Cacophony

Ah…SpeechTek in New York City amid the frenetic activity of hustlers and buskers, business suits and Bermuda shirted tourists of every size, shape and nationality imaginable. What a backdrop for a convention dedicated to trends and technology for Speech IVR applications!

The noise quotient roars in the background—cars and trucks and ambulances and construction and people. It is a voice designer’s nightmare. All of this din competing with the caller’s voice for the hapless speech recognizer to filter, parse and manage to return a reasonable response. And yet, that is the focus of this conference—how to reach and engage the new mobile user—the customer of our future. And this includes dealing with these very conditions. So what seemed dichotomous proves to be a perfect setting.

How will we serve this new breed? Our industry is maturing; the rush for better and better technology is evolving to a new focus on how to do what we do better—how to target and respond in new ways to the challenge of communicating with and selling to these tech savvy, in a hurry, high energy and strongly individualistic people. Turning the clock back in time to see that in choosing machine over personal service, we have taken away the very reason that we need and want to interact with each as customer and vendor.

Once upon a time, when you wanted to speak with someone about something, you went to them, and asked them your question. If they were not available, there was someone there who knew where they were, when they would return, and very likely, be able to answer your question or address your concern for you—personal contact, in a direct context.

In today’s IVR environment, we have a one size fits all response through which the caller must wade step by step, without regard for what she actually needs or wants. She must sit impatiently through menus, marketing messages and jargon before selecting the option of interest. What a waste!

In the brave new IVR of the future, we want to see a return to the personal service that comes from an understanding of the caller–using caller history, reverse ANI matching and demographic information behind the scenes to offer pertinent options and messages, and then displaying them in a multimodal way that allows the caller to respond and track that information in a way that is meaningful and useful for them. The message is “It is all about me. I am The Customer!” That is the voice that rises about all the sound and fury here in New York.

No Comments yet »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment