Voice portal services in India are one of the most successful VAS ( Value Added Service) in terms of revenue generation. Voice portal is steadily growing in India. Voice Portal operators like OnMobile, One97, Cellebrum ( Now Spice Digital), IMI Mbile, Rajasthan Patrika, etc. are few players who are spearheading the voice portal growth in India. Presently, voice portal services in India normally work on a “short code” ( short dialing number for users) and ‘users-pay-per-minute-of-usage’ basis.

Voice portal is set to continue growing in near future despite its high cost to users ( ( Rs. 6 per minute, while normal voice call in India is now as low as 45 paise per minute). It is also expected that the price will come down with introduction of subscription model, where voice portal users subscribe to its service and can avail at much lower rate that Rs. 6 per minute.

Here are few reasons why it will grow in India :-

1. It does not require any learning for usage unlike SMS/MMS service.

To use voice portal services, one does not have to learn or know anything new with his mobile phone. Anyone who can dial using a mobile phone can start using voice portal. While to use, SMS, one has to learn writing in English, English language, typing using Mobile keypad etc. Using MMS service are more cumbersome as one has to get a GPRS high end phone, GPRS activated from mobile service provider etc.

Voice portal provides simple voice based menus to choose where one has to just speak or press telephone keys. So, users does not have to learn anything to start using voice portal services.

2. Large number of Languages and speakers

India has more than 2500 dialects and 22 recognised languages. It is not easy to deliver information or content in these languages through SMS/MMS or even computer. IVR offers unique medium to offer content, information in voice using their mother tongue to all masses.

Voice portals using vernacular languages offers unique advantages of availing any information in voice in their own language by its users.

3. Using voice portal is easy

Voice portal is normally easy to use as it provides one option at a time in voice. It can offer one service in one number. One does not have to remember Keywords as in SMS portal for different services. It is also easier to download widely popular Ring Tone using a voice portal than SMS portal as one can listen to Ring Tone preview before downloading.

4. Large rural and illiterate population

India has large rural population and large population which are illiterate. So, providing information to them using computer, news papers etc may not be as useful as it is for illiterate people. Voice portal can be used effectively for these disadvantaged people for providing information in voice in their native languages.

It is not difficult to build many voice contents specifically for rural people. So, voice portal can grow to be preferred content delivery platform for rural population in India.

5. Some contents are better presented using voice portal

There are few contents which are presented better using an IVR or voice portal. For example music. One may listen to music on IVR only, not using SMS!

Likewise, contests with large questions with multiple options are easier to play on IVR that SMS. So, usage of voice portal is bound to grow in near future in India.

High cost of voice portal access may be one barrier which may hinder its growth. But with more competition as well as private voice portal with specific service in the menu, one can expect the price to come down for everyone to be able to access voice portal service.

I have posted one article how IVR can be used to generate revenue, mainly from caller paying to use the IVR services through a voice portal in collaboration with a telecom operator. No doubt, it is a lucrative Voice VAS(Value Added Service) for many M-VAS companies as well as telecom operators, but there are other ways too where one can use IVR to generate revenue, even without any collaboration with any telecom operator.

Also, one of the negative side of collaborating with telecom operator is, they take away majority of the revenue generated while IVR service provider does all the investment as well as majority of the promotions for the IVR services.

There comes in IVR E-Com portal! One may actually generate revenue by establishing an IVR e-com portal! IVR e-com portal can be thought of as corresponding voice portal for an e-com ( e-commerce) web portal. While an e-com portal is accessed using a web browser on a PC/Laptop or mobile phone, IVR e-com portal is accessible by any phone or mobile phone. A successful IVR e-com portal can be even hosted on a toll free number where caller will not be charged anything!

An IVR e-com portal would be capable of selling products like music album after listening to music trailers, can buy movie tickets after hearing some famous dialogues of the movie etc.

Credit card can be charged securely on IVR e-com portal for making payment. Delivery of products would be just like e-com portal, by using courier or postal service.

There are few advantages of IVR e-com portal. For example :-

1. Easy browsing
User will be focused on browsing category wise and will not be distracted by many colorful links as in a e-com web portal. Browsing of products are quick and to the point.

2. Selling Adult products
Many people, specially in India, are unable to buy many products like condom from a chemist shop. There have been many advertisements by governments and other NGOs encouraging people to buy condoms from chemist shops boldly. Using IVR e-com portal, everybody would be able to buy condom or other adult products without any inhibition.
3. Listen trailer
For products like musical album, children CD, etc. could be heard on IVR e-com portal by browsing through them. They can also listen user feedback in original voice form by celebrity users or common users. It will increase authenticity of testimonial of the products.

4. Good option for certain disabilities
IVR e-com portal is a solution for people with visual disabilities. Presently, I am not aware if there is any shop or e-com portal for people with visual disabilities. IVR e-com portal can serve them better with many options.

Challenges in running IVR e-com portal
There are some disadvantages of IVR e-com portal. Many products would be difficult to sell on IVR e-com portal. For example, shirts, pants etc.
Also, not many people may want to dial an IVR and pay for the outgoing call. Also many people may not like the idea of pressing keys on phone many times while browsing through products. Clicking on keys are easier than pressing buttons on phones.

Apart from few ticketing IVR service for airlines, IVR e-com portal has not really picked up or even started. Most probably, not many people are thinking in this direction. If you are thinking now to start IVR e-com portal abd make Ebay in IVR, remember me too that I also had this idea. . Jokes apart, in my next articles I would try to list the services which could be sold or how IVR e-com portal could be monetized.

What is speech recognition or automatic speech recognition ?
Automatic speech recognition can be defined as a process by which spoken words are converted to text. Many people may confuse with voice recognition as speech recognition. Voice recognition is recognising the speaker of the voice, while automatic speech recognition recognise the words spoken. While speech recognition is mainly used for menu selection, voice recognition is used for checking authorised user.

How automatic speech recognition can be used in voice portal ?
Voice portal is a large IVR application which provides many value added services to the voice portal user. Normally, voice portals are operated by telecom operators to provide information of their services, activating deactivating services, utility services like matrimonial, job search, listening to music and download, jokes etc. Since voice portals have large information to be provided to a caller, it needs to give out a long list of options. But the DTMF digits or touch tones on a mobile phone or telephone instrument is limited. So automatic speech recognition is used as an alternative to touch tone or DTMF input for selecting a menu option in the voice portal or IVR.

Advantages of Automatic Speech Recognition over DTMF in Voice Portal:
1. Caller can choose a menu option quickly without having to listen to boring long list of menus. IVR can become truly interactive with its caller using same human voice.
2. Using an IVR was always a problem as one he has to remove it from his ear to look at the keypad and press a key. This can be again quite irritating for a voice portal user. Implementation of ASR completely remove this problem.
3. Change of menu or introduction of new options a menu, or shuffling of options in a menu becomes easier as menu options are the words most commonly used by everybody for a particular option. Using a touchtone or DTMF menu, any option was assigned to a DTMF key or a number. With ASR, it is assigned to the word itself.
4. Not many people are aware of # and * keys as they are hardly used in normal operation while IVR seems to use them for some options for very long menus. ASR does not face this kind of problem.

So, one may find it very useful in a developer point of view to use ASR in voice portal as it gives more flexibility for designing menu and presentation of data. But as user point of view it may not that user friendly as touch tone. This mainly due to lack of 100% accuracy in recognising the word spoken by the caller. Wrong detection of words by ASR may result in very awkward menu options and information fetching. One way of tackling this problem is to confirm a user of his chosen option in the menu with a YES or NO for every menu option. But it would be too irritating for a user! A voice portal is normally a premium service where irritating caller is the biggest crime one can commit!

Problems of Speech recognition
1. Accuracy of recognition
Accuracy of recognition can be thought as converting words spoken by a user accurately to ts corresponding text.
As per information available ( by Googling and visiting ASR engine provider websites), almost all ASR engine has high accuracy for detecting two words, YES and NO. Apart from them, other words like numbers, date of births etc. has lower accuracy in recognising. For example, accuracy of recognition of numbers 1,2,3 etc vary from 87 to 91% depending on ASR engine. Accuracy of recognising other natural English language is fare much worse! As per report, recognising departments in company is maximum 85%!
Though accuracy can be improved by training of ASR, but it is not practical at all and does not serve a voice portal.

2. Different accent
Using ASR in a big country where people speak different languages or same language with different accents,speech recognition accuracy is bound to fare worse.

3. Confirming YES/NO again and again is irritating
People may design IVR very intelligently to confirm for any doubtful word recognition by YES or NO, but it is still irritating for many people and it slows down the time for fetching an information. In a voice portal where caller pays by minute of usage, it may not work in the interest of voice portal users.

Still, automatic speech recognition (ASR) is used widely in voice portal now a days and here are the few services in voice portal where ASR may work well :-

1. Contests
2. Classifieds
3. City wise weather information

An interesting IVRS Application for Voice Portal is Voice Chat Application! It can be a real revenue spinner for a voice portal if it is properly moderated, if it has feature like outbound call, background music etc.!

This chat application has two modes:
1. One To One chat
Here two users chat one through voice portal. The connection can happen both ways. User calls to voice portal number and can browse profiles of IVR Chat users and then send request for chat. If the other user is not connected to Voice Portal, voice portal makes and outgoing call to the other user and initiates the chat!

2. Group Chat/Conference ( Moderated or Operator based)
Here many people join a chat room just like in normal chat room in a website. Here a moderator approves any joining to chat room request. Moderator can block any un-parliamentarian chatter. Telephonic talk-show as well as public opinion could be generated and sampled using this kind of chat.

All calls should be recorded through a dedicated voice logger. There should be dedicated moderators. In fact, customer care of a telecom service provider could be modeled around this IVR Chat and Conferencing for better service to customer.

IVR Chat Application in a Voice Portal

Suggested Technical Arrangements :
For better operation, we recommend using a private exchange (EPABX ) for chat application. IRIS IVDX with 512 lines is good option.

Chat Server is connected to this EPABX through ISDN PRI. (easy to integrate)
Here is the tentative option technical process:
1. All calls to voice portal lands on EPABX. EPBX routes the call to Chat Server.
2. Chat Server handles the call, does the patching, OBD calls, conference calls using EPABX conference facility. Normally, this is used for one to one chat.
3. Chat Server also uses Conferencing CTI hardware to conduct its own conference as per requirement. Normally this is used to Group Chat. CTI hardware should be Dialogic or Donjin. Actually it could be any other CTI hardware, but our software supports both Dialogic and Donjin CTI hardware.
4. Moderators or Operators are connected to EPABX locally and brought to conference as per call flow.

I hope this kind of application can increase revenue of a voice portal if it is properly marketed.

Voice based value added service is known as voice portal. This is good revenue source for both mobile and land line telecom companies. Just like SMS Portal, voice portal also provides similar services but accessed through IVR. With advent of voice enabled menu using speech recognition technique, IVR has become very popular as well as user-friendly application for both mobile and land line subscribers.
IVR can be thought as platform to deliver content to users. The content may be anything, from latest news to mobile ring tone. I have written about Technical challenges and commercial challenges in a voice portal in my previous posts. IVR as content delivery platform has advantage:-

1. Its is easy to dial using the keypad while SMS is not easy to type on mobile phones.
2. Few contents are better delivered on IVR. For example, ring tone can be heard on IVR before it is downloaded by user.
3. It is limited by number of characters like in SMS. For example, complete news can be heard on IVR. Same goes for other contents like jokes, breaking news, etc.
4. IVR can be used by any kind of mobile phone instrument. Other content delivery platform like WAP does not work on low cost mobile phones. SMS does not work on many land line telephone instruments. It may be a major factor in a price sensitive market like India where maximum mobile subscribers use low cost handsets. India is a huge mobile market with more than 400million mobile subscribers.

Here I would like to list few services which are popular in India:-

1. Listening to Music
I find it amusing that people listen to music on mobile phone in this era of Ipod, FM Radio etc.! The main reason is, FM is available in major cities in India. The initial investment is high for many Indians for IPod or MP3 players. But many IVR VAS players in India has provided option to listen unlimited songs with a monthly subscription of paltry Rs. 30.
2. Astrology
3. Contests
4. Jokes
Yes, people do hear jokes on IVR!
5. Shayeri
This is an interesting application for IVR VAS.

As I wrote once about making money with IVR Software, I have finally decided to write what IVR applications can be used to generate monthly revenue. Till recently, IVR Application or IVR Software was thought to be used only for increase in efficiency, reduce cost, automatic complaint management etc. Not any more! There are now IVR applications which are mostly used to generating revenue!

There are many IVR Applications in many industries, but the use of IVR Software in Telecom Industries is quite interesting! And this is where you make regular money. The most widely deployed IVRS Software for making money are :

1. Voice Portal
2. CRBT or PRBT

1. Voice Portal
Voice portals started as a premium service for quick access of information. According to various sources, it first appeared in 1999 in line with internet web portal.
With the advent of mobile phone, there was surge in value added service. This is when Voice Portals also got a push by telecom service providers.
Normally, voice portals are operated by a value added service provider (VAS) companies like Niche Tech Services (P) Ltd, or OnMobile in collaboration with a telecom service provider on revenue sharing basis. Normally, any call made to voice portal is charged premium. Voice portals provides various information, news, entertainment etc. The revenue model goes like this :
1. Per call is charged premium at Rs. 6 per minute of usage
2. Revenue is shared between telecom services provider and the VAS service provider. Revenue sharing is heavily tilted towards telecom service provider in India while it is opposite in some countries like China.
3. Billing is done monthly by the VAS Operator to telecom service provider.Telecom service provider charges mobile user in their telephone bills.

One telecom service provider can have many voice portals catering to many niche markets. The voice portal market is still growing and there are scopes for new players!

2. CRBT or PRBT
CRBT ( Caller Ringback Tone) is also known as PRBT( Personalised ring back tone.). This is nothing but an IVR Application as I explained earlier too. It also started quite recently in 2000 only! The increase in usage and popularity of CRBT is largely due to increase in Mobile Telephony and marketing by Mobile telephony provider.
CRBT has been very popular all over the world. Specially in South Korea, China and India. The revenue model is little different than voice portal. CRBT is again provide normally by a VAS operator to a telecom service provider. Here is the revenue model:

1. A subscriber is charged a monthly rental for using the CRBT service. Normally it is small amount like Rs. 30/- a month.
2. Subscriber can change CRBT tone by calling up a Voice Portal Number, add specific ring tone or song for a specific caller according to caller id. Each change is charged Rs. 15.
3. It does not charge for playing the ring tone for every call.
4. Revenue is shared between VAS operator and telecom service provider.
5. Since it uses songs, there may be a revenue sharing with music producers too.

Normally, one telecom service provider can not have more than one VAS operator for CRBT due to its technical setup. The market is still growing and big. There are still scope for new players, specially in India.

Apart from these two IVR Applications, I believe both Voice SMS, Outbound IVRS and UMS(Unified Messaging Service) are other IVR application which can be used commercially to make money. I will write more about them in future.

Special Disclaimer : The prices given above are just a number to give an idea of charging subscribers. It should not be taken as absolute fact.

High-End digital CTI boards for a voice portal is not cheap! In fact some of them cost as much as a Honda Civic car in India. So, choosing a right CTI Board for your Voice Portal may not be easy, that is until you read this article .

So, how to choose a CTI Board for your voice portal application ? There are few parameters using which one should choose CTI Board for Voice Portal:-

1. Number of Expected Simultaneous Calls
Most important factor to consider! If you expect simultaneous calls to be not more than four, buy any four channel analog card. But than, most probably it will not remain a voice portal! Ideally, if one should choose a CTI board with 50% more capacity than the expected number of glutenous calls. if some one expects 10-15 calls, he should choose one 30 port Digital CTI board.

2. Time to connect a call
Time taken for connecting a call when an user call is important! It depends of the interface the CTI board supports. For example, CAS R2MF connects much slower than SS7 or ISDN PRI. One will hear “teent teent teent” sound after dialing the Voice Portal before connection. Normally quick and instant connection to Voice Portal is desired.

3. Interface With Switch Support
The type of interfacing with switch of Telecom Provider is important parameter to consider. Many Telecom Service Provider may not have CAS or ISDN protocols on their switch or they may not be willing to provide that connectivity to Voice Portal operators. So, one must consider about available protocol with Telecom Provider before deciding on a CTI board. Interfacing with various protocols is responsible time to connect of calls. SS7 cards are costlier than ISDN PRI or CAS R2MF boards, connects calls almost instantly. And some CTI Manufacturer like Dialogic does not have a combined board which has both Voice Processing and SS7 Signaling so far! This kind of arrangement has its own advantage over combined CTI boards. For example, one can have add more Media Processing (Voice Processing) Boards while keeping one signaling board in one system. Also combined (Signaling and Media Processing) CTI boards do not come in low density configuration, they normally have 8 E1 or more. 4E1 meaning at least 120 simultaneous calls!

[ad#image-large]

3. Scalability and IVR Software
This is another aspect one should not ignore. If the Voice Portal becomes popular, which is the main aim by any Voice Portal Operator, so the CTI Boards should have scalability feature where increasing number of simultaneous calls should not make existing hardware redundant, or make IVR Software obsolete. Separate boards for signaling and media processing is recommended for scalability. IVR Software should be designed such a way that, it can handle more voice resources without having to re-develop the IVR Software.

4. Support for the CTI Board
Availability of development support as well as quick 24 hours support for any problem in the CTI hardware is a must! Every minutes of downtime of Voice Portal, the operator loses revenue! So, one should choose a CTI vendor which can provide quick support or quick replacement of CTI hardware in case of CTI board failure! Also, CTI Vendor should have active forum to discuss various issues and should have good number of third party developers!

5. Cost
Cost is very important, well for everybody! But, one should not compromise of quality of CTI cards for cost.

My Favourite and Recommended CTI hardware:

1. For 30 to 120 simultaneous Calls.
Start with Dialogic D/300 JCT or DMV1200 card. They have ISDN, R2MF protocol, good support, quite tested CTI board. Many developers have written IVR Software on them! Dialogic has good support, active forum, large number of developers. But since they are the biggest CTI vendor, they may not provide you with a demo card for development of your Voice Portal!
These boards can be even used with Dialogic SS7 Signaling boards.

2. For 240 or more simultaneous calls
1. Synway SHD-240D-CT/PCI
Good Value for money, good support. Built in Signaling and media processing. Cheaper than Dialogic equivalent.
2. Dialogic SPCI4/SPCI2 and DNI2410
Awesome combination, great scalability, very good support and large number of developers as well as very active forum. Cost is almost double that Synway though!

Yes, it is true. Many people do not like using IVRS! But it is nothing to with IVR as a technology, but poorly designed IVRS. There are few websites who list top 100 worst IVRS! Also website about  IVR cheat code to speak to human agent in shortest way possible.

These sites have been real eye opener to me and I think they clearly make IVRS developers, consultant work harder to make use of IVR more user friendly. IVRS usability is as important as the IVRS itself!

That is the irony! Many people look for just the technological aspects of an IVRS, specially the developers like me! I too get excited about the jargon, SS7, ISDN, Call Handling, CDR etc. while enough importance is not given designing of menus, call flow and day to day monitoring of successful IVR usage.

No doubt, the technological aspect is important to keep the IVRS running 24 hours a day, at the end of the day, if the caller does not find the IVRS to use and get his desired information, the very purpose of installing an IVRS is defeated!

Here is the link to a youtube video about IVRS.

The website to visit to know 100 worst IVR : http://www.touchtonehell.com/

Both outbound and inbound IVR Application can be used as advertising tools. It can be quite effective as it can be really interactive with quick response unlike print or visual advertising.

Using Inbound IVRS as Marketing tools:
Inbound IVRS is those kind of IVRS where user calls to IVRS. Normally this kind of IVRS uses a toll free number. Else most probably, now a days nobody will make an outgoing call and listen to advertisements!

Voice Portals are such inbound IVRS where advertisement can be inserted. Voice Portal normally has many applications. Each application can have different advertisements. For example, if a voice portal has Music Application where user listens to songs, one can insert advertisements of upcoming music releases as well as movies. This kind of relevant advertisements will not irritate the caller much.
These advertisements can be interactive. For example, one can play promo of a movie, and ask people to rate the film. Same way for a song! This kind of facility is unique in IVRS.
Telecom companies can provide new schemes, services on their customer care number! This we may have experienced quite a time now!

Using Outbound IVRS
Outbound IVRS are those which make outbound calls to a person and provide some information as well as can get some feedback. Predictive dialer, Automatic Dialer are few such IVR Applications.
Using outbound IVRS as advertising tools has been there for quite some time now! Predictive Dialer is a kind of IVRS which is connected to a telephone database and it retrieves telephone number from this and makes outgoing calls. It tries to gather few information from the called person before it transfers the call to a live agent. Outbound IVRS can advertise the following way

1. Advertise about product after the connection. Give the called person option to rate the product, to give feedback in voice, to record if he is interested in the product and know further. Depending on the customer’s choice, IVRS can either transfer the call to a live agent or store the number is prospective client.

2. During election, candidate can make a “Vote for me” appeal on phone!

3. Various queries, opinion polls can be conducted.

4. Telecom companies can announce new services, schemes and prompt subscribers to avail them.

5. In medical industries, outbound IVRS can be used to advertise new drugs, its feedback. It can also prompt patients about daily medicines.

6. Many campaigners like awareness program can be undertaken effectively. For example, AIDS awareness, Pulse Polio Drops, Road Safety etc.

Continuing with earlier articles of Voice Portal, Use IVRS as Voice Portal and Voice Portal – Technical Challenges, here is my thinking about IVRS as Voice Portal and its challenges as a commercial revenue generator.

We are operating a Voice Portal with various services.  The challenges we face can be explained as follows:-

1. New Application

As the name suggests, new applications need to kept added to the Voice Portal Services. It is not easy to predict if new applications will be a success in terms of popularity or not. But new application has to be properly timed, back up by advertisement and up-to-date contents. Also, if you launch many new applications in quick succession, it confuses users and some really good applications may fail. And if you do not keep adding new applications periodically, regular users get bored and stops using the portal.  So new application must be launched like any other product in an industry.

2. New Contents

As I mentioned above, new contents must be added regularly. For services like, Music, Jokes, Astrology, Travel etc. new contents must be added regularly on daily basis so that even regular user get new contents.  Contest is one application which does not require to be updated for the period of contest. News must be updated at least thrice a day. If the voice portal supports multi-language, then new content is quite a challenge! It requires script in every langauge, recording, editing !

3. Advertising and Promotion

Advertising and promotion of new applications as well as regular applications is a must like any other product.  This one aspect where many Voice Portal operators lack in experience and expertise. At least we did during our initial months as there was no expert consultant or not budgeted. Voice Portal contains many applications. Each application needs to be promoted singly. IVR itself is a very serial operation and it is not always easy to use for first time voice portal or IVRS caller. So each product must be given its own gestation period before doing any analysis. This is one mistake we did. SMS bulk message is a very good form advertising. FM, News paper and other visual media advertisement has its own pros and cons. In Print Media, oen can explain the call flow better while it may not be easy on FM and SMS.

4. Review and User Analysis

Analysis of CDR and usage of applications, contents is a must! Without analyzing user activities of the voice portal, one should not waste in advertising. Profiling of user is very helpful.

[ad#large-ad]

5. Interactive

Interactive Applications in Voice Portals normally do well! It keeps people happy and feel connected. All applications should be made interactive.

6. Localization

Local content is useful. Also the voice prompts should have a local accent which helps users connect with.  Choice of Local language is almost compulsory in India. Other countries which has one language can be happy here!

Finally, Voice Portal does not mean only a technically sound Voice Portal Application, but it must have constantly update contents. Without content, voice portal is like a gun without ammunition! So, one might be tempted with low cost Voice Portal Applications to launch his/her won Voice Portal, but one must be aware of the content generation part.There are IPR for Music content too which many people seem to ignore!

Easiest way to start Voice Portal by Media houses is to outsource the Technical Part of the Voice Portal and manage the operating and promotion part.