Recently I have traveled North and Eastern part India and met many people who are either using IVR systems or are dealing with call centres. While interacting with them, one thing I realised that, people are now warming up to the concept of hosted IVR in India. Most interesting part is, even bigger companies are now a days receptive to the idea of hosted IVR, which few years ago was a complete no, no.

I think, there are two major factors which have helped people warming up to the hosted IVR services :-

1. Reliable Internet connectivity
2. Cost Benefit : Pay as per usage model

1. Reliable Internet Connectivity
In the last few years, quality of internet connectivity has gone up manifold and downtime is no longer frequent unlike few years ago in India. Reliable and dedicated internet connectivity was also costly and not available easily, specially outskirts of cities, where industries tend to exist!

This kind of internet connectivity has helped integration information available at the premises of an organization with of IVR system hosted some where else using internet connectivity. One can say, “IVR in cloud” is now possible, works reliably thanks to good internet connectivity.

2. Cost Benefit : Pay as per usage model
I think, I would give credit to hosted IVR providers in India, who have been able to convince IVR users about the cost benefit of using hosted IVR over on-premise IVR. It is not only about initial investment in hardware and software, but also keeping updated with latest CTI hardware and IVR tools.
Most of the people I have interacted with, have had clear idea about how hosted IVR can reduce initial investment an reduce time to live with IVR. Many of them were also happy with accessing IVR logs online by just visiting a website and logging in.

Apart from above two major factors, I think many business houses become focused on their core competence while outsourcing business processes to professionals. Many people were more comfortable with one time capital expenditure than recurring operational expenditures. But, in IVR, there is always an fixed or variable operational expenditure in the form of telephone rental and outbound call cost. So, many have started opting for just operational expense without any major capital expense and hosted IVR just fits in between.

Most probably, with slowing of economy world wide, even bigger companies might be finding it easier to go with “pay per usage” hosted IVR system to server their customers.

I would be happy to know feedback from others how they feel about hosted IVR in India.

IVR and toll free number has very close relation. Almost all toll free numbers in the world are first answered by an IVR before a caller can speak to human agent. Many people are almost impatient to speak to human agent after dialing a toll free number, while Ithe VR seems to get in between the caller and human agent with various prompts, questions, confirmation, hold music etc. This is one of the reasons why people hate IVR.

This post acted as an IVR so far ? It did not answer the question “How to Get Toll Free Number in India” yet! Actually, I keep getting mails asking the question, “how to get toll free number in India ?”, so I thought I would post about it.

Essentially, the toll free number is given by telecom company. In India, these companies majorly provide Toll Free numbers :-

1. BSNL : Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited

Most probably, this is the biggest toll free number provider in India having the largest network. Since it is a government undertaking, one should be ready to deal with government bureaucracy. BSNL can provide toll free number in almost all major cities, big towns in India and that is their main advantage.

2. Reliance Communications
They also provide toll free number and I think they have second largest telecom infrastructure in India after BSNL. They can also provide toll free number in many cities except North East India. They are efficient, good service and provide very competitive rates.

3. Tata Indicom
Tata indicom also provides toll free numbers. They also provide very good service, support and available in all major cities.

Apart from them, other old telecom companies like MTNL ( Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited), Airtel etc. can also provide toll free number as far as I know. I have bee using BSNL, Reliance and Tata toll free numbers only, so I have experience with these three telecom service providers.

These telecom companies have separate marketing team ( normally known as enterprise solution ) for providing toll free numbers, leased lines and they normally operate through franchisees. So, in order to get toll free number, you may have to contact their local franchisee in your city/area, and most of the time it may be easy to locate one for a new customer!

When looking for a toll free number, be sure to ask the telecom operator if the given toll free number would accessible from all telecom operators (both mobile and land line) or not! India has more than 8 telecom providers, so it is good idea to be sure and careful!

On final note, Toll free number is free for caller, but not for the toll free number owners. The charges vary from telecom operator to operator as well as call volume. The usual jargon used is “PRI lines” in the industry. One PRI line has 30 voice channels or thirty conversation at one point of time.

And finally, if any one wants toll free number in India, he can surely contact me.

In India, not many courier companies have tracking system on IVR ( Interactive Voice Response) system, though almost everyone has web-based online tracking system. Majority of the courier companies have their offices or franchisees in many smaller cities for larger coverage as well as networks in India. Most websites of the courier companies list the phone numbers of these offices for local tracking of the shipments.

Recently, I have observed that, few employees are almost busy all the time answering telephone calls in these offices and tracking the shipment according to the consignment number. On top of that, these employees majorly check the status manually on their computer and inform status of the shipment to the caller.

All these processed could be automated completely using IVR hosting service at any location in India. It is possible since the tracking system is already cumputerised as well as accessible online. Courier tracking on IVR is being widely used in western countries like United States of America, Europe etc.

In any shipment, it has few finite status, for example, it will have the following statuses :-

1. Shipment in transit : This will state that, the shipment is on transit but it has not reached the destination. It can also announce the current city where the shipment has reached apart from expected delivery date.

2. Shipment at Destination : Shipment has reached the destination town or city, could be collected in person, but delivery will be made next day only.

3. Shipment out for delivery : Shipment is in destination city/town, and shipment is taken out for delivery. Most probably, many people would enquire during this status!

4. Shipment Delivered : Shipment has been delivered on time and date.

In hosted IVR enthronement, it should be quite easy to retrieve the status of any shipment by its consignment number. Courier

Since online tracking is already available on web, courier companies can easily provide an HTTP based API ( Application Programming Interface) to retrieve the shipment status to hosted IVR system.

Here is tentative steps, how hosted IVR service for shipment tracking can work :-

1. Caller calls the IVR number and IVR greets him in his local language as per caller id.
2. Caller dials the consignment number.
3. Hosted IVR uses Web service API to retrieve the current status and announce that.

So, hosted IVR can easily provide telephone based shipment tracking system in easy and simple ways using the local languages. Hosted IVR for shipment tracking system can be very useful as it is quick to go live and does not require any big initial investment.

While web based shipment tracking is very useful, but it can be used by many illiterate people as well as those people who do not have internet access. But now a days, majority people have access to mobile phone or public telephone booth, using which one can track shipment status on IVR. Another main advantage of IVR is use of local language which is not possible in case of websites.

Hosted IVR based tracking system can reduce burden of employees of courier companies, provide useful and time tracking system to its clients.

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!

Most probably, the debate on merits and demerits of using ASR ( Automatic Speech Recognition) would continue for some time to come, but in case of India, there are three compelling reason avoid using ASR where simple, old, robust and universally understood ‘keypress’ can do. While ASR can surely speed up and increase interactivity of an IVR system, in Indian scenario, it can be a big nuisance, specially for IVR vendors providing IVR to be used nationwide.

Here are my reasons:-

1. Poor Recognition due to background noise

With due respect to all ASR engines, India is a loud country with lot of noises all around! So, with lot of background noise, it is not possible to recognise words or phrases with high degree of accuracy. Indian cities are noisy with lot of noise pollution all around. Even Indian houses are not well ventilated. Indian villages are crowed with various domestic animal who create lot of sounds.

Because of this background noises, good ASR engines also fail to perform properly and end up with poor accuracy. But users will never appreciate the ‘genuine’ technical problems behind this, but the blame will fall squarely on IVR developer or IVR Vendor.

2. Languages and Accent

India is home to 1652 languages. Out of these, 29 languages are spoken by more than more than 1 million people and another 122 are spoken by more than 10,000. It has officially recognised 22 languages. English is widely spoken and understood all around the country but India also has more than 250 million illiterate people.
So with this statistics, one can easily figure out the changes in accents for speaking even English numerals, forget about English words or Phrases!

This lack of common accent for speaking out any word or phrase prevent any ASR engine detecting them accurately. But, everyone who has dialed into an IVR system, already know how to press a key from the telephone instrument or the mobile. So, in order to wider use of IVR as well as accuracy, ASR should be avoided.

3. Poor Mobile Signal

Most of the recent telephone users in India are mobile phone users. Apart from big cities, large areas as well as large pockets of cities too, have poor network signal and keeps fluctuating rapidly. Due to which, two human may be able to somehow communicate, but in case of IVR, there chances that it would miss some voices, part of voice which are vital for recognising a word or phrase by ASR.

So, even the best ASR would fail to detect words accurately resulting in caller dissatisfaction, call abandonment which will defeat the very reason for using an IVR system.

While there would be remedies, tricks and techniques to address these problems, but these are top reasons if some one wants to avoid using ASR in India!

With more than 690million telephone users ( both land line and mobile), India is one of the fastest growing growing telecom market. Very quickly advertisers thought this an opportunity to market products and they started bombarding mobile phone users with various promotional messages which led to creation of Do Not Call Registry (NDNC Registry) by TRAI ( Telecom Regulatory Authority of India).

BULK VOICE MESSAGE IN GROWING

Though many opine that people are using NDNC Registry as database of mobile numbers which are active, still the growth of SMS ( Short Messaging Service) advertising as well as SMS as tool of alert is slowing down while bulk voice calling is growing more and more. SMS is still widely used in India for, but Bulk Voice SMS or outbound Voice calls are also catching up.

I have also been getting many questions/enquiries from our readers about outbound IVR to make bulk voice calls and such questions/enquiries are growing over the time. Here are few reasons why, I think, IVR bulk voice call is growing and is set to grow more:-

1. Voice can be of any language
While information and messages in SMS are written in English language or Roman script only, IVR Voice call does not have such limitation. Though India has fairly large number of English speaking population, but when they are greeted with their own mother tongue or vernacular language, it instantly attracts and connect with them. Also, there are millions of mobile users who do not simply read SMS or do not know how to read! How voices in different languages is important in India, one may be able to gauge by the fact that India has more that 22 official languages each spoken by at least 10million population. This is apart from more than 250 dialects.

2. Message Delivery and Delivery Report

Another problem with SMS have been it delivery and delivery reporting to advertisers. While it may be condonable in case of product promotion, but delivery report is a must for any utility service using SMS. IVR outbound calling maintains complete delivery report whether call was picked up by the called party or not, if the destination number was answering machine, FAX or voice mail. Also after picking up the phone, did the destination number hear whole voice message or not, all these information are available with bulk voice calling.

3. Land Line numbers do not have SMS facility

India also has large number of land line numbers and only voice message is the only option to alert them. With easy availability of bulk voice calling service now a days, many people have started reaching out to these land-line users too, either for promotional activities or telemarketing. Also, many have realised that land line numbers already has a proven address which is required for many services like credit card, online shopping etc.

4. Instant Feedback and Interactive

While using SMS also one can expect some interactivity as well as feedback, but using voice call by an outbound IVR is much easier and faster. It is more convenient for the called person who can respond to any call just by speaking a word or pressing a key. While in case of SMS, one needs to type few words and send SMS! More ever, while sending out SMS, user is charged for sending SMS and in case of voice message call, it is completely free. So this encourages people to respond to surveys conducted by voice call than SMS.

Recently, there have been many outbound bulk voice service providers in India with competitive pricing. So, if one has been using SMS for alert and promotional activities, it is time to use bulk voice message!

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 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.

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.

CRBT (Caller Ring Back Tone) is a very popular IVR application used in Telecom Industry. It is known as “Hello Tunes”, “Caller Tunes” in India. CRBT is a fairly simple IVR system which has a smart call routing and a IVR application which plays one audio file, a music as per choice by the CRBT subscriber. CRBT is one of the highest revenue earner for Telecom companies in voice based value added service (VAS) all around the world.

CRBT can also be used as very useful, targeted advertising tools where the IVR software will play an ad jingle instead of a number for chart topper, or a old hit. The ad jingle to be played can be chosen by the following criteria:
1. Caller Id : Since IVR application will know both the caller number and called party number, it can choose ad jingle based on the caller ID. For example, if the caller id is an land-line number, a ad jingle related to land line facilities should be played. When caller ID is a Airtel land line number, why not play a internet facilities available on Airtel land-line number ?
2. Area of Caller ID : Area of caller can be decided based on the caller id. In case the caller ID is a mobile number, first 4 digits of the caller ID will determine the area of the caller. And if the caller id is a land line number, the first 3 digits which is a STD (Subscriber Trunk Dialing) code which denotes an area. So, using this information, the ad jingle can be chosen.
3. Telecom Operator Wise : From the caller id and the called party ID (DNI, Dialed Number Identification), Telecom operator can be found out. Advertisement can be targeted by Telecom Operator too. For example, all BSNL caller would be played about 3G availability on BSNL network!
4. Integration with Billing Server : If IVR Server or CRBT Server is connected to billing server, than high paying customers, prepaid customer, post paid customer can be identified and accordingly ad jingles can be targeted.

Advantages of CRBT advertisement :
Advertising on CRBT is new. But it is obvious that there are certain advantages of CRBT advertising. It can be very targeted advertising. The advertiser would know exactly how many times ad jingles has been played and to whom. He would be able calculate his conversion rates.

I think CRBT advertisement would pick up in India soon. There are people who are experimenting on it. But we are still to see wide scale adoption of this advertisement platform.