Voice Self Service (VSS) start to play important roll in improving contact centre performance and its acceptance by users is rising. The benefits of VSS, if implemented well, are enormous. VSS is unlike any other technology deployed in the call center, its special attention to ensure that they’re usable and perform well.
There are several key benefits of using VSS:
- Hands free
- More natural than touchtone
- Simplify complex menus
- Shortens call times
- Increase in call competition
- Increases customer satisfaction
How to make it right:
· Performance: Caller satisfaction depends very strongly on the response time experienced; avoid reuse of existing web content and architecture to deliver trough IVR. Performance and load testing are very important.
· VUI vs. GUI: VUI (Voice User Interface) and Graphical User Interface) are different, and GUI should not be imitated in VSS. In web application the presentation layer include text, images and sounds and along with the navigation all the information remain visible to the customer. In voice application the customer navigates with his voice and he needs to memorize the oral information delivered to him. This requires a lot of care in designing the speech application.
· Expectations: expectations from speech applications are often very high. Great demo at the start should be accompanied with explanations of the potential difficulties in running such application at first stages.
· Tuning: Most speech applications require extensive tuning, which can increase rates of transaction completion significantly. Tuning uses the experiences and data from real calls to adjust call flow, prompts, speech grammars, thresholds, and other parameters. It can be very expensive, and may need to be repeated as the application or the callers’ behavior evolves.
In spite of the difficulties VSS bring big benefits. The key is to be aware of potential issues and be preparing for them. With the right training, processes, and tools, speech self-service projects can be smooth and successful.
Deploying speech self-service technology fit well to most call centers’ today, it is not a question of if but when you will start the implementation.
