Siri, the new IPhone 4S feature has created quite a buzz around the globe among smart phone users! Actually, this new feature can be thought as a natural progress in mobile phone industry, from keyboard input, touch input, audio or video file stored from a host, and now a voice input to get things done by the phone! For example, using Siri, one can get few things done like :-

How Siri in IPhone will Help IVR

1. Call 911 ( or 100 in India) for police emergency!
2. Send text message by speaking.
and many more including searching restaurant nearby for you when you are hungry!

So, how does it affect IVR industry ?

I am very happy with this development of introduction of “Siri type application” in Apple SmartPhone! Recently, SmartPhones have been doing things which were also done by IVR with a phone call ( retrieve information quickly).

How Siri will help IVR ?

I hope, Siri will introduce concept of “Audio Menu” in masses and people will be receptive to the idea of listening to audio menus to learn things and perform task. Having to listen to audio menu has been one of the most hated thing about IVR. Siri type application help people realise its importance and usefulness in getting things done!

Many people have complained ( ridiculed) about having to speak to machines! Siri application in iconic Apple IPhone does the same, it gets a person to speak to his phone, except that the phone is not connected! So, with wide acceptance of Siri, people will stop ridiculing about having to speak to machine using IVR. I hope this will help in speaker recognition, IVR Payment gateway etc.

Finally, more people would be now involved in developing and training voice recognition engines and hope it will become more accurate in noisy environments. Also speaker recognition in IVR would be more used in verifying identities of callers.

So, I am hoping with introduction of Siri in Apple IPhone, Android Based Phones will also have some really smart Applications for accepting voice input!

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is being used in many fields, and it has also been used in social sectors too. One such example was surveying Mid Day meal scheme in India’s populous state Uttar Pradesh. Apart from this, there have also been usage of IVR in mass awareness campaign about various government schemes, services.

IVR in Grivance Redressal by NGOs

These services were normally alert type service where outbound IVR is used which dials out phone numbers and plays a recorded message. Centre for People’s Forestry, an NGO ( Non Government Organisation), based in Secundrabad, Andhra Pradesh in India has started an inbound IVR where tribal people in central India living in forest areas can lodge a complaint or message by calling the IVR number!

This is a simple inbound IVR which they are hosting with Niche Tech Services Private Limited, an established IVR hosting service provider in India.

Here, any one can dial the IVR number which prompts in four languages, Odiya, Telegu, Hindi and English. And this IVR is mainly aimed at Telegu and Odiya speaking tribes in central India. These tribes have been living in this forested central areas for centuries before these forests became ‘reserved forests’. Some time they face hardships and Centre for People’s Forestry has been working to address their grievances. In order to get news about their grievances, CPF has set up this inbound IVR.

Steps to use this IVR :-

1. Anyone will dial the IVR, he would be asked to choose his language.
2. Once the language is chosen, she is asked to speak her grievance and disconnect.
3. The recorded voice is then immediately emailed to concerned CPF ( Centre For Poeple’s Forestry) as well as an SMS alert is sent.
4. CPF personals can also visit website provided by Niche Tech Services (P) Ltd to listen to this message online as well as other call logs.

CPF personal then can call up the phone number who recorded the message, verify the complaint and take up the issue with state authorities for remedial actions!

Advantage of this IVR is lodging a complaint in his/her own voice by just making a call. Lodging a complaint by phone from distance is easy and less intimidating, specially for illiterate tribes.

CPF now gets any complaints instantly and serve people better with timely intervention. This may increase faith in them by poor tribal people.

This kind of simple complaint lodging inbound IVR could also be used by CVC ( Central Vigilance Commission) India, Women Police Stations, Help Centres, Trauma centres etc. to help victims.

Microsoft Corporation, the veteran company, leader ( almost monopoly) in PC operating system has bought Skype, the voice call provider on internet ( peer to peer Skype account as well as any telephone to Skype account and vice versa ).

Microsoft Acquires Skype : New Voice Apps

If it does so, than we may experience many interesting changes the way we have been creating call flow of IVR, IVVR etc.

CTI manufacturers have been making CTI boards supporting Asterisk, the open source Telephony Software so far, but now, they may start manufacturing CTI boards in future directly supporting MSXML for building rich voice and video application eying the 170million Skype users ( growing at 40% Year over Year).

So, we hope the acquisition of Skype by Microsoft seems exciting for IVR World!

Glorsoft Limited, a young up and coming Irish Software company today announced that its Voice Application Development middleware, Velocity v3.0, was selected for the Best Development Tool award at the Internet Telephony EXPO exhibition and conference at the Miami Beach

GlorSoft - Velocity 3.0 .NET IVR Dev Tool

ITEXPO, produced by Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC), is the world’s largest and best-attended IP Communications trade show, drawing an average attendance of 7,000 buyers and sellers of IP Communications products and services.

Glorsoft, an Enterprise Ireland supported High Potential Startup (HPSU), is a Dublin based developer of interactive voice response (IVR) and speech-based application programming tools. The company has been actively building a global developer community with its Velocity software development kit (SDK) and travelled to Miami last week to exhibit at the ITEXPO.

“This week in Miami we’ve set new standards across the board – from our conference content, to the quality of the products and solutions on our expo floor, and this year’s Best-of-Show winners deserve recognition for differentiating themselves from a large and highly competitive field,” said Rich Tehrani, CEO and conference chairman for TMC. “We’re pleased to honor the “best-of-show” winners, and we thank them for sharing their innovative solutions with the communications and technology community at ITEXPO.”

Commenting on the award, Tim Farrelly, Managing Director of Glorsoft, stated “we are delighted that our Velocity product has been recognised on the international stage. We always believed we had a World class product and the feedback from the attendees at the show has been excellent. We look forward to building our partner and developer community and would like to thank our existing users who have contributed to our success to-date.”

Velocity v3.0 is used by application developers to build automated voice and speech based solutions. It is an open, standards-based platform which integrates tightly with Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2010 and numerous MRCP based Speech Recognition engines. As a .NET based technology, Velocity makes telephony programming more accessible to the global developer community. Velocity based solutions are presently deployed in Ireland, UK, USA, Canada and New Zealand with many more projects in the pipeline.

The Velocity SDK can be downloaded for free at www.glorsoft.com

Further Information -:

Anne Marie Moran, Glorsoft Limited
3300 Lake Drive, Citywest Business Campus, Dublin 24
Telephone 01-6877000
Annemarie@glorsoft.com

Recently, I had a very interesting IVR enquiry. The person was looking for a hosted IVR solution for for his mobile number which will be diverted to the his ‘personal IVR’ after 9PM in the evening till 9AM in the morning. Apart from this, he also wanted the facility to divert the at will at anytime. And he does not want a mere ‘voicemail’ service which is quite common and easily available with any telephone company. Also, he wanted an SMS or Email alert for any call which a caller authenticate by entering a password ( provided by him to the caller) so that he knows it is an emergency and he may call back.

Personal IVR

I found it quite interesting IVR application. With recent availability of online ‘DIY’ ( Do it Yourself ) IVR, most probably, IVR will become a service to be used by individual people and people may start using IVR instead of ‘mere voicemail’ in near future.

Most probably, this kind of hosted IVR solution for individual would be natural extension of voice mail which is widely used in USA. Voice mail has not picked up well in India though its availability is almost as old as mobile phones. Its glamorous cousin popularly known as ‘Voice SMS’ became popular after mobile operators promoted it in line with SMS!

This kind of arrangement can easily be achieved and implemented by using call forward feature available in mobile phone. Many telephone service providers in India provide unlimited call in their home network, so if the IVR Hosting provider and the individual person are on same network, then there will not be huge call cost for the call forwarding.

The user can have his own personalised voice greetings, menu options to choose as per requirement. For example, a travel agent could store any enquiry, phone calls form the call records. He may also choose to speak to his existing clients whom he may share some passwords, of course voice mail feature is available apart from quick information.

Apart from obvious business activities, this may even be a huge deterrent from tele callers who have been on many people’s hate list now a days! It could even have some vanity values where the IVR could act as a digital secretary for an individual.

Feature-rich, personalised hosted IVR at affordable rate might bring IVR to masses to be used by everyone which voice mail system has failed to do. With availability of hosted IVR services, many web based visual IVR tools may make this kind IVR usage a reality!

NTS ( Niche Tech Services Private Limited), Udaipur, India based IVR company has launched an interesting IVR portal for Christ Gen Media, a Trivendrum ( Kerala, India) based which broadcast Bible on IVR in both English and Malayalam on 1st Aug 2010. The solutions is hosted in NTS IVR Environment in Udaipur and the application has been commissioned in less than 6 weeks time, as per web post in NTS website.

The “IVR Bible Portal” works on two modes, callers dial the Bible Number and gets connected to the IVR portal and in the other mode, caller dials the IVR number, gets disconnected, and then IVR calls him/her back! The call back is quite unique feature where caller may listen to IVR Bible Portal free of cost.

The Bible IVR portal has many options:-

1. Caller can hear the complete Bible, Old and New Testament by book number and chapter wise.

2. Caller can listen to Christian Devotional Songs, both in English and Malayalam.

3. Caller can listen to daily devotional song, daily sermon, daily Bible lesson which are updated daily.

As per NTS sources, the IVR Bible Portal has generated more than 2000 calls in 3 days and more than 12 thousand minutes of usage with as many calls. Christ Gen Media sources informs that, they will be introducing six more languages options in this Bible Portal including Hindi, Tamil very soon.

Most probably, this is an unique usage of IVR.

About NTS :
NTS specialise in Hosted out of Box IVR based Applications

About Christ Gen Media :

Christ Gen Media is Christian Media Ministry

Recently, I came to know that Airtel ( Mobile Service provider in India with largest number of mobile subscribers, around 135 millions) charges caller to its mobile subscribers at the Rs. 0.5 per 3 minutes when they call their helpline number ( customer care) and speak to

AIRTEL Charges for speaking customer care

I think the logic behind Airtel charging customer for ‘talking’ human agent/customer care executive is to discourage subscribers speaking to human agent and encourage using the ‘self help’ or ‘Do It Yourself’ IVR right from booking any complaints to find out any information about Airtel. This will surely help them reduce ‘human agents’ in their call centers and bringing down cost of operation further. Also, there may have been many spam calls and this kind of charging may help them reduce these spam calls.

But, few questions remain:-
1. Have Airtel/Other mobile operators done any usability tests on their ‘self help IVR System’ ?
2. Have they done any bench marking of IVR abandon within calls ?
3. Is their IVR system can solve any kind of problems faced by their customers ? How about genuine customers who face some genuine and ‘new problems’ IVR does not have menu option for it ?

Though most of the times, the complaints or problems faced by customers are similar and can surely be automated using a well designed IVR which can fetch all data related to the caller, but thinking IVR is sufficient enough to solve all kinds of problems is quite ambitious!

It is true that Indian masses are not educated enough to use IVR for lodging complaints as well as intelligent enough to navigate through the menus provided in any customer care IVR, but in order to force them use of IVR by charging when they opt to speak to human agent too does not look a logical step. Instead of charging customers, Airtel could to usability test on their IVR and find out reasons for abandoning IVR and then try to improve its usability!

Servicing its huge subscribers of more than 135 millions using IVR would have made a good case studies and bench marking of IVR usability. Airtel also provides large number of value added services apart from its basic telephony services, so one can expect its customer care IVR to be quite complex. Apart from this, add 22 languages in 23 circles it operates, to its difficulty!

So, one can expect customer care IVR of Airtel to be quite complex browsing through complex menu options starting with language selection to service selection. But in India, being home to 300 million ( almost equivalent of total population of USA) of illiterate people, it may not be possible to expect them to know their service names which would be announced in IVR menus to choose.

Though I would rate IVR in Airtel customer care to be fairly good, but still, charging customers for speaking to customer care executive is beyond my comprehension. There might be some spam calls though and charging may deter and decrease this kind of spam calls, but it also penalizes the genuine calls/callers.

I have sent an email to Airtel asking about their usability test/benchmarking of IVR. When I get answer, I will update this post.

UPDATE : I got call from Airtel PR department and they had explained that this decision of charging callers for speaking human agent was taken collectively by COAI ( Cellular Operators Association of India ) and approved by TRAI. The charging has started from Feb 2010 only and according to them, all other operators have also started charging and if they have not done so far, then they would do soon.
As for the IVR usability issue, they did not have any data about IVR abandonment and I assume they do not have much idea about IVR usability.
According to them, any further communication regarding this ‘charging for talking to customer care executive’ and IVR usability, COAI is the right organisation and forum to discuss.

Recently, I came across a news of phasing out of government managed call center in Indian city, Jaipur, aimed at providing single-window facilities for civic issues like sanitation, water supply and road repair etc. The reason for phasing out of the call center is due to less number of calls and huge burden of cost for running the call center! Quite logical!

Jaipur: The much-hyped call centre, which was launched in August 2008 to provide singlewindow facilities for civic issues like sanitation, water supply and road repair etc, may be phased out soon. The centre seems to be economically unviable and a huge burden on the government. Moreover, the Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) has to dish out Rs 2.5 lakh every month for a few hundred calls.
During a review meeting chaired by directorate of local bodies (DLB), director Jogaram said in the last one month it was found that running the call centre was an expensive affair. “As the coordinator of the centre, we found that we need to make the centre costeffective. Therefore, we have decided to reduce staff strength by June 1, 2010, besides some other corrective measures,” Jogaram said. Source : Times Of India.

While, any intelligent IVR ( interactive voice response) system should have been enough for providing information as well as registering any request from its citizen, government agencies went ahead with implementation of call center! Most probably, IVR companies in India are not promoting features and functions of IVR systems in India!

Providing information about various government agencies like JDA ( Jaipur Development Authority) about water supply, sanitary problems, road repair etc. are routine job and any IVR could have been used without having to make recurring expenses.

IVR can also be used easily to automate registering of any kind of complaints along with caller ID as well as recording voices. These recorded voices could be emailed as voice mail attachment along with complaint ID number to concerned officials automatically. Status of complaints could be changed by concerned official and the status could be provided by caller on IVR without the complainant having to visit the office as well as interacting any official. This will not only increase efficiency of government employees, but also save resources and recurring expenditures.

Though in other parts of India, some government agencies are using IVR, but it is yet to become mainstream. With ever increasing telephone and mobile users in India, features and functions of IVR technology should exploited to provide public utility services.

Apex Voice Communication has announced on the sideline of Mobile World Congress, support for Diameter protocol, successor to Radius protocol today in Barcelona, Spain. Supported in the OmniVox3D SIP Application Server and accessed through its OmniView(R) Service Creation Environment, the new Diameter Command Icon enables online charging, including Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) functionalities.

OmniVox3D now supports Diameter Protocol

Omnivox3D is flagship product from Apex Voice Communications which is Service Delivery Platforms (SDPs) and Application Servers for voice and video enhanced services.

“With support for Diameter in OmniVox3D, network operators around the world can now easily implement all types of online charging,” said Elhum Vahdat, executive vice president of APEX Voice Communications. “Additionally, the new Diameter Command has extensive support for vendor-specific attributes, which we know differs among the various back-end charging and billing systems.”, says the press release.

Here is the press release from Apex Voice Communication :-

APEX VOICE COMMUNICATIONS ANNOUNCES SUPPORT FOR THE DIAMETER PROTOCOL

– AAA Now a Standard Component of OmniVox3D(R) SIP Application Server –

MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2010, BARCELONA, SPAIN, February 15, 2010 –
APEX Voice Communications (www.apexvoice.com), a global provider of Service Delivery Platforms (SDPs) and Application Servers for voice and video enhanced services, today announced support for the Diameter Protocol. Supported in the OmniVox3D SIP Application Server and accessed through its OmniView(R) Service Creation Environment, the new Diameter Command Icon enables online charging, including Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) functionalities. Diameter is the successor to the RADIUS protocol for use in SIP/IMS networks.

The new Diameter Command in OmniVox3D enables online charging using the Diameter Credit Control Application. This Command can be embedded into call dialogs using OmniView, where application developers can create services that can be charged directly to subscribers’ accounts. The incremental nature of the Diameter online charging application permits subscribers’ accounts to be charged for several services simultaneously, enabling enhanced services (such as video/multimedia content, ringtones, etc.) to be charged by an application server while a switch or CSCF/proxy bills the account for the entire call.

“With support for Diameter in OmniVox3D, network operators around the world can now easily implement all types of online charging,” said Elhum Vahdat, executive vice president of APEX Voice Communications. “Additionally, the new Diameter Command has extensive support for vendor-specific attributes, which we know differs among the various back-end charging and billing systems.”

Diameter is the protocol chosen by 3GPP for use in SIP/IMS networks, and has become the protocol of choice for interfacing 4th-generation carrier network equipment to convergent billing systems. Many new subscriber charging and billing systems for network equipment (e.g. from Ericsson, Huawei) use the Diameter Credit Control Application (Ro) as described in RFC 4006 and in 3GPP TS 32.299. Offering better overall transport, proxying, session control and security for Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) functionalities,
the Diameter Protocol is an important integration point for carrier tracking of their customers’ usage and as the basis for monthly billing.

The OmniVox3D SIP Application Server is the core component of the APEX Service Delivery Platform (APEX SDP[tm]), which is a mature, field-proven and future-proof platform that delivers immediate returns on the new generation of voice, video and data enhanced services. The APEX SDPs inherent design ensures the scalability, reliability and high-availability required by mobile and fixed-line Network Operators and VASPs, while its award-winning OmniVox3D and OmniView offer the flexibility for rapid deployment of service bundles across multiple networks – 3G, SIP/IMS, TDM/SS7, AIN/IN and converged. The APEX SDP and OmniVox3D together can process an almost unlimited number of applications, including converged Web 2.0 and Telecom services (mashups), Network IVR, Video IVR, Messaging, Real-Time Billing (Prepaid), Conference Calling and Automated Collect Calling.

About APEX Voice Communications
(www.apexvoice.com, sales@apexvoice.com, +1 818.379.8400)
APEX is a global provider of Service Delivery Platforms and SIP Application Servers to Network Operators, Value Added Service Providers (VASPs) and Value Added Resellers (VARs) for voice and video enhanced services. With over 15,000 installations across 95 countries since 1989, APEX continues to be a leader in delivering the latest solutions for mission-critical and revenue-generating services.

For more information contact:

Elhum Vahdat
APEX Voice Communications
+1 818.379.8400 x104
evahdat@apexvoice.com

——–
OmniVox3D is a registered trademark and APEX SDP is a trademark of APEX Voice Communications, Inc. Other trademarks are the property of their respective companies.

Angel.com, a leading provider of enterprise-focused, on-demand voice solutions, today announced it is providing a number of leading brands from AstraZeneca® with its revolutionary, new Caller First(SM) voice solutions.

Angel.com has deployed a number of Caller First focused inbound and outbound IVR solutions for AstraZeneca.

“It’s exciting for Angel.com to be named one of AstraZeneca’s preferred vendors and to support them in their ongoing commitment to improving their customer experience as the landscape of healthcare continues to change,” said Dave Rennyson, President of Angel.com.

When AstraZeneca wanted to improve the overall customer experience, the company turned to Angel.com. To help AstraZeneca with its “One Voice” program, designed to give customers an improved and consistent customer experience and lower overall company operating expenses, Angel.com recommended its Caller First Inbound IVR solutions.

One Caller First solution that was implemented helped AstraZeneca to further automate its patient education program enrollment and savings card activation processes; thus, reducing the need for a live agent. This has resulted in a reduction of AstraZeneca’s cost per lead, a more cohesive customer experience, more satisfied customers and greater efficiency of their agent engagement.

About Angel.com
Angel.com is a leading provider of on-demand, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and Call Center solutions, which enable organizations to quickly deploy enterprise-level voice applications. More than 1,600 customers turn to Angel.com’s proprietary Voice Site technology to power customer service and marketing functions using intelligent speech recognition that can automate most phone-based interactions. Angel.com’s solutions are built on the Software as a Service (SaaS) platform and require no investment in hardware, software, or human resources, balancing the need for high quality communications with affordable pay-as-you-go pricing.