CRM - July 2008 - (Page 44)

VUI DESIGN may have to be there from a legal standpoint, but as far as callers are concerned, it’s daydream time. They stop listening to the prompts and start multitasking, and then they miss the next prompt because they think it’s part of the disclaimer.” The phrasing of the actual questions is also important. “People don’t ask questions in the right order,” Kotelly laments, using the example of the too-similar Where are you going to? and Where are you leaving from? The words “from” and “to” should be placed at the beginning of such prompts, he says—having the differentiating bit at the beginning allows callers to answer quickly. (See our two-part feature series,“Speak Up!” [December 2007, page 34] and “Listen Up!” [January 2008, page 34], for more on this.) EXPANDINGIVR MARKETS The IVR influence is spreading across the globe. New research from Datamonitor shows global spending on IVR licenses will jump from $475 million in 2006 to $845 million by 2012. Regions with the largest compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2012: ASIA-PACIFIC: 18 percent CAGR CARIBBEAN AND LATIN AMERICA: 14 percent CAGR HIDING ACCESS TO LIVE AGENTS Sometimes automation can’t give all the help that’s necessary, and live agents are needed to rectify the situation. A major flaw is trying to hide these live agents by making it difficult to stop the automation and immediately go to an operator.“Eventually companies will realize they’re going to get a 40 to 60 percent completion rate in the IVR depending on what it’s set up to do,” Herrell points out, adding that many customers still have to (or want to) go to a human, but companies make it next to impossible to find live agents— which infuriates callers. “All you’re doing [by hiding access to live agents] is making people antagonistic toward using the automated system,” she says. Experts differ on how exactly to make it easier for callers in an IVR to get to live agents, but the sentiment is the same: Live agents must be readily available. “Zero should always, always go to an agent,” Kotelly says. Hura notes that it should be easy to access a live agent, but that companies should ask a few more questions so the IVR system can send the caller to the proper live agent the first time. “Rather than just offering an agent right up front, what you can do is recognize when callers say Agent [or] Operator, or press 0—but then ask them just the information that you would need in order to do the correct routing,” she says. 44 TEST, TEST, TEST The only way to truly find out if your VUI design is on the right track is to actually take it for a spin with real users. “You do your best and try to follow principles, but the fact is that none of us creating these systems have the exact same mindset as those end users,” Hura says. Pelland gives an example of a VUI he was helping to design for a United Kingdom–based voicemail system: After building a prototype and having all the U.K.-based executives test the system, testers provided it for real users, and found no one was able to access their voicemail messages. “Thank God we did a usability test,” he recalls.“In the U.K., people don’t use contractions when they’re speaking, and the command chosen in the U.S. to listen to the messages was What’s it say? When we did usability testing with people off the street every single one of them failed— it was one of those humbling moments as a designer when you realized you messed up.” However, the lesson was not learned in vain: “That’s my favorite example of why usability testing is important,” he says. “I usually present that story in the ‘Why you must usability test before you ship’ spiel.” When collecting data from these usability tests, it’s important to gather both quantitative (behavioral) and qualitative (opinion) data. Statistics alone won’t tell you as a designer what’s flawed and what isn’t, Hura says. “You ask callers questions to give their opinions on whether or not they felt like they were being misunderstood frequently, or whether the system usually understood what they had to say,” she says.“By balancing what users think with actual numbers, you can know whether or not you need to take action in any specific case.” THE FUTURE FOR IVR Making sure VUI designs are done properly the first time is becoming even more important now that IVR systems are becoming critical to companies’ customer service repertoire, and spending on IVR ports is expected to rise steadily through 2012. Just because more companies are planning to incorporate IVR systems doesn’t necessarily mean people will just accept them as a necessary evil. Hunter says that the makers and designers of IVR systems are viewing the telephone as more than simply one avenue through which customers reach out when they require assistance—and this changing philosophy could help improve not only VUI designs, but the entire IVR system framework. “The IVR automation industry is beginning to see [the phone] as two separate channels: a human channel and an automated channel over the phone,” he says. Citing a parallel with live Web chat being offered online, Hunter believes the same insight can—and should—be leveraged in IVR systems. “We need to start having that same focus on the phone— this idea that you might reach automation first but that reaching a person should be an immediate and easy option for these front-door systems,” he says.“So as soon as someone calls, there may be a clear option, a list of things we can do for you on the phone, or By the way we can also direct you to a person if you’ll tell us simply what you’re calling about. Then we’re putting power back into the hands of the callers. I actually think that will increase the adoption of automation because it doesn’t feel so imposed.” Editorial Assistant Christopher Musico can be reached at cmusico@destinationCRM.com. www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | JULY 2008 http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - July 2008

CRM - July 2008 Contents Front Office Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point CRM’s a Social Animal SAP Looks to ‘Change the Game' CRM on Twitter CRM to the Max A Prescription for Satisfaction Required Reading Cover Story: Is Microsoft Winning the CRM Race? Jumping into the SaaS Pool Say What? Another Bright Idea Out of Edison A Small Biz Blossoms Biting Off the Right Amount Something for a Rainy Day Connect Re:Tooling Pint of View

CRM - July 2008

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