September 2000

BY CAROL DRZEWIANOWSKI

IVR is one of those technologies that almost everyone, no matter how technically savvy they are, has used and can understand at some level. Perhaps someone dialing in to check his or her bank account balance doesn't understand the technology behind the phrase, "Press 1 to access checking," but he knows what will result. After all, IVR has been around for over 10 years and if any technology can be considered ubiquitous, IVR is it.

Everyone is talking about the importance of CRM, as if CRM is one particular thing. It's not. CRM is a bundle of technologies working in concert to create a total package. IVR is one of those bundles that adds value to CRM applications. It can provide the mechanism to collect information from a caller so that the caller can be identified and best assisted, hence aiding in intelligent call routing. And, the function that might be most useful for many of us, IVR applications can be designed to allow callers to automatically obtain order status, account information, flight times, and so forth without having to wait on hold for a live operator.

But what's next? As the Internet continues to revolutionize the way companies conduct business (and the way consumers purchase goods and services), the next logical place for IVR to grow is in the e-commerce marketplace. In fact, if you look around, you'll notice that some of the major IVR vendors are putting on a new pair of dancing shoes, as the term "IVR" becomes hidden under new ways to describe the technology. And they're certainly dancing the night away because according to Cahners In-Stat, the IVR industry grew 31 percent in U.S. revenues in 1999, over 1998. This is largely from contact center growth stimulated by e-businesses. As the rest of the Beatles' song goes, "You say you got a real solution. Well, you know, we'd all love to see the plan." I know that I'm eager to see how the IVR (or voice e-commerce, or whatever you want to call it) industry is going to evolve over the next year. If trends continue, the profits are going to increase and the technology will become even more desired. You know it's gonna be all right.
--Carol Drzewianowski

BY TIM LEREW

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology, has become a mainstay of many sizes and types of businesses in a wide cross section of industries. But for a significant number of consumers, IVR systems are perceived as difficult to use. Depending on the features available and their menu design, the worst of these elicit feelings along the lines of "voice mail jail." If only these systems could learn how to listen and respond to their users' commands, instead of instructing their human users on which combination of numbers to press for service or information.

So, how can an enterprise realize the greater cost and efficiency benefits that can result from increasing usage of this self service technology, along with correspondingly less dependence on the traditional live call center? The answer lies with speech recognition and speaker identification technology that over the past 18 months has moved from the lab to successful, large-scale implementations.

HOME SHOPPING NETWORK
Home Shopping Network (HSN) estimates that for each second its live service representatives reduce the length of their average phone transaction, $500,000 per month in cost savings are realized. By instituting a speaker identification IVR solution from Edify using Nuance Communication's speech verification engine, the length of the average call has been reduced by six seconds. Service representatives no longer have to ask social security or password questions to authenticate a caller, the caller has already done so with their own voice on the IVR systems which matches their previously enrolled voice print to their caller profile.

The business case from an expense and profit standpoint is obvious. An additional benefit for HSN and its customers alike is attributable to the enhanced security brought about by this form of passive biometric identification when contrasted with sometimes easily compromised PINs and passwords. A biometric is a unique identifier that through measurement established a "metric" or numerical representation of a biological (bio) attribute. For many, the human voice, easily shared over an ordinary telephone, is the most readily obtainable biometric, requiring no special equipment at the customer's location to enroll or process.

SEARS
In contrast to HSN's need to uniquely identify its customers where its sales take place, on the telephone, Sears was compelled to deploy a speech recognition solution, which would allow virtually anyone in North America to access any department of its 860 stores, by phone. This called for a different type of speech recognition technology that featured natural language understanding.

This approach is designed to recognize the intent of a wide variety of utterances, offered with many shades of accent and context. For example, a caller to a local Sears store might have a question regarding availability of a Craftsman toolbox featured in the Sunday newspaper insert. The caller would dial the number for the local Sears, be greeted by the IVR auto-attendant, asking for the department to which they wished to speak. Our caller might reply "hardware" or "tools" or "uh, tools, please." The natural language system installed at Sears has the intelligence to listen for a variety of key words or phrases that share the same meaning. It even has the intelligence to listen through normal human voice fillers such as "uh," "ahh," and "um."

Today Sears enjoys the benefits of no longer having to tie literally hundreds of its employees to unpopular switchboard duty. Instead, many of these representatives are now on the floor selling and providing customer service.

BENEFITS FOR EVERYONE
The benefits that speech recognition brings to retail are now also being rolled out in travel, hospitality, finance, and utility applications nationwide. Consumers enjoy the relative speed and ease of use interactive speech recognition delivers. Within the next two years, many cellular phones and automobiles will come equipped with speech recognition capabilities, allowing consumers to check a bank balance, book a flight, or call home while keeping both hands on the wheel.

Tim Lerew is senior director of Corporate Marketing at Edify Corporation. 

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