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Voxify Snags PhotoTLC as Client
Voxify is announcing PhotoTLC as a new client.
By DAVID SIMS
TMCnet CRM Alert Columnist
Speech recognition vendors Voxify are announcing that PhotoTLC will put Voxify's Conversation Engine technology "at the disposal of" PhotoTLC's more than 15,000 outlets at photo retail centers across the country.
Continuing what Voxify officials characterize as an "aggressive push" into the retail sector, PhotoTLC's Voxify Automated Agents are set to handle more than 30 percent of PhotoTLC's internal call volumes, offering automated access to order information, which was previously not available.
Of course there's a cost savings motive at work as well: the Voxify agents will eliminate the need for PhotoTLC to outsource during busy holidays.
At a recent meeting with Voxify officials, including founder and VP of Products Amit Desai in San Francisco, this reporter heard about how eliminating the need for seasonal workers was one of the major selling points of the technology as far as companies are concerned. Seasonal help costs to train, makes rookie mistakes and, just when they have it down pat, the holidays are over.
But guess what? It's that time of year again. And seasonal surges account for a large portion of PhotoTLC's call volume.
Voxify has created what they claim are "the first Automated Agents for call centers with the conversational skills to handle advanced customer service calls," according to Voxify CEO Adeeb Shanaa in a recent interview.
Shanaa described the sort of automated agents that PhotoTLC has as "designed to help retailers give their customers the red carpet treatment on a throw rug budget." Some of them have already been put to use by Voxify customers, including Hammacher Schlemmer.
The first Agent on board for PhotoTLC is an Order Status Agent that helps internal staff members quickly find when a photo project is set to arrive. The agent also offers direct integration with all major U.S. shipping vendors, opening the door to enhanced tracking and delivery services not previously available to PhotoTLC employees.
Traditionally speech recognition is a clumsy affair, with users soon punching "0." Voxify executives acknowledge the performance issues facing the industry, and say they tell their customers to "hold us responsible for concrete numbers and deliverables, we’re paid by a percentage of calls that’s successfully handled,” according to Shanaa.
Amit Desai, Voxify’s vice president of products says in the reservations area, for example, “our metric of success is completion rates of reservations. Whatever it takes to get their reservation. For Continental Airlines we handle 100,000 calls and get an 88% completion rate. For Windham Hotels we achieved over 90%.”
Industry averages are 15 to 20 percent lower – “Industry averages are 38 percent automation completion rates, 40 to 60 is pretty good,” Shanaa says.
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David Sims is contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles by David Sims, please visit:
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