Selecting your IVR host is like buying a car

Often times when you set out to buy that shiny new or used car, things don’t go exactly as planned.  In the same way, finding the right IVR hosting partner can be a tricky business.  Like buying a car, if you walk into the IVR world without doing your research, you could get a lemon. It’s very important to understand some of the tricks that some IVR vendors use to get you to BUY NOW. Don’t get me wrong, not all IVR hosts are unscrupulous and not all are trying to take you to the cleaners. In fact, among all the hosts, many are really trustworthy. With that being said, the potential for a rip-off is still ever present. Some of the practices I have seen over the last eight years in this business justify some of the suspicions people have when it comes to IVR.

If you catch a whiff of any of the practices below, it would be wise to be on the alert. Armed with a little IVR knowledge, you should be able to detect and avoid some common pitfalls.

Here are a few car dealer tricks that are applicable to the IVR hosting world.

Trade In Value:
Auto Industry: People are attached to their old cars and often times they are set on getting a good deal on the trade-in.  The car dealer will take your beater but then they will inflate either the monthly payments or the down payment. Let’s be honest, your cherry red Fiero (The Red Dragon) wasn’t very cool in 1989, let alone 2009! I know how hard it is to say goodbye…my 84 Rabbit still haunts me to this day.

IVR Industry:  Old IVR applications are often pretty beat up (poor VUI design, not VXML compliant, the voice recordings sound like they were recorded in a Dr. Pepper can, etc.) Customers feel attached to these old systems because they paid a lot of money to have them built or even built the apps themselves.  Many IVR hosts don’t provide professional services and aren’t interested in improving the performance of your application.

MTI: Despite a recent program introduced in the Auto industry, we are not going to give you $3500 bucks because your current IVR system is a gas-guzzling road hog. What we will do is provide you with our expert VUI design and professional services team with over 20+ years of experience in the industry. If your old application is great and it is VXML compliant, by all means bring it over and run it on our platform. If it’s not so great, our professional services team will work with your team to design a system that meets all of your needs. MTI has two models:

1. We turnkey the whole process and build the apps for you.

2. We allow our partners to build their own applications and host them on our platform.

Upgrades and extras:
Auto Industry:  Car mats, Upgraded Stereo Equipment, License Plate Holders, Paint and Fabric protectors, Navigation, Kitty Litter box, etc. The list goes on and on, but in the end the unlucky consumer ends up a few thousand over budget.

IVR Industry:  Scalability, ASR and TTS resources are a few of the add-ons that will quickly blow any budget. Many hosts will charge per-use fees for features that should be included with your base service. Some “low-cost” hosts charge more for enterprise grade technology but they will allow you to use the in-house ASR or TTS for a lower price. Don’t settle for inferior technology or service.

MTI: Any enterprises interested in IVR should choose a hosting provider that is driven by performance and doesn’t nickel and dime you for basic services. MTI strives to become a true partner. We know it is in our best interest to create lasting relationships with our customers. We provide fair pricing that is easy to understand. It is our philosophy that customers deserve best-of-breed technology with full redundancy and automated failover, a 24/7 Network Operations Center, a disaster recovery plan, and the scalability to absorb spikes in call volume. Did I mention that your IVR host should be standards-based (VXML 2.0 2.1, SIP, etc)? You wouldn’t buy a car that some guy pieced together from some parts he found at the junkyard, would you?

Bait And Switch (We’re giving away cars, it’s FREE, blowout sale, 12 months same as cash):
Auto Industry:  We’ve all seen the meathead on TV urging you to come down to the dealership and take advantage of X promotion. You’re bored and you like free stuff so you head down to the dealer to pick up your FREE car but you leave the lot with $40,000 of debt.

IVR Industry:  Cars aren’t free, neither is IVR. You may be able to sign up for free or you may be able to download a fancy platform that you can run in your basement, but just remember: you get what you pay for.

Once you go for the bait, they set the hook. In the beginning you have this great little platform that takes ten calls a day and you don’t have any problems. Here is where they get you - when it comes time to deploy the application with real call volume, you suddenly realize that your free IVR platform does not scale, is not very reliable, and your monthly invoice goes from $39.95 to $3995.00. How did this happen? Well…when you signed up for your free or cheap account, you didn’t notice that those add-on fees and the per-port or per-minute rates were ridiculously high. These platforms are great for developers, not for enterprises. I could go on and on about this one, the bottom line is – be careful.

MTI: We allow prospective customers to fully test their applications in our sandbox environment before they sign a service agreement. No hidden fees or tricks. Before you decide to become a customer of MTI, you will have a clear understanding of how the billing works and, if you know your call volumes, then you will have a good idea of your monthly invoice.

Bottom line: If you are shopping for IVR, know your facts and know what you are looking for. If that is developing a partnership with a company that offers a great platform with exemplary service, you should give us a call.

If you’re not careful when you choose your host, you may end up with Sal the IVR guy with his pinky ring and Velcro shoes.

Over-thinking the Cloud

Many of you have probably spent a few days or possibly even a few weeks recently, lying on your back staring at the sky. With any luck there was just a sea of never ending blueness that made you relaxed and happy to be at the beach/pool/lake/mountain top or wherever your vacation dreams reside. However I suspect that during this period of unrelenting bliss, a few clouds showed up that made you think about the future of networking computing…unless that was just me..

With all the talk of cloud computing, when you actually look at clouds you will notice that the typical cloud that is used to depict the “Cloud” is usually a sizeable puffy one, fairly neatly formed and oval-ish. However, when you look at real clouds you will notice that clouds vary as much as people. No two clouds are alike. They all exhibit different personalities and traits.

During our relaxed state, the most welcome form of high-level cloud is not puffy at all, in fact, known as “Cirrus” clouds they are usually very thin and often wispy. Typically found at heights greater than 20,000 feet Cirrus clouds are composed of ice crystals that originate from the freezing of super-cooled water droplets (I looked that up…). What we like about Cirrus clouds is that they generally occur in fair weather and don’t threaten to disturb our dreamy state of relaxation.

Those large,  puffy “Internet” clouds, also known as Cumulus (yep…the ones that start to look like rabbits and puppies after we stare at them for a while) tend to be mid to low level clouds that turn a gray color when they become “Cumulonimbus”. This is because they are reaching their capacity and are expected to be overloaded soon. The sight of a large looming cumulonimbus will motivate us to start rolling up the beach towel and head to the hotel for an early happy hour. However, their slightly less impressive half-brothers “Stratocumulus” that generally appear as a low, lumpy layer of clouds with breaks of clear sky in between generally make us hold off on the exit strategy but do have a tendency to ruin the mood. As you can see the Cloud world is very rich and diverse.

So, what is the point of all this? Well, as more and more companies talk about their “Cloud” computing strategy, I think we should be asking ourselves exactly what type of cloud they are building and is the term “Cloud” really meaningful as the Internet develops.  Is their cloud something that is large and looming that, as it grows, will eventually ruin our day, or something simple and un-intrusive that is far away and not likely to have a big impact at all on our lives? It’s actually probably neither.

Unfortunately, as someone who starts to pace relentlessly when he loses Blackberry connectivity for even 5 minutes, I think we really need to develop an all-encompassing analogy that depicts something that will entirely envelop us and completely change the way we think about computing, the web, the phone, networks, technology, vacations, clouds and everything else.

I propose that network diagrams should no longer show the Internet as a “Cloud” off in the corner with lines coming out of it -  they should start with a musty gray undeterminable background with all the stuff sitting right in the middle of the grayness, connecting not by clear lines, but via some ethereal mist-like form. I further suggest we no-longer use the term “Cloud” computing, but start using “Fog” computing. Simple, brutal, cold and in your face.

That way we will be much more honest with the public at large and all the confusion will be completely eliminated.

Putting Out the Welcome Mat for Outbound Calls

Recently a fellow VUI designer, Caroline Leathem, asked for volunteers to take a survey on outbound contact perception. You can take it here.

In particular, she wanted callers from outside the U.K. to express their opinion on how they preferred to be contacted in a variety of situations. The options were: Text Message, Email, Letter, Phone Call from an Automated Service, Phone Call from an Onshore Agent and Phone Call from an Offshore Agent. The order wasn’t fixed, which I found a bit odd, as it made me wonder whether it was accidental or intended to shift the bias somewhat.

But I did notice that my knee jerk reaction was to eschew the automated call more often than not, either by not choosing it at all, or by ranking it very low in my list of choices. This is downright peculiar, as we have written a number of applications that use Outbound calling to very good effect. And I genuinely do prefer the speed of dealing with an automated application when I am trying to get something done, without having to take the time for human interaction. This isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy a good conversation with a stranger, but not when I am task-focused. And perhaps, too, it is specific to the task. Arranging for a delivery or setting up an appointment, really is easier to do with a person. But soliciting or providing information is generally easier to do with a machine.

In the informal surveys we have performed for our customer base, the reaction to our automated outbound call has been positive—the call recipients received just enough information in a timely way to act upon. Or they were able to respond to and log their information as needed when they needed to. I suspect at least some of the difference is that they were expecting the call, so that it wasn’t an intrusion. And the consistency of the interaction was comfortable over time.

Outbound calling has been getting steadily increasing attention in the news. Datamonitor predicts the market for hosted Outbound IVR services in North America will more than double from an estimated $213 million in 2008 to $524 million by 2013. They attribute the rapid growth to the economy.

“Outbound IVR applications are simpler than inbound IVR applications, and require less intelligence to determine end-user goals. Over the next few years, vendors will integrate outbound IVR applications with backend business logic and by taking advantage of all major customer touchpoints, notably email and SMS.

The biggest factor that will influence the market for outbound IVR applications is the economy, due to which enterprises across all verticals have adapted “do more with less” mantra.” The Rise of Outbound Applications in an Economic Recession (Strategic Focus)

That being said, we need to prepare for more calls, both making and receiving them. It is important that we understand when and where outbound calls can fit into the ways we communicate, so that we don’t alienate the very people we want to reach out to and engage.  More on this topic soon.