People like talking to a machine: survey shows

Stuart Corner
Monday, 27 August 2007 07:48

Your IT - Home IT

iTa says these findings "directly challenge the perceptions held by contact centre managers who currently believe customers always prefer to wait for a customer service representative."

The call centre manager survey found that "despite the significant customer experience benefits reported by contact centres with speech applications, many contact centre managers still hold misconceptions about speech recognition technology, relating to customer channel preference and cost of implementation. More than a third (37 percent) of contact centre managers without a speech application believe all customers would prefer to talk to a live agent, rather than using a speech self service application, and just under a third (29 percent) cite cost as a key barrier."

iTa says it is working to bring down the cost of implementation and delivery of speech recognition by "streamlining processes, developing enhanced tools and products, platforms and solutions to provide the next tier of operators deploying speech call steering and self-service applications a much lower entry point."

Buckle said: "The speech recognition market and technologies have developed considerably...to the point where we are able to provide more value to the next tier of contact centres who adopt this customer transforming technology. iTa has deployed more than 50 applications of speech to some of the largest contact centres in Australia – our vision is to now to deliver this significant expertise and quality of service in speech recognition at a lower price point for the next wave of adopters."

iTa has also developed a rating of technologies on levels of implementation and planned implementations. As a result of its survey, it gives speech recognition technology an index rating of 23/100 which classifies it as an established technology in the contact centre industry. A ranking below 20 is regarded as an emerging technology. (SMS rates 19) and over 50 as a mature technology (interactive voice response scored 72).