Reduce Costs and Improve ROI
| Business Issue | Speech Solution |
Contact centers struggle to balance staffing and workload with call patterns and requests. This can result in higher costs due to overstaffing and temporary hiring/firing costs associated with busier seasons. | Speech-enabled IVR (interactive voice response) systems allow contact centers to operate with fewer agents. Automated systems handle frequent, routine requests and can reduce seasonal hiring/firing costs. |
Long hold times in queues and long call durations drive customer care costs up for any company. | Speech-enabled systems dramatically reduce call holding times and allow customers to accomplish tasks more quickly, reducing overall customer care costs. |
Case Study
A leading financial services provider that manages funds in excess of $77 billion and serves over 525,000 401(k) customers was using a touch-tone IVR system that was not providing an easy and quick way for customers to access and update personal account information. The company decided to implement speech on top of their existing IVR system and soon realized significant cost savings. The automated speech system reduced the average cost of an agent-assisted call from $4.23 to 36¢. Additionally, average call time decreased from 12 minutes per call to less than 2 minutes.
In-Stat MDR reports that the average cost per agent-assisted contact center call is $1 to $5, compared with approximately 20¢ when speech recognition is used with the IVR system.
Giga Information Group reports that companies who use speech automation applications see a 10-30 percent decrease in operating expenditures for customer support functions.
