Using AI and Machine Learning to Make IVR Smarter

Today, we often designate advanced technology by calling it “smart.” Smart cars, smart phones, smart homes and smart grids. When it comes to twentieth century customer support technology, it’s a bit hard to apply the label “smart.” Think of the humble IVR system: given how many people hate call routing and automation technologies, “smart” is the last word that comes to mind.

But some call center solutions providers are trying to smarten up the customer support process. Silicon Valley-based Serviceaide, Inc. develops software-as-a-service solutions for businesses and governments using “artificial intelligence and virtual agents.” The company recently debuted Luma IVR, a new interactive voice recognition capability that allows companies to turn their PBX (News - Alert) or IVR systems into intelligent virtual agents that simplify and automate the resolution of service requests from customers and enterprise end-users.

Automation saves significant capital in a customer support scenario. Most incoming calls and messages are basic in nature, and don’t require a living, breathing human being to answer. Questions such as “Where can I find my balance?” or “When are tax statements being mailed?” don’t require the attention of a human. Neither do requests to “Connect me with the service department.” When these basic queries can be automated, human agents are free to focus their attention on more complex customer queries.

Luma IVR extends the power of Serviceaide’s AI-powered Luma Virtual Agent to conversationally engage users via their communications channel of choice to dramatically improve time to resolution, quality of service, cost efficiency and end-user satisfaction, according to the company.  By tapping natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning, Serviceaide aims to provide a more advanced voice recognition capability that can enhance the customer experience, while simultaneously becoming smarter over time.

“Serviceaide continues to redefine service management and customer support in the era of artificial intelligence,” said William Guinn, CTO of Serviceaide, in a statement. “With voice recognition, Luma VA simply starts a conversation with the caller, understanding their intent and directly providing the information or provisioning the service they need. There is no more waiting through frustrating audio prompts or navigating multiple phone trees. Getting service help is as simple as making a single phone call.”

Edited by Maurice Nagle