Customers calling

An Ask the Expert feature with TuVox

As in many other industries, the utilities sector carries out much of its communications with its customers by telephone. What are the most crucial aspects of this type of customer communication and why is it so important to get them right?

“Given the choice, most callers will opt to use a voice self-service system rather than wait on hold for a call center agent”
-Steve Pollock, TuVox

It's well known that there many things that consumers don’t like about typical telephone communications – complex and confusing menu trees, ending up in the wrong place, waiting a long time for service, and having to repeat information.

Fortunately, these issues are all solvable. First, to get callers to the right place, streamline and improve the automated systems that greet every caller. The key is to allow the caller to openly say why they are calling (‘natural language’ intent detection). A well-designed natural language greeting eliminates the frustrations caused by a ‘press 1, press 2’ menu system. Getting the caller intent correct is faster, easier, and also cuts down on costly transfers between call center departments.

Second, TuVox has found that given the choice, most callers will opt to use a voice self-service system rather than wait on hold for a call center agent. Today's systems are far more intelligent and user-friendly than the touch-tone IVR systems of the past. For example, intelligent use of caller ID (ANI) allows a level of efficiency that wasn’t possible before through speedier caller verification and personalized information.

Finally, forcing a caller to repeat information is the most commonly cited complaint today. A ‘screen pop’ solution that acts as a bridge between the telephone system and the call center agent helps resolve this common irritant and allow the agent to begin solving caller issues faster.

Our guiding principle is that callers aren’t calling because they want to, they're calling because they have to. The faster you can help them, the happier they will be. In the real world, this means routing calls to the right place the first time and solving issues quickly.

What tools and solutions are available to utility companies looking to maximize their customers’ telephone communication experience by, for example, shortening agent talk times, reducing mis-routed calls or automating more calls?

A good first step for many companies is to fix their call routing issues by implementing natural language call routing. If great self-service applications and well-trained call center agents can only be reached via an arcane touch-tone system, then callers are forced to navigate through layers of confusing menus to try to find the ‘treasure’. Many callers will become irritated, lost, or misrouted before they hear the first “how can I help you”.

Nowadays, companies can outsource call routing, leaving the existing IVR alone (for the time being), and have the routing application work seamlessly with the IVR and agents. Outsourcing may or may not include physically locating the application outside of the enterprise.

Not only does this approach free you from having to make a large capital investment, it allows you to run a sample of your callers through the application and measure results before expanding traffic.

A huge added benefit in starting with routing is the visibility you can obtain into your callers’ intentions. Rather than a convoluted picture of how callers navigated a touch-tone maze, you’ll see details about what they’re thinking when they call. The wealth of information you obtain will help you improve the routing application and give you a clear roadmap showing what to leave alone, and what are the best candidates for new speech applications.

Automation opportunities include account status applications, the ability to make payments, service changes (start/stop service), program enrollment and many others.  With today's generation of application analytics, you can continue to improve the usefulness and efficiency of self-service applications.

Finally, design all call types to shorten live agent time through a ‘hybrid strategy’.  Capture key data elements (identification, caller intent, and specific data for each call type) and build this into the live agent call script. Since the caller has already given account details, the representative will have all of this data and can progress directly into the call. Done correctly, a minute or more can be shaved from every call.

Operational benefit can be achieved within months, positively impacting satisfaction and improving the bottom line. Take advantage of expertise and ready-to-deploy applications by working with a specialist like TuVox.

Steve Pollock, Executive Vice President and Co-Founder
Steve Pollock is responsible for strategy, marketing and corporate development. Steve is the co-author of multiple TuVox patents and speaks often about using self-service technology to achieve business results. Prior to TuVox, Steve was Vice President of Marketing for Edify Corporation, marketing IVR platform software and applications.