller requests for telephone numbers 93% of the time, according to the National Directory Assistance Performance Index, an independent analysis published semi-annually by The Paisley Group, Ltd. The Index is the only tool on the market that provides companies which offer directory assistance services with specific competitive intelligence to track and gauge their performance.

Using a "mystery caller approach", the Index tracks:

• Customer Fulfillment(sm), database accuracy and the ability of an operator to provide an accurate listing,
• Customer Care(sm), the way the operator balances customer advocacy and efficient call handling practices,
• Operator Work Time, the length of time the operator spends on the line with the customer, and most importantly,
• "Passed Calls," calls where the customer received the correct listing report AND was cared for competently and efficiently.

The average passed call rate across the four industry segments measured - incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs), interexchange carriers (IXCs), third party directory assistance providers and carriers that use automated speech recognition for directory assistance - was 80.5%. This is a slight decrease from the 82.2% passed call rate achieved in the March, 2004 study.

Impact of Speech Recognition on Call Quality Studied

For the first time, the Index audited the impact of speech recognition tools on Customer Care(sm) and call fulfillment. With these audit results, The Paisley Group is able to predict how, at least during the implementation phase, speech recognition will impact overall call quality and passed call rates. It is here that overall care quality appears to diminish.

Interestingly, total Operator Work Time does not decrease with the use of speech recognition because of the need to hand-off partially automated calls to live operators when the automated voice recognition system does not support the request. In part because of the accuracy of its database, Bell South fared the best in this category.

Qwest Tops ILECs and IXCs in All Areas

Qwest Communications led the ILECs in calls fulfilled with 95.7% successfully completed compared to the segment average of 93%. Fulfillment measures not only the total number of calls that were completed correctly but analyzes the factors that prohibited calls from being completed, e.g., an incorrect listing in the provider's database, missing information, a number that was in the database but that could not be found, operator error or a technical problem.

In the area of Customer Care(sm), Qwest was again the ILEC leader with 96.3% of customers being care for. Unlike most measurements of customer service, which are subjective in nature, Customer Care(sm) measures an array of specific, quantifiable operator behaviors. These include whether or not the operator acknowledges the customer at specific points during the call, listens carefully to the caller, asks questions in an appropriate manner to get additional information, follows the search to conclusion and is polite.

Passed Calls are the hallmark of directory assistance. This measure combines Customer Fulfillment(sm) and Customer Fulfillment(sm) to measure whether a customer received a correct report while being treated in an appropriate manner. Here, too, Quest was the came out on top with 92% of all calls handled appropriately.

In the IXC segment, Qwest led in Fulfillment, Care and passed calls.

Third Party Providers Offer 1st Class Service

According to the results of the Index, third party providers handled calls as efficiently as the carriers with an average Customer Fulfillment(sm) rate of 93%. InfoNXX was the leader in the category, fulfilling 95% of all customer requests. In the areas of Customer Care(sm), Excell led the group with 98% of customers cared for.

To determine these results, The Paisley Group developed a statistically valid test sample that included business, residential and government requests. The sample included a number of new listings and listings with an expected "no find" result. Geographical distribution, call type and customer type were factored to produce a series of calls reflective of actual directory assistance calling patterns.

The Paisley Group's National Directory Assistance Performance Index is the only industry report that is based upon a definitive, DA-specific quality measurement process. As such, it gives companies a benchmark for assessing and improving their directory assistance service. In addition to the U.S. Index, The Paisley Group also publishes a Canadian and a U.K. Index. The latest issues were released in November.

The Paisley Group Ltd. is the leading directory assistance/operator services consulting company and the premier independent measurer of database accuracy, Customer Fulfillment(sm) and Customer Care(sm) in the industry today. The company specializes in auditing call centers, designing robust measurement and statistical models, optimizing revenue-generating opportunities through consulting, benchmarking and helping clients to develop plans that work. For additional information, contact Meg MacRae, managing partner, The Paisley Group, 4482 Tallyrand Circle, Castle Rock CO 80104, 303-688-1666, [email protected].