Recently, I had a chance to work on Sangoma Board and FreeSWITCH ( an open source Telephony platform) which can also work as Interactive Voice Response system. The main challenge

Experience with Sangoma A101 and FreeSwitch

was to install the FreeSWITCH on Windows and get Sangoma board ( Model A101) work. Since I was new to Sangoma board low cost boards, I faced many problems due to lack of information availability on net for beginner.

Though Sangoma support was more or less satisfactory, but no where near the excellent support provided by Dialogic. So, few small things I learned about Sangom board which may be beneficial for people who have worked only with Dialogic board, but not Sangoma boards.

1. Sangoma drivers do not have any telecom protocol ( ISDN ) built into it. It always uses third party software for these protocols.

2. Sangoma boards are mainly made for Asterisk/FreeSWITCH and Linux systems. The basic card is cheap, but additional features like ‘echo cancellation’, NBE ( NetBorder Express – required for Windows) cost extra. So, if some one wants features equivalent of Donjin DN300 in A101, the cost will become more or less same!

3. Configuring the board is more difficult than developing the IVR system for beginner. I could not find any step by step guide for installing the card, run a demo application and test. This kind of utility is available in Dialogic, even in Donjin. Most of the time, Dialogic and Donjin support will help install the card, install the driver, do the configuration and run those demo application and hand over the system back to developer for installing their application. In case of Sangoma, we had to really, really struggled hard to get such support. At first, we were told that in order to get Sagoma board work in Windows, we will have to buy NBE as well as AFT series of board, A101 will not work! But after exchanging mail to and fro with main Sangoma support, we were finally advised to use FreeSWITCH in Windows and it worked for us!

4. Finally, Sangoma support had installed FreeSWITCH on our server and handed over to us. They compiled the recent FreeSWITCH source code along with freeTDM.

After installing FreeSWITCH, developing our IVR using JavaScript was quite easy actually. The were also good documentation about customizing “Dialplan” required to forward any incoming calls JavaScript codes.

So, I would say it was mixed experience for me with Sangoma boards. Using high level language like JavaScript has advantages as well as disadvantages too. But it surely is faster and much easier to learn then learning to write software in C++.

I hope to write a step by step guide to configure Sangoma A101 in Windows using FreeSWITCH some day.

I have many experiences with my clients or people whom I had interacted during their commissioning of IVR system, that they give least importance to the scripting as well as voice prompt. Most of the times, they discuss and emphasis on number of simultaneous calls, integration of the IVR with some CRM ( customer resource management) system or some other interesting IVR feature as well as its future expansion as well as maintenance. Nothing wrong for emphasizing on these aspects of IVR system, but after commissioning of the IVR, they have started changing the script as well as voice prompts many times over!

Many of clients have started out with TTS ( Text To Speech ) generated voice prompts and later ended up recording voice prompts by different artists in a studio! I have also seen some call center owner as well as some companies deploying voice recorded in office by some female staff using a PC and MIC, and putting the IVR into production. Invariably, they changed the voice prompts to studio recorded voice prompts from professional artists after one month or so!

While in some cases use of TTS ( Text To Speech) is inevitable or a must ( like retrieving dynamic data from database and playing them out), but there is no reason to use TTS or TTS generated voice prompts fixed menus, numerals as well as fixed names!

I would always advise people to use professionally recorded voice prompts in any IVR in production environment. While use of TTS generated voice prompts during testing and development phase makes sense, but in production, TTS should be avoided. Here are few reasons why one must use professionally recorded voice prompts only :-

1. Voice prompt is the only interface to the caller

In IVR system, voice prompts are the only direct interface with the telephone caller and telephone caller has no means to know about other aspects of the IVR system. A caller to an IVR system is not bothered about the technology behind the IVR system, or use of API ( Application Programming Interface) based on latest web technologies to fetch the required information for the caller at the back end. The caller is just bother about his required information and how quickly he could access it and how easily he could listen and understand without having to press any key to listen again!

2. Professional Voice Prompts gives seriousness to the IVR system

For many call center as well as customer service and support, IVR is the one which picks calls from every caller including the irate and fed-up callers! Professional, clear and pleasant voice ( I avoid using the word female) may have good effect on the caller and it may give indication to him what he may expect from the call! Unprofessional and difficult to understand voice prompts may scare away the caller or make him more non-cooperating irate customer!

3. Voice Prompts may make IVR caller experience pleasant

A clear and pleasant voice with understandable accent as well as pronunciation will surely increase user experience as well as satisfaction of the caller! A person may call to the IVR from a noisy background area and that will compound his problems in understanding IVR voice prompts or menu options if TTS generated machine prompts are used.

A professional voice prompt provider will always make the voice prompt in proper volume, speed, pitch as well as pronunciation which are a must for any production grade IVR system.

So, in order to improve usability and caller satisfaction, one should use services from a professional voice prompt provider, or at least use voice prompts recorded in studio by professional voice over artist.

MLM ( Multi Level Marketing) can be defined as a marketing strategy where its sales force earns from their selling as well as from those sales generated by people whom they recruit to sell. So, essentially if a sales person creates many successful sales person under him, he generates enough revenue without himself involving in any direct sales! Amway is one of the most famous MLM companies in the world with many products which they sell through their members only.

MLM is also known as Networking Marketing as well as referral marketing, there are many MLM companies in India now a days.

IVR in Multi Level Marketing Companies

The reach of MLM companies is now not confined to city or town areas in India where internet penetration is high, but also to villages where there is almost no penetration of internet and computer, but mobile phones have reached. So, providing updated account information as well as other MLM activities like adding new recruit, lodge any complaints using an IVR may not only add provide added facility to MLM company, but also increase its service area.

What IVR for MLM Companies can do ?

Here are few tasks an IVR can perform for MLM Companies 24 hours a day, without any break and any manual intervention :-

1. It can register any enquiry of new member which could be immediately alerted to any existing member in the same area from where one has made the call.

2. IVR can be used to retrieve member account information like commissions earned by his sales as well as his down-line distributors or any new member additions to his network. These instant and updated information keep a member motivated all the time.

3. IVR can be configured to act as an outbound IVR that can be used to blast mass voice message to all its members any important news, new scheme, discount or any service disruptions etc.

4. IVR can be used to play back recorded voice message of the managing director or owner of the MLM company which builds confidence in its members. This can also be used to gauge member enthusiasm about the MLM company.

So, if you own an MLM company and not using IVR, most probably, you are missing a tool which can not only increase efficiency of your MLM company, but also increase its profitability as well as reputation.

5. IVR can be used as complete automated complaint management system for its members. IVR based complaint management system offers many benefits like lodging complaints using just a phone call without any human intervention by the MLM company.

Apart from these, IVR could b beneficial to automate many mundane and routine tasks performed manually which can result in decrease in operational cost, increase efficiency resulting in increased profitability.

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.

IVR system is not just a clubbing together of state of the art CTI boards, high end servers, very easy to drag and drop tool design IVR call flow for flexibility. One of the saddest part about IVR development is, the users may not appreciate about these technological break-through like SS7, ISUP, CPA ( Call Progress Analysis), accuracy and speed of speech recognition or the or intricacies involved in detecting disconnect tone, engage tone.

They simply care about what menus they hear and if the options they press or speak works! They are least bothered about the hard work some one may have put in to detect her key presses, or recognise heavily accented English numerals, but only if the IVR retrieves the information it promised in its menu. The appreciate only when they can understand the information read out to her listening first time without having to press a key to listen again!

It may not be possible to satisfy all the users of an IVR system, but by using well scripted menus in simple language and intelligently constructed sentences may surely help majority of the people to use IVR system without having to learn the IVR before using it.

The answer to all these problems faced by IVR users and making IVR more useful and user friendly is ‘scripting of the IVR menus’! Script writing for IVR means, writing the IVR menu options in simplest language, well formed sentence so that the listener understands the message accurately without having to concentrate.

IVR scripting can be used in three areas to improve IVR usability:-

1. Scripting the menus
2. Dividing complex menus to simple sub menus
3. Scripting the phrases used for providing information

1. Scripting the Menus

This is quite straight forward. The menu options where IVR gives some options to the IVR user to either press telephone keys, or speak some word or phrase, should be properly scripted. Accuracy of the options is of course a must and forgone conclusion. For example, if the menu says, “To transfer your call to a customer care executive, please press 9″, then on pressing 9 by the caller, the IVR should transfer the call to customer care executive, not to the main menu!

2. Dividing complex menus

Script writers will divide complex options or large options will divide into some groups, and make it two level menus, in place of one. This will not only help first time callers, but also make it more user friendly faster with using ‘cut through’ key pressing!

3. Scripting phrases

Now a days, IVR has to retrieve many information from various locations through either database look up or by using API. Also, it may have retrieve information in bits and pieces from different servers, then knit them together, and then finally produce a sentence which would present a complete required message/information to the IVR user! Now that may not be easy for an IVR engineer! So, one must use a professional script writer for writing these phrases either to be recorded or used with TTS.

Without proper scripts used in IVR menus and in information, IVR will not be usable at all, even by expert IVR users! It will be very frustrating for users and all the great technologies used to design and develop IVR system will completely go waste!

IVR Hosting is growing world-wide and many people are increasingly opting for Hosted IVR solutions. Though hosted IVR Solution may not be able to replace On-Preimse IVR solutions in some cases, but here are top five reasons why one should opt for IVR hosting :-

IVR Hosting ay be your ideal IVR solution!

1. Future Proof

With increasing number of CTI vendors as well as available CTI boards, it has not only become difficult to choose a CTI board, but it has also created a new risk, that is obsolescence! Many people may remember buying good old D/4PCI without any fear or consideration of going obsolete, but not anymore!
With recent advancement in speech recognition technologies, as well as complex IVR systems which may require data exchange between servers located at many places, one can safely say that, today’s IVR technology is going to be obsolete a lot quicker than before.

In hosted IVR solution, this is never going to be a problem for user! One can expect, the hosted IVR service provider will always be updated with latest technologies, features available in IVR technology.

2. No maintenance and no support nightmare

IVR System consists of more than one components. For example, it has telecom components which connects you to the PSTN ( Public Switch Network). Then there is a computer Server and power as well as power back up. Apart from this, there is one CTI vendor as well as IVR Software vendor!

Most of the times, you do not find one single vendor providing you all above components. So, one needs to contact all these vendors for support. One may even encounter a problem like, CTI vendor blaming the Telecom connectivity for the IVR system malfunctioning, while the computer hardware guy blaming the IVR software.

In hosted IVR solution, you have only one problem, only one support, either your IVR is working or it is not. And contact only one support for this. It will save time and resources for any company.

3. Real-time monitoring of expenses and exit route

With IVR hosting service, one can actually measure ROI ( return on Investment) quickly and in real time. From the monthly payment to the Hosted IVR service provider, one can measure exact number of calls, call abandonment, successful calls and any saving in human intervention. But one may argue, these data are available on On-Premise solution too. Yes, but when you know use of IVR is not reducing burden of human resources, you have had already invested on the IVR systems as capital expenditure!

But with Hosted IVR solution, you have quick exit route or try out different type of call flow, different features. On premise IVR, one can not expect these benefits!

4. Focus your core business, no allocate resources for IVR a business tool for you

IVR system is a business automation system to automate customer care, reduce human intervention, increase accuracy of information as well as collecting measurable information about callers and customers. Maintaining or developing IVR system may not be your core competence. So, one should devote resources in their core competence rather than devoting resources in IVR upkeep.

Hosted IVR is the perfect solution which offers complete IVR solution without having to know anything about IVR yourself.

5. Quick upgrade and expansion

Hosted IVR offers facility to upgrade capacity of calls, or any other required feature quickly. One can also opt for using different technology for different kind of calls. For example, one may opt for VOIP for outbound calls while using TDM network for incoming calls by the customers. The best part is, one can change this kind for arrangement frequently as per requirement. With On-Premise IVR, one is stuck with the CTI board purchased as well as initial SRS ( System Requirement Specification) of IVR.
These kind of flexible features are available with IVR hosting and if one requires these facility, he might have invest a lot in different hardware alone!

So, it may be time for you to think about IVR hosting seriously!

Recently, I have started getting mails about asking open source IVR as well as its availability for free, download-able from internet! Most of the people who have asked me about “‘Open Source IVR” have heard about Asterisk. Before going into the details about Asterisk, being open source IVR, I would like to clarify few things about IVR ( Interactive Voice Response)  System.

IVR system consists of  four components, one can say. They are :-

1. CTI ( Computer Telephony) board
2. Call Flow development as per requirement
3. Voice prompts, TTS ( Text To Speech) Engine  and ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) Engine
4. Host PC or Server for #1 through #3 above.

1. CTI ( Computer Telephony) board

CTI board is a hardware and I m quite sure, nobody will make it ‘open source’ or free for anyone! The other alternative is SIP ( Session Initiated Protocol) on VoIP ( Voice Over Internet Protocol). But for connecting to PSTN ( Public Switched Network), TDM based CTI Board is a must and there is no alternative, as of now!

All CTI boards come with their own set of API ( Application Programming Interfaces) to control telecom protocols and call handling. Dialogic, the biggest CTI company provides many APIs as well as sample codes in three major operating systems, Windows, Linux and MAC OS. Likewise, other CTI vendors too provide their proprietary C++ API for at least two OS.

2. Call Flow development as per requirement

There are many online as well as offline call flow development tools. Some Call Flow development tools are completely pictorial visual tool where one can drag and drop various call flow like components to make a call flow. Some others use simple ‘English’ like/natural language like scripts to define call flow. Incidentally, all these tools are free to use for developing the call flow, but to execute these call flow, one has to pay per port licenses.

VXML is standard call flow development language adopted by W3 which uses HTML like simple syntax. Presently this requires a third party interpreter which again requires per port licenses.

3. Voice prompts, TTS ( Text To Speech) Engine and ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) Engine

Voice prompts are normally recorded in a studio by professional artists. One can also record voice prompts using computer/laptop and MIC for development purpose. There are many open source, freely available TTS. Even MS SAPI is freely available. eSpeak, a popular TTS which has support for many languages from all around the world, is an open source TTS which works well both in Windows and Linux.
Likewise there are many open source ASR that works well after refinements.

Now, major challenge is to integrate all these components and build a reliable IVR system. Now a days, IVR is no longer simple call flow of yes and no by the caller, but complex system with data retrieving from multiple sources. It performs complex task as well compute input data by caller, make a decision and respond to caller with appropriate answer.

Most of the time, making an informed choice of IVR which is most suitable for a particular IVR application is quite difficult.

Now finally, Asterisk is a truly open source telephony system with IVR facility. It is Linux based and supports many CTI hardware and many developers contributing to it. It is a completely DIY ( Do It Yourself) IVR platform. It may not be easy to develop an IVR system quickly for a beginner using Asterisk from a scratch. At the end, it may be as difficult as building IVR using native API available with CTI board itself.

Many high density and widely deployed CTI hardware are not supported by Asterisk. This is one disadvantage which Asterisk will take some time to overcome. And at the end, while some one tries to customise Asterisk, he might end up with his own proprietary piece of codes, specific to some CTI hardware only!

Advantage of using API of CTI board is the freedom of choice of operating system as well as programming language. Programming languages like C++ offer power of ‘real programming’ language to complete complex tasks as well as integrate with any third party software.

So, one may not have much choice as Open Source IVR!

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.

IVR (Interactive Voice Response) system itself is new in India even after decade of high telecom growth and penetration. And hosted IVR was almost unknown in India till recently. But now, few companies have come up with hosted IVR solutions to cater to few specific IVR applications.

Till now, IVR systems were thought to be standalone, on premise CTI systems for answering customer calls and transfer calls to some department, record a complaint, announce train/flight status and schedule. But with increasing telecom density, both users and telecom providers have been pushing IVR companies to provide many utility services using telephone or mobiles. For example, making payment using IVR system, listening to music on voice portal etc.

Indian IVR market seems to be now rapidly waking up to hosted IVR concept. Till few years back, not many people bothered much about VXML, CCXML. But now a days even normal IVR users are aware about these ‘jargon’. Also many US-based companies who have been using IVR for many customer service related applications, CRM applications on a hosted platform, have recently been actively looking for hosted IVR service providers in India.

There are few IVR services which are available or being implemented in India are :-

1. Voice Blast or Bulk Voice Message

After success of SMS marketing, voice SMS or bulk voice messaging was a natural graduation. In voice Message service, hosted IVR calls up telephone numbers and play a recorded message. This was widely used during election campaigns. There are few IVR companies which provide this service.

Automated dialer is another variant of outbound IVR application which is available in India as hosted IVR service.

2. Click To Call Service

Click To Call service has been in Indian market as hosted IVR service for few years now. It is widely used in trading, directory websites. Recently, travel portals, job portals and real estate websites have woken up to the usefulness of click to call service.

3. Complaint Management System

This is another application which is being used by some companies as Hosted IVR service. With reducing bandwidth cost, and increasing internet penetration, IVR based complaint management system has potential to become preferred complaint management for smaller organisations.

4. IVR Survey

There has been few instances where IVR based survey had been used in India. It is still in nascent stage, but this is one potential area. IVR survey offer many benefits over other traditional form of surveys like mailer, email, face to face, SMS etc.

So, Indian market is also moving towards hosted IVR services slowly. Though biggest IVR users in India, government sectors like Indian railways, BSNL etc. may still be using on-premise IVR systems, but smaller private sector industries like private telecom service providers, ISPs, payment gateway providers, hospitality industry may opt for hosted IVR service quickly.

Few of the hosted IVR service providers are, Niche Tech Services Private Ltd., Simmortel Voice, Phonon, etc.

Happy holidays season and Happy New year 2010 to all readers in general and visitors to IVR Blog during this holiday season in particular.

In case you wanted to read few useful articles about interactive voice response (IVR) system, here is a list of recommended articles :-

1. IVR as CRBT(Caller Ring Back Tone).
2. Choosing a CTI board for your IVR.
3. Choosing right IVR development tool .
4. Usability Tips for IVR Software.
5. Predictive Dialer and IVR.
6. Using Predictive Dialer smartly in Call Center.
7. List of RAD tools for IVR development.
8. IVR for making money .
9. Technical challenges in voice portal.
10. Use IVR as e-commerce portal.

I hope these articles will keep you busy while I will be back next year, 2010!