Woolworths voices contact centre plans

Beverley Head
Thursday, 10 March 2011 19:43

Business IT - Technology

Retail giant Woolworths is mid-way through a massive overhaul of its contact centres - consolidating from eight to two, has introduced interactive voice response (IVR) systems in three key areas, and now has biometric voice identification on its radar.

Speaking at the Voice Leadership Forum in Sydney today, Peter Heywood, the general manager of contact centre implementation for Woolworths, said that an IVR store locator system now live in the company's Dan Murphy liquor stores had dealt with 30,000 calls since it was introduced just before Christmas. He said that typically 10 per cent of customer calls to the company were about locating stores and determining opening hours and that this could rise to 70 or 80 per cent of calls in the Christmas holiday periods.

Having an IVR system deal with such inquiries frees up contact centre staff for more challenging inquiries and can boost overall efficiency.

Woolworths' store locator IVR system can also link to an SMS application which sends the store details to the caller's mobile phone. 'And when the SMS gets sent we can also attach a promotion,' said Mr Heywood, which helped turned an inquiry into a sale.

The system is now being piloted in Woolworths' Dick Smith operations and will also be rolled out in supermarkets and Big W before Easter he said.

Stephen Lewis, general manager of business consulting for Salmat, which has worked closely with the retail giant on its contact centre strategy and is the outsourcer for Woolworths' new consolidated customer contact centre in Parramatta, NSW, said that besides rolling out more IVR applications in the contact centres, Woolworths had 'voice biometrics on the radar' and was particularly interested in how the technology could be used to authenticate customers of its Everyday Money card.

A survey released late last year by Unisys found a growing acceptance of voice biometrics, with 69 per cent of Australians saying they felt comfortable about providing voice biometric data in order to securely access bank accounts.