How IVR is reshaping Revenue Generating Contact Centers Voice Automation has not traditionally played a significant role in revenue-oriented contact centers. The prominent thinking is that ‘people do a better job selling than machines’. While that point might be true, an effective automated system can play a key role in a sales center even if [...]

Delivering exceptional customer service requires more than just getting the job done. You must also make the service experience itself easy and effective for the customer. Recent research suggests that minimizing a customer’s effort during the service experience has the greatest impact on customer loyalty. A 2010 Harvard Business Journal report entitled “Stop Trying to [...]

How IVR is reshaping Revenue Generating Contact Centers Wednesday April 25th, 2012 2:00 PM ET/ 11:00 AM PT Voice Automation has not traditionally played a significant role in revenue-oriented contact centers. The prominent thinking is that ‘people do a better job selling than machines’. While that point might be true, an effective automated system can [...]

Aberdeen Group invites you to participate in it’s upcoming research report “Speech Analytics: Converting Voice into Performance Results” Contact centers are under increasing pressure to personalize customer interactions, ensure compliance with quality protocols and optimize agent competency skills. Speech analytics tools enable companies to convert voice into actionable insights required to achieve improvement in these [...]

There is a customer service revolution afoot. Consumers will no longer put up with poor customer service. As the number of product and service alternatives rises, the companies that provide the best customer experience will gain and retain, while the companies that don’t struggle to stay afloat. I swear I didn’t mean for both of [...]

The truth is, the best and most consumer friendly IVR systems save callers time by easily answering the questions most frequently asked, and by connecting callers with the best available agent for more complex inquiries. The problem is, most IVRs simply don’t do this well. Consumers call the companies with whom they do business to [...]

// This entry was originally posted on the Aberdeen Blog, available here // Aberdeen’s Service Management research has revealed how customer satisfaction plays a vital role in driving loyalty, retention and increased profitability. In Aberdeen’s State of Service Management: Forecast for 2012 research (January 2012), organizations reporting a 90%+ level of customer satisfaction revealed significantly [...]

WATCH NOW The Changing Voice of Customer Service Co-Presented with Best Western International and Aberdeen Group Recording Date: January 18, 2012 at 9:00 AM PST | 12:00 PM EST | 5:00 PM UK Time While newer support channels such as social media and chat dominate the headlines, voice-based interactions in the contact center still dominate [...]

The Changing Voice of Customer Service Co-Presented with Best Western International and Aberdeen Group When: January 18, 2012 at 9:00 AM PST | 12:00 PM EST | 5:00 PM UK Time REGISTER HERE While newer support channels such as social media and chat dominate the headlines, voice-based interactions in the contact center still dominate the [...]

This entry was originally posted on the blog of Customer Loyalty Expert, Myra Golden. You can view the original posting here I’ve often heard it said that every customer relationship should be considered a marriage between the company and the consumer. I can’t agree more. There are as many different types of marriages as there [...]

Nancy Jamison, an independent market analyst at Jamison Consulting, wrote a fantastic piece about Interactions for her Voice Vault column in Speechtech Magazine’s November/December issue, entitled IVR Relinquishes the Gatekeeper Role. Check out the article here. Nancy’s areas of expertise include unified communications, speech technologies, contact centers, and social media as it applies to those [...]

Once in a blue moon, I get the opportunity to sit back for a few moments, and reflect on the progress this company has made to date. We can all appreciate the dedication of the Interactions team and the true passion everyone has for our work here. When I joined Interactions, there was an incredible [...]

I am excited as an experienced contact center sales professional to be joining an organization that enables “customer delight” with every client! Having worked at companies like ROLM, Aspect Telecommunications, Witness Systems, NICE Systems and others, I have experienced first hand the “vendor promise” of delivering customer satisfaction, and the challenges and obstacles that invariably [...]

It’s easy to get caught up in our high-tech lifestyle and overlook the impact of the latest innovations on the less fortunate. The annoyances of our everyday problems pale in comparison with the third world. How many times have you caught yourself saying, “Ugh, my phone’s camera sucks at nightshots.” As the popular Twitter trending [...]

We are thrilled to announce our expanding relationship with Humana. Yesterday, The Boston Globe printed a great article entitled “Automated agent will aid enrollees in Medicare.” Feel free to read the article here. Additionally, we put a press release on the wire regarding our expanding relationship available here. If you have any questions regarding the [...]

Interactions is a sponsor of Frost & Sullivan’s 7th Annual Customer Contact 2011 West being held in Coronado, California from Sunday, October 23rd, 2011 to Wednesday, October 26th, 2011! If you plan on being in attendance, make sure to stop by our showcase on Tuesday, October 25th at 10:45AM Pacific Time: Revitalizing IVR: How to [...]

Don’t let the title fool you. It’s not as cold as it sounds. With a focus on customer care, it’s seemingly more important to have a call centers’ agents focus on the most difficult tasks, tough questions, complex problems, and high-value sales – not with simple things that raise the contact centers’ costs and waste [...]

Every man knows the importance of securing a good barber. Your hair isn’t something to mess around with. Your barber has to be talented, know what you are looking for when you come in, and be someone you can get along with. So, upon moving to a new location recently, I ventured out to find [...]

In support of our commitment to providing a superior self-service experience for the hospitality, travel, and entertainment industries, Interactions will be one of the platinum sponsors of the 26th Annual International Association of Reservation Executives (IARE) Conference 2011 occurring from September 11-13th in Las Vegas, NV! If you plan on attending, make sure to check [...]

This year marked our second year in attendance at SpeechTEK. While the space was hot and cramped, the technology was fresh and the booths were crowded. Between vendors, potential clients, and the old ladies who snuck into the conference just for the freebie Interactions flashlights, our booth seemed to be a hot commodity and our [...]

The Wall Street Journal posted an interesting story regarding self-service on Monday in regard to supermarket self-checkouts. If you haven’t gotten a chance to see the story, you can check it out here. In a few words, the story found that supermarket chain Albertsons is phasing out its self-checkout systems, while Kroger is ramping up [...]

Polaris Marketing Research Group released a study last week which found that 72% of American consumers are more likely to be loyal to a group that treats them right. Not surprising at first read, however clearly indicative of a consumer-focused shift in the customer care industry, as more and more product and service alternatives become [...]

I don’t like to “sell” through the blog, but this time I have to. It’s hard not to get caught up in the excitement surrounding this company. I have noticed significant changes even in the three months since I came on. We have hired three new sales reps from a wide variety of backgrounds, prepared [...]

Last Thursday marked the first meeting of the Interactions Customer Advisory Board (CAB). The CAB is composed of seven prominent clients of Interactions who value high-quality customer experience. By exchanging best practices, and reaching out for advice on priorities, direction, and planning, the CAB will not only advance Interactions’ position in the world of automated systems, but also benefit our clients in the way they engage with Interactions.

As I run the company Twitter, browse LinkedIn, and check news feeds for the keywords IVR, Call Centers, and CRM every day, I don’t hear much negative news about our sector of the telecommunications industry. This isn’t surprising, because who wants to dwell on negative perceptions of the space they work in? Well, we do – because at Interactions, we view our product as a solution to the negative aspects of the unpopular IVR industry. And that’s why we wanted to get involved in this independent study from a NYU professor about IVR industry perceptions.

Interactions is a sponsor of SpeechTEK 2011 being held in New York City from August 8th-10th. If you plan on being in attendance, make sure to stop by booth 207 and the Balancing Automation and Human Agents presentation on Monday, August 8th at 1:45pm where Interactions’ EVP of Marketing, Phil Gray will be a participating panelist!

Learn how Interactions is changing the way companies interact with their customers.
Hear for yourself what’s different about Interactions than the traditional IVR/Speech applications.

I would like to start off by saying that I am ecstatic to be a new member of the Interactions team! Interactions is an exciting company with an exciting business model and from what I can tell, the roof WILL be blown off the IVR industry with each and every Interactions success story that comes to fruition! I look forward to being a part of that and having a lot of fun along the way. I strive in an entrepreneurial environment and Interactions is definitely that type of environment.

Perhaps the better question is what doesn’t annoy you about Customer Service, according to results from a Consumer Reports study released earlier this month. Findings from a survey of more than 1,000 people reveal that Americans are simply disgusted with the current customer care landscape. If you came across this blog post because you have some sort of involvement in customer service (and who doesn’t these days?) this might come off as a personal jab. But let’s be honest – there’s a lot of areas in which we can improve.

We already know that consumers, for the most part, look to self-service first before reaching out for help. It’s not like we just call the local bank branch, demand to speak to a teller, and then simply request our balance. We look for the easiest, quickest method first: a Google search, a company website, and communicating with the IVR. We don’t want to waste our time and the time of the customer service agents when we can find the solution without outside intervention.

It’s impossible to forecast the direction of technology. When everyone thought mass hard-drive storage was the next trend, it moved to the cloud. When everyone dismissed the original tablets (circa the 2002 Windows XP Tablet PC) they made a huge return in the form of the iPad. And who could have predicted the impact that Google Docs has had on the Microsoft Office dynasty? So how could one possibly imagine the future of Interactive Voice Response systems? Or the bigger question: will IVR even be necessary?

Achieving a truly conversational and intelligent voice interface is the holy grail of the IVR industry. It holds the promise of enabling customers to carry on a productive conversation and accomplish things through self-service as easily as talking with an agent. However as most people have come to realize, the majority of IVR systems today are far from providing a quality agent-like experience. This is readily apparent in the most advanced IVR systems that have an open ended opening prompt such as ‘‘How can I help you’.

A Google search for “hate interactive voice response” yields over 6.6 million results. By contrast, a Google search for “love interactive voice response” yields around 2 million. Without debate, the IVR industry is one that carries a negative connotation by outsiders. In the rapidly growing market of speech recognition and its limitless application potential, how do you label a new generation of innovative, helpful products when the accepted term is stagnant and outdated?

Customer Service over the phone is undeniably the most difficult form of customer service at which to excel. At the same time, it’s also the place where the majority of company opinions are formed. New statistics from Purdue University show that over 92% of customers form their opinion of a company based on its call center. Further data from Frost & Sullivan show that most companies that plan on adjusting their customer service mediums this year have their web presence, including website FAQs and help sections, social media, and live web chat, on the front lines.

As a recent college graduate and an avid technology user who can type faster on the iPhone than a computer, who never had to dial an operator, and who hasn’t written a word on paper since the SATs – trust me, calling a customer service line isn’t my idea of optimal. It’s not like we’re born hating these hotlines, but time and time again we are underwhelmed with these services and all their downfalls. Do I even have to describe what we expect from customer service lines?

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems have not traditionally played a significant role in sales-oriented contact centers, particularly those involved with complex products or services. The prominent thinking is that ‘people do a better job selling than machines’. While that point might be true, an effective IVR can play a key role in a sales center even if the IVR does not take on the role of ‘selling’.

As a long-time executive in the speech technology industry, I still have those moments. The moments where I – or someone I’m close to – is exposed to a poorly-conceived IVR system, and their experience leaves me thinking, “it’s no wonder that voice self-service gets a bad wrap…”.

First, let me say, that I’m a sales guy, not a blogger.

While I do appreciate the importance of social media in forging and strengthening personal and business relationships, I’d much rather spend my time face to face – or even over the phone — with a customer or prospect. In my book, that’s what truly enables you to listen to what their needs are.

I just wanted to take a moment to draw your attention to an announcement we made yesterday – specifically, that we’re hiring! As reflected in our press release, we’re currently to retain approximately 250 “Intent Analysts” over the course of Q4 and the first part of 2011.

Contact centers are the key hub for delivering remote customer care. For as long as I have been involved with contact centers they have always been faced by a key ongoing dilemma. How do I improve the customer experience while driving down costs? Contact centers are constantly striving to improve on these two imperatives which are often add odds at each other.

I was struck today by an article that I read over at the Sydney Morning Herald – you can find it here. Let’s be honest – I don’t usually spend my mornings trolling Australian publications for news on our industry, but a friend sent this piece over and it definitely resonated with me.

I have passion about design, simplicity, and elegance. For example: I love Bang and Olufsen products. They are simple, beautiful, and the company has spent a lot of effort to understanding human factors and human interface. At home, I have a 24-year-old stereo hooked up to all sort of modern digital devices and it still sounds wonderful.

Interactions will be attending Speechtek at the Marriott Marquis in New York City, August 2-4. If you are there, be sure to stop by our booth. We will be showcasing our HumanTouchTM IVR, a truly conversational self-service system with understanding capabilities that far exceed anything on the market today.

With the launch of our new website, our executive team feels there is an opportunity to provide a thoughtful forum for discussion of trends in our space. As a passionate (truly!) team of customer care professionals, we’re constantly working to improve our own understanding of the newest trends, best practices, and relevant data.