TMCnet News

Voxify Brings Summer's Christmas News
[September 02, 2005]

Voxify Brings Summer's Christmas News


By DAVID R. BUTCHER, Assistant Editor, Customer Interaction Solutions
 
I’ve held off writing this news feature because I am a firm believer that Christmas-related news should not appear in the media during August. I mean, the summer is only coming to an end in August. Christmas-related news appearing in August is ridiculous and is completely out of chronologically relevant context in August.


 
It is now the second of September, and writing Christmas-related news to appear in the media during September does not go against my aforementioned principle.

 
Voxify wants to know: Is your call center ready for Christmas?
 
The company’s holiday campaign is pushing for companies with call centers to know that Voxify Automated Agents are “perfect for seasonal spikes.” Seasonal spikes can take place during Mother’s Day (e.g., flower companies), Valentine’s Day (e.g., flowers, chocolates and sappy stuffed-animal companies), or the Super Bowl (e.g., beer, corn chips and sports wear companies; but mostly beer companies). Most particularly, however, seasonal call-volume spikes are most impacting across industries during the Christmas holidays, for three reasons: cost, capacity (100 percent) and consistency, or what the company calls the three ‘C’s.
 
Automated Agents are speech applications designed to handle mission-critical customer calls for companies’ full range of call types, not only the most basic informational calls but also the complicated and complex transactional calls. Instead of building call paths, wherein expected responses are hard-coded, the company built conversation skills needed for graceful and flexible management of common caller behaviors.
 
Often 50 percent to 80 percent of annual transaction calls occur during holiday spikes, according to the company. Call centers will be dealing with order-status calls, regarding where en route that vintage, still-in-its-box David Hasselhoff figurine the customer ordered for his weird cousin for Christmas is; or the customer needs to exchange the Hanson compact disc his totally un-hip aunt got him (Un-Hip Aunt: “Those ‘MMMBop’ kids got talent. They’re cute, too; especially the drummer; she’s a cutie.”).
 
The typically five-to-six-week spike in call volume during the holiday is becoming more intense because of the influx of more online retailers, as well as more gift-givers purchasing online. The fluctuation in call volume during this period of time cannot be accurately predicted, either.
 
Automated Agents can handle spikes in any business and, with them, companies don’t have to spend days modeling, forecasting and scheduling; nor do they have to pay agents overtime. Rather than spend the time and money to hire and train surplus help — temporary agents — during the call peak, Automated Agents can be taking calls between six and eight weeks; they can be in full 24/7 production within the following few weeks.
 
Each Automated Agent can handle thousands of calls a day at less than half the cost of a live agent, according to the company’s technical description of the applications. As well, companies do not pay when the agents are idle.
Powered by the Conversation Engine, Automated Agents do not require the foresight to predict all potential paths a conversation might take, nor do they need to code the resulting possible explosion of call paths.
 
“We’re giving [companies with call centers] a strategic, scalable foundation to build upon throughout the year,” Amit Desai, Voxify co-founder and VP of products, told Customer Interaction Solutions editors.
 
Voxify’s Agents — in an open-standards environment (VoiceXML/J2EE) — can quickly integrate with various industry systems and back-end systems. They are simply trained on the specifics of the implementing company’s business processes and are shown where to find the data. Once the first Automated Agent is deployed, the subsequent one inherits its “personality” and business rules training. Essentially, a Voxify Automated Agent can go through a transaction once and automatically know what to do the next time it experiences a similar transaction call.
 
One client using Voxify Automated Agents, online retailer Hammacher Schlemmer, predicts it will glean 75 percent cost savings on calls during this holiday season, and 53 percent cost savings through the rest of the year. The company will outsource 30 percent fewer calls.
 
Restoration Hardware and Ticketmaster have also rolled out Voxify Automated Agents, targeting their temporary-employee turnover and consistency problems.
 
Is it too early for Christmas-related information and news? Apparently not for companies with call centers. It takes time to prepare for the inevitable spike in call volume in relation with exchanges, order inquiries, etc. (However, editors at TMCnet are still of the disposition that it is still too soon to assume that a year-round Christmas tree in your living room is "a really neat idea.") 
 
A final factor for consideration: an Automated Agent won’t show up to work after a night of hard holiday celebrating, slurring his verbal service to the inquiring customer.
 
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David R. Butcher is Assistant Editor of Customer Interaction Solutions. To see more articles by David Butcher, please visit:
 

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