Voice Recognition Technology is Rapidly Growing

Call centres are continually looking at ways to optimise the utilisation of their labour force.  Workforce management is a science that extrapolates every known variable.  The end result is a staffing model that should fit the forecast like a glove.

Technological developments deliver enormous productivity gains to call centres.  Voice Recognition technology is an area that is growing rapidly.  According to the interactive services consultants, Opus Research, the overall market for voice recognition technology reached US$1 billion in 2006 – a 100% increase in two years! The efficiencies and cost savings the technology delivers are irresistible to call centre managers.

Telstra was one of the first Australian companies to harness the voice recognition revolution with the directory assistance service.  The first generation of the software was fraught with problems and caused much angst and frustration for customers.  Customers had to speak slowly, different accents would be misunderstood and there was no option for speaking to a real person.

Today, many of the teething problems in the software and implementation errors by management have been rectified.

Natural language is now understood and the technology has developed further to become Interactive Voice Recognition (IVR).  The take-up of the technology is transforming the cost structure of call centres.  Initial customer resistance is fading too.  The improvement in effectiveness has made it more attractive to customers who can have their inquiry dealt with rapidly.

IVR has gone beyond simplistic screening and routing of calls.  International research undertaken by Dimension Data suggests that 30-40% of transactions currently performed in call centres could be performed without any involvement of a live agent.  More and more customers are now accepting the concept of self-service.  Staff can be utilised elsewhere and managers have greater control over the unit cost of service delivery.

Pizza Hut in Australia is an example of successful self-service transactions with voice recognition.  The Pizza Hut technology recognises the calling number, ascertains whether the caller wants to pick up the pizza or have it delivered, confirms the store the customer wants to visit, pizza selection and thickness of crust.  A live agent closes the call with the price and time frame for delivery or pick up.

Latest developments in voice technology include Speaker Verification and Voice over IP.  Speaker Verification compares a digitised sample of a person’s voice with a stored “voice print” of that person’s voice to verify their identity.  This technology paves the way for a large number of transactions requiring secure access to be undertaken in a self-service capacity.

Voice over IP is the transmission of telephone calls over the internet.  The spoken word is digitised and sent in real time over the internet.  At the receiving end, the digital parcel is converted to an analogue signal.  The biggest attraction of VoIP is the savings in telephony charges.  However, there are still issues with regard to quality and compatibility.  But if there are savings to be made you can bet the bugs will be ironed out before too long.

Voice is the major element of call centre transactions.  Cutting the cost of transactions is what call centres do very well.  Developments in voice technology are delivering greater efficiency and more recently, enhanced customer service.  After initial resistance, customers are now embracing the new technology and will continue to adapt as they recognise the service benefits that further technological development will bring.