DO YOU HAVE A SPY IN YOUR CONTACT CENTER?

Location:  Le Casino Royale, Montenegro. Staging:  A tall, dark handsome man in a $10,000 tuxedo makes a cell phone call before pulling up a chair to join a high-stakes poker game of no-holds-barred Texas Hold 'Em.

* * *

Virtual Agent:  "Hello. May I please have your name?"

Customer:  "Bond. James Bond."

Virtual Agent:  "Good afternoon, Agent 007. How may I help you?"

Customer:  "People have been shooting at me all day, and I can't remember my 12-digit PIN."

Virtual Agent:  "That's not a problem, sir. Your voiceprint has been verified and your security clearance confirmed. By the way, I see that your newly outfitted Aston Martin is ready to be picked up at MI6 headquarters."

Customer:  "Great. Put M on the line."

Virtual Agent:  "Of course, sir. I'll transfer your call along with your current mission file. Anything else I can do for you today?"

Customer:  "Yes, I'd like a vodka martini, medium dry, shaken -- not stirred."

* * *

Well, maybe they can't tend bar -- yet -- but with the advent of speech self service, voice portals have become gadgets that might even impress a technologically armed chap like Agent 007.

Natural-sounding speech, voiceprint identification, speech recognition and text-to-speech are applications in use in the real world today.

An optimally implemented voice portal can collect information that can provide your customers with fast, personalized service, free up live agents to handle complicated calls and help you deal successfully with the bottom-line challenges of running a contact center.

Building on the James Bond allegory, let's imagine an operative calling into mission intelligence headquarters as a desperate "customer." The highly trained help-desk agent he needs to walk him through the steps for diffusing the bomb that's counting down in front of him, however, is busy processing another operative's order for a new camera pen.

Not an ideal situation, right?

However, if a speech-enabled voice portal were handling the camera call, the desperate operative would be more likely to reach the agent with the skills he needed when he needed them, perhaps by simply saying "emergency."

The agent would be gratified to be doing such critically important work, and the operative would have saved the day.

Of course, his colleague would benefit too because if he couldn't "push three to order a camera pen" and then "push six to order it in silver" and then "push two for overnight delivery" because he's busy multitasking (involved in a high-speed car chase, for instance), he could simply say "three" or "order new camera pen," depending on the system's setup and the menu options.

Everybody would be happy:  the operative who's no longer sweating bullets over the bomb; the proud owner of a silver model no. 874692-A camera pen; the heroic phone agent; and you (the supervisor who has an impressive report to present to management about having improved service, retained valued personnel, contained costs and oh, yeah, saved the world.)

These are extreme, tongue-in-cheek examples, but you do get the point, right?

The modern voice portal can be a powerful tool when implemented according to the specific needs of unique business environments.

And is it really that far-fetched to think of the contact center as mission intelligence central for your business? It shouldn't be.

The power contact centers possess to gather intelligence is in a league with that possessed by Agent 007 himself.

Voice portals can collect information about your customer base that can be stored for later build-a-better-business analysis, used to access customer records on the spot and to make successful, right-the-first-time connections to live assistance.

After all, you don't want your operative to be transferred three times before finally reaching the knowledgeable professional he's seeking in the poison antidotes department!

So what kind of strategies and best practices should you employ when opening a case on speech-enabled self service?

We recommend the following:

1.  Design with your customers in mind:

When planning your applications, ask questions that help you understand the types of transactions your customers would like automated, the complexity of these transactions, your customers' emotional needs for various types of transactions and whether or not privacy would be helpful.

2.  Integrate it into your contact center:

Creating a user-friendly interface requires that you integrate your speech application with your customer relationship management (CRM) system. This will allow you to leverage the information stored in your back-end systems to identify your customers based on input like phone numbers and account numbers, and to personalize your interactions.

3.  Connect customers to the right place (agent or automated application) the first time:

Although not as exciting as the earlier example, let's say that a local cable company customer calls to report that his broadband Internet access service is not working. He listens to the touch-tone options, but none seem to fit his needs. So, he says "service" and is transferred to an agent. He provides his name, account information and the reason for his call. The agent then discloses that he is unable to help him with his Internet service but would be more than happy to troubleshoot any cable television service problems he might be having. Not helpful.

4.  Enable your customers to take action without having to listen to the full menu:

Your customers want quick and accurate service. They don't have the time or the desire to wade through long lists of menu options before they can take action. Call-steering technology expedites the transfer process and allows your customers to speak into their phones to be automatically routed to the agents or automated applications that can best meet their needs.

5.  Design your automated applications to be like your best agent:

Your speech applications, which augment your live agent workforce with an army of "virtual agents," should contain all of the attributes that you would expect from your top agents. They should be courteous, listen carefully to your customers to determine their needs and repeat responses to confirm accuracy and take appropriate action.

6.  Tune your application:

Just as your business constantly evolves, so must your speech self service. This can be accomplished through ongoing testing and tuning. Tuning is often most exhaustive when you initially launch your speech application as you tweak grammar, timing and customer recognition. However, minor usability adjustments will be required throughout the life of your application.

7.  Maintain and evolve your application:

Customers become reliant on well-designed speech applications; therefore, you must ensure that yours remain fresh, updated and responsive to your customers' requests. It's the only way to maintain the high level of satisfaction you will have achieved through your well thought-out design and implementation phases.

Speech-enabled self service can make the customer-company interaction a very positive one, whether the customer is ordering a sweater, reporting a service outage, making a hotel reservation, changing an address, paying a bill, asking questions about a computer program -- or even buying James Bond movie memorabilia.

Turns out that the key to business success is not hidden in a top-secret classified file; it's in your contact center.