Speech technology ... next generation contact center: Part 1; A vital technology necessary for the survival and prosperity of contact centers.

Innovation Is The Key

Since 1982, when this publication laid the foundation in a pioneering act for the current multibillion dollar customer interaction, contact center and CRM sectors, our industry has been blessed with countless innovations that have kept this industry flourishing and surviving while many others have come and gone. In other words, our industry was blessed enough to have numerous visionaries and competent leaders that helped us to continuously reinvent ourselves and take the industry to the next level.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Over the last 24 years, we have come from rotary telephones and 3X5 inch index cards in 1982, to sophisticated telecommunications technology, database management, IP contact centers and fully monitored home agents, to sophisticated modern speech technologies.

I recently attended a speech technology conference that reinforced my views about the benefits of the implementation of speech technology in contact centers. More than ever, I am convinced that speech technology will not only enhance the quality of customer care, customer service and CRM (inbound technologies) but also certain parts of outbound contact center projects. Speech technology is no longer a luxury, but a necessity for survival.

I informally interviewed several exhibitors at this conference and always asked the question, "How long does it take before a company will see return on investment?" The unanimous answer was, "A six month ROI is a definite possibility!"

All Major Vendors Were Represented

To name a few, here is an abbreviated listing of some of the major corporations that were offering speech technology solutions for which contact centers, customer interaction centers and CRM centers are the #1 beneficiaries. The companies included such prestigious organizations as Aculab, Aspect Communications, AT & T, Avaya, Brooktrout Technology, Cisco Systems, Convergys, Edify, Envox, Genesys, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel Corporation, Intervoice, Lucent Technologies, Microsoft, Nortel Networks, Nuance, Lumen Vox, ScanSoft, Syntellect, TuVox, Unisys Corporation, Unveil Technologies, VoiceGenie Technologies, SER Solutions and West Corporation. Conventional wisdom dictates that Fortune 500 companies, such as some of those mentioned above, would not even entertain the idea of developing products or solutions for technologies that have less than billions of dollars of market potential. To be sure, speech technology, which has just begun to explode with growth, has now come of age and has attracted global attention not only because of its considerable enhancing capabilities in customer service and customer care, but also because of a tremendous cost savings potential.

Major Cost Savings

Regarding the cost saving aspect of speech technology implementations, during the conference I was able to discuss this matter with several senior executives of companies that offer speech technologies, and the feeling is that the actual savings amount would depend on the application. However, some executives rated the potential for labor savings as high as 85 percent. For example, a vendor called Fluency was promoting the concept of speech technology while offering 85 percent lower cost per call minute in labor savings. The same company also promoted rapid ROI (six months) and reduced call center overhead, reduced queue time and strong branding, among many other benefits.

Contact Centers Are The Key To The Growth And Prosperity Of Speech Technology

Vendor after vendor emphasized the fact that by far the biggest beneficiaries of advanced speech technologies are contact centers, customer interaction centers and CRM centers. Indeed, many companies recommended a prepackaged application for simplicity and outsourcing possibility. For example, a senior executive from West Corporation indicated that fully managed outsourced speech technology applications are available from West via a hosted model.

As it has become more and more clear to us over the last several years, speech technology is in the right place at the right time. I am now more convinced than ever that speech technology is not only the key to profitability and the success of the enterprise, but also vitally important in the contact center industry. It is unthinkable, going forward, that any contact center can survive without the adoption of these extremely important speech technologies within the contact center.

The Unbeatable Formula: Use IP Contact Center Plus Speech Technologies To Save 175 Percent

As indicated in my April 2004 editorial, titled "Discover The Huge Benefits Of IP Contact Centers" (www.tmcnet.com/cis/0404/po.htm), the adoption of IP contact center technology can, in fact, reduce the cost of multimedia telecommunications by as much as 90 percent.

On the other hand, as I indicated above, the adoption of advanced speech technology can result in 85 percent cost savings from labor costs for a total of 175 percent cost savings when both IP contact center and speech technologies are adopted! No business person worth his or her salt can ignore this type of cost savings.

New Editorial Column And Speech-World Announced By TMC 

Recognizing the enormous benefits of speech technologies for customer interaction, contact centers and CRM centers, the editors of Customer Inter@ction Solutions[R] magazine have developed a new monthly column, entitled "Speech-World," which will cover these vitally important technologies by providing comprehensive information for understanding and purchasing the right technologies. It will also offer success stories to help you prevent pitfalls and mistakes.

Speech-World[TM] Conference And Exhibition Announced

TMC is also pleased to announce a pioneering conference and exhibition, titled Speech-World[TM] (www.tmcnet.com/speech-world) to be held November 30--December 2, 2004 at the Westin Park Central Hotel, Dallas, Texas. In addition to featuring the latest technologies and applications of speech, we will also co-locate an equally important conference titled IP Contact Center Summit at the same time and, of course, in the same location. Hopefully by now it has become clear that the above conference and trade show are both a "must attend" for all progressive business executives regardless of their type of business. Obviously, contact center executives (outsourced or in-house) will also find this forthcoming conference and exhibition vitally important and necessary. Please join us in Dallas, Texas, from November 30-December 2, 2004, so we can brainstorm together and meet the new vendors and pioneers of speech technologies, which are about to revolutionize the contact center industry. For more information on Speech-World, or to exhibit, please contact Dave Rodriguez at [e-mail] or call him at 203-852-6800, ext. 146.

Industry Leaders Share Their Views

In order to provide you with additional information on this extremely important matter, we have contacted several industry leaders who were willing to share their views exclusively with us, indicated in the accompanying sidebar. I urge you to read them and contact these companies as necessary for more information. Please be advised that the following excerpts are simply an abstract of the vision of these corporations. However, for more complete information, please refer to our Web site (www.tmcnet.com/cis/1004/po.htm) for the full range of information provided by the above industry leaders. Note: Part II of this important topic will be featured in the November 2004 issue.

IMPORTANT:

Please remember where you read this pioneering effort before the copycats copy us (as usual) and pass it off as their own.

For the entire texts from the contributing companies, please visit www.tmcnet.com. As always, I welcome your comments. Please e-mail me at [e-mail].

Sincerely yours,

Nadji Tehrani 

Executive Group Publisher

Editor-in-Chief

If you are interested in purchasing reprints of this article (in either print or HTML format), please visit Reprint Management Services online at www.reprintbuyer.com or contact a representative via e-mail at [e-mail] or by phone at 800-290-5460.

For information and subscriptions, visit www.TMCnet.com or call 203-852-6800.

Need Help With Teleservices Outsourcing?

For more information on teleservices outsourcing, contact the following leading agencies advertising in this issue:

Advanced Data-Comm                 65
  www.advanced-data.com
Precision Response Corp.      cover 3
  www.prcnet.com
Teleperformance USA                23
  www.teleperformanceusa.com
West Corp.                    cover 2, 1
  www.west.com

RELATED ARTICLE

Some Industry Visionaries Share Their Visions Of Speech Technologies

Aspect Communications Corp. (www.aspect.com)

"Applications like speech recognition, text-to-speech and voice authentication have enabled contact centers to replace touch-tone interfaces with natural language prompts that simplify the experience for callers and handle more complex transactions than traditional IVR."

West Corporation (www.west.com)

"The goal of most contact centers is to provide either customer care or customer acquisition. West believes customer acceptance of speech technology has sufficiently evolved to make speech one of the most important tools available for customer interaction. While many companies are evaluating speech solutions as replacements for live agents, West believes that companies are better served by examining a blended solution that incorporates automated speech technology with live agents to maximize effectiveness."

"The benefit of a good speech program in a contact center is that it provides a low-cost ability to automate [recurring processes] currently being performed by live agents. Companies can use automated speech programs to handle most data entry processes, like recording a caller's name and address. Live agent time can then be re-focused to handle more complex sales or problem solving, thereby boosting individual agent productivity while reducing an organization's costs."

Edify (www.edify.com)

"With the advent of standards like VoiceXML and SALT and support from major vendors, more and more companies are looking to speech to revolutionize the way they interact with their customers."

Edify--Ken Waln, Chief Technology Officer

"Speech automation is a business imperative. The technology is proven and more robust than ever, and the benefits that can be gained from an operational and customer satisfaction perspective are extraordinary and cannot be overlooked."

Aculab (www.aculab.com)

"Speech technology has great potential and in the call center has already been put to creative use whether as a cost saver or a means to generate additional revenue. There is yet more room for creativity, which will increasingly see speech technologies as an intrinsic part of future communications--further aiding the productivity of agents and adding value to the consumer; seeking a speedy route to gain/provide information or complete a variety of transactions or tasks."

SER Solutions, Inc. (www.ser.com)

"For many businesses, the primary interface between the company and its customers is the contact center. One negative customer experience can forever jeopardize the relationship between the customer and company. According to research from Cutting Edge Information, a business intelligence firm, 65 percent of customers switch companies because of poor contact center customer service. While many contact centers use call recording to support their quality assurance initiatives, it is still impossible to review 100 percent of the calls for quality assurance. Until recently, the challenges faced by contact centers to increase call handling quality and customer satisfaction while maintaining the costs associated with manually monitoring agent activities was virtually impossible. However, SER Solutions believes speech technology holds a set of new "killer apps." One such killer application is a quality assurance application that enables contact centers to go beyond call recording and simple call mining technologies to analyze and score 100 percent of all recorded calls for script adherence, achievement of key performance indicators (KPIs) and overall call quality."

Genesys (www.genesyslabs.com)

"The implementation of speech technologies in contact centers allows companies to reach more customers; offer consistent, high quality customer care and reduce the cost of customer service. These applications tie Internet technologies with voice self-service, allowing customers to conduct business over the phone in a new and intuitive way."

Empirix (www.empirix.com)

"Speech technology has the potential to save organizations a lot of money, while enabling them to provide better, faster service to customers--but only if the technology performs well. When customers run across speech applications that don't work well, their inclination will be to zero out to an agent--and they probably won't try the speech application again."

Avaya (www.avaya.com)

"In today's fast-paced world, speech applications for contact centers are critical to help enterprises gain a competitive edge through enhanced customer service and improved organizational productivity."

Microsoft (www.microsoft.com)

"Microsoft's vision is that speech will become a mainstream, pervasive technology that is accessible by any device, at any time and from any place. This means that speech-enabled applications should be accessible by standard telephones and cell phones, and by GUI (graphical user interface)-based devices like PDAs, tablet PCs, smart phones and desktop PCs. [Microsoft's vision] includes enabling the convergence of the Web infrastructure and voice systems into one infrastructure. With this convergence, speech-enabled and visual-only Web applications will become one unified application, developed using standard Web programming tools, based on Web standards and running on your existing Web infrastructure."

Angel.com (www.angel.com)

"... We believe call center managers should look primarily to packaged speech applications in order to avoid costly custom development and lengthy rollout schedules."

For information and subscriptions, visit www.TMCnet.com or call 203-852-6800.