I attended VAS Asia 2010 held today in New Delhi. While writing my previous post about widely used IVR systems in India, I put IVR for Value Added Service at the top. If the overwhelming presence of CTI board manufacturers with stalls and two IVR platform provider any indication, then we are surely seeing some boom in IVR VAS in India! Incidentally, the last year too, there were many CTI board manufacturers in the same exhibition!

VAS Asia 2010 Conference

Incidentally, I could not find any stall of any big VAS companies except few like NetxCell, Spice Mobile. The big names in Indian VAS like OnMobile, IMI Mobile, Hungama Mobile etc. were not there! Content Developing companies VAS Application developer( one of fellow visitor asked me, “if I could suggest him any VAS content provider”)!
Nuance had big stall, and it is going to replace OnMobile ( which was principal sponsor for this VAS exhibition for last three years) as principal sponsor for next year.

Many CTI board manufacturer were there, I collected many visiting cards with interesting designations. One of the designation marketing manager of a CTI baard manufacturer’s business card reads designations like Sr. BDM Telecom and VAS ( Looks like, whole of CTI market in India is shifting towards IVR VAS only!).

Apart from Dialogic and Donjin, The following CTI board manufacturers were present :

1. Sangoma

Sangoma CTI Boards

Synway Stall at VAS Asia 2010

3. EastCom

EastCom - High Density Telecom Boards racks

4. Audio Codes

AudioCodes Stall

Interestingly, there were not many IVR platform providers except ExtendIVR and Telesoft Technologies! Telesoft launched its IVR platform for VAS industry. Aculab, I think whose CTI boards are most suited for voice portals, was not present!

ExtendIVR - Indian IVR Platform

Telesoft IVR platform

1. The session started with rosy picture of Indian VAS industry with a lecture from Mr. Arbind Rao of OnMobile ( which was the principal sponsor for the event) telling us that Indian VAS industry launches new services/products much faster than its European counterparts! He also informed that people whose mobile balance is Rs. 10(Approx US$0.22) at any point of time, VAS companies should sell them CRBT subscription per day basis! The present VAS market volume is Rs. 15000 crore ( more than US$3bn), likely to reach Rs. 70,000 crore by 2015 and Rs. 100,000 crore by 2020!
The next speaker Mr. Rakesh Mahajan, VP – Marketing & Business Head – VAS & Incubation, Airtel brought everyone on ground by asking, there are many products, services but how about the quality ? Answer to ‘what’ is not more important than ‘how’, he opined!

2. Lack of participants from core VAS companies ( though many were sponsors for the event) may be an indicator that not all is well in VAS industry in India and many admitted in private, VAS market is no longer booming in India! Nuance replacing OnMobile as principal sponsor for the next VAS Asia conference does not give out good signal about VAS Industry in India either!

3. Few specific issues like revenue sharing between telecom operator and VAS companies which is heavily tilted towards telecom companies ( Many claim it is now only 15% for VAS companies and for some unique and exclusive services it may be 35%) were not discussed or non raised, though Mr. Arbinda Rao raised something like, VAS companies should be given tax exemption by the government! No wonder low cost CTI manufacturers are present in big number in the conference!

4. Almost all speakers talked about using VAS in new areas ( eco-system as they called), like health, medicine, agriculture, targeting rural population in India. Also one speaker spoke about S Curve, saturation point!

Overall, it was good to be in the conference!

CRBT (Caller ring back tone), also popular as “Hello Tunes” in India, has generated almost 25% of total VAS ( Value Added Service) revenues. This kind of revenue pattern is same worldwide where CRBT has been a major revenue earner for any telephone service provider in its VAS portfolio.

So, what is the next of CRBT ?

If one observes closely about this music or song in mobile industry, one will observe certain trends. Here is how it worked.

Ring tone :
First, popular songs were used a ring tone which was played in the mobile handset as soon as any incoming call came. Not too distant in the past, it was a major revenue source for all involved in it, music producer, Mobile Phone service provider and VAS provider. But with lowering cost of high end mobile phone with MP3 players, and Blue Tooth enabled Mobile phone with easy computer connectivity has almost wiped out Mono Ring Tone from the market. Now, mono ring tones are heard only in very low cost mobile handsets.


RBT ( Ring Back Tone):
Once, Ring Tone revenue was going down, CRBT ( Caller Ring Back Tone) came along! Though the technical term remained RBT ( Ring Back Tone), it was christened with various names in India by various mobile operators, like Hello Tunes, Caller Tunes, PRBT ( Personalised Ring Back Tone) etc. In CRBT, a song was played to the caller by the called party and the called party could configure which song to be played. The called party could even configure specific song for specific phone number based on caller id detected.

So, song used to play on the handset, heard the handset owner in incoming call and could be configured by the handset owner. It graduated to be played on incoming call, but heard by the caller, configured by the called party ( equivalent of the handset owner), now the phone number owner! The caller has not control on the song or music he listens as RBT!

So the next generation CRBT is, listening to music as per your choice while you are calling a phone number! Technically, its implementation is same though!

UPDATE : Tata Docommo in India is already providing this kind of service where caller listens to a song every time hi makes an outgoing call as per his choice. It is powered by ‘Reverse CRBT’ from OnMobile, major VAS company in India.

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.

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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.

These are many small, but important design problems one often tends to overlook. I have tried to list them all. Kindly send me feedback if you have encountered any such problems. In a DTMF Based Menu Following are the frequently overlooked problems :->

1. Long Menu
Be it DTMF Driven menu or Voice driven menu, long menu with many options should be avoided. The maximum menu options should be 5. ( Maximum 7 in unavoidable cases. ) Long menu tires a caller out and it becomes very difficult for caller to remember the options too. Also if a caller’s required option is played at the last of the menu( for example 9th option in the menu, one has to hear out first 8 options before hearing the 9th option.), it becomes really irritating.

2. Long Period of Silence
Long period of silence at any case should be avoided. Maximum allowable silence period should be 3 Seconds. After that a proper timeout message should be played.

3. Rejection of key pressing during prompt playing.
It is often noticed that IVR ignores the key pressed while it is playing menu options. This should be avoided. Specially while playing a long menu of 4 and above options. During playing prompts too, keys pressed by caller should be accepted and processed accordingly.

4. Hang Up calls
IVRS should never hang up the call at any condition. Its like slamming the phone on you! You cause enough pain already by making a human interact with a machine, so it will be worthwhile that machine does not hang up on the human!

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5. Scripting of IVR Prompts
Scripting of IVR menus and any information should be properly written. Many people do not give enough importance in scripting their information. Scripts like You have pressed a wrong key, You have failed to press a key in time, etc. should eb avoided.

6. Confusing and illogical presentation of Information
All information given by IVRS should be brief, to-the-point, in simple english and complete. Unnecessary jargons should be avoided.

7. Failure recovery
On failure of accessing any data from a database or online information, IVR should inform politely to the caller.

8. Unprofessional Voice
Cheap sounding and unprofessionaly recorded, low quality voice should be avoided. One should always get prompts recorded by professional voice artist. Background music should be added only when the situation demands or service requires it.

In a Voice Driven Menu:-

9. In a Voice Driven menu the menu tends to be extra focussing on entertaining the caller, rather than providing service required by him.

10. Attempt to have a conversation with caller should be avoided. Even though ASR technology works fine, still it can not have a conversation with a human.

11. Avoid having excessive human like Interface.

12. Avoid playing prompts as soon as call is connected. Give some silence or play some music for small duration.