Few days ago, I had posted about using IVR ( Interactive Voice Response) System in mission critical operation in underground mining operation. Continuing int he same line, there is another interesting IVR application which is useful in our day to day life and can prove to be life saving at times! That is IVR based automatic pill reminder service.

In short, automatic Pill reminder service is essentially an outbound IVR which is capable of dialing out programmed phone number of the patient at programmed time automatically without any manual intervention. When the call is connected, it will play a recorded message and then wait for confirmation whether the patient has taken the medicine or not. When the patient dos not respond the call or confirm the medicine taken, IVR will raise an alarm either by sending an email or SMS to medical staff responsible for the patient’s hospital so that some manual intervention can be taken immediately depending on the severity of the timely medicine!

This kind of automatic pill reminder service can be hosted or on premise IVR system. In India, Niche Tech Services (P) Ltd offers both on premise as well as hosted IVR based automatic pill reminder service.

Few essentials in pill reminder services are :-

1. It should support different language for different patients

The IVR should be able to play messages in different languages so that save IVR system could be used to alert many patients.

2. It should be be able to record response from patient

The pill reminder service should be able to accept some response either DTMF ( Dual Tone Multi Frequency) press or automatic speech recognition. Automatic Speech recognition ( ASR ) may work well since it will just need YES or NO response from the patient.

3. It should provide alarms

The IVR should be capable of raising an alarm to concerned doctor or medical supervisor responsible for the patient immediately if the patient fails to respond to the pill reminding call or respond about the medicine taken in negative. Timely intervention by a medical supervisor may prove to be life saving exercise at times.

4. It should have MIS

The system should be able to provide patient wise, call wise MIS ( management information system) so that complete medical history for the patient could be organised. It should also store all responses by the patient.

Having IVR based pill reminder system offers many benefits. For example, now a days everybody keeps a mobile phone with him all the time and always attentive to any call. So, alert system using a telephonic call has more chances of being attended.

Getting response and storing them is useful information for he doctor for analysing about the patient responsiveness to the treatment.

Using phone is one of the cheapest and better option that having any web based reminder system or alarm system. An IVR can precisely play a message about the type of medicine the patient is required to take at that time. This will help the patient to concentrate on his regular works having to remember about his medicines and worry about it all the time.

So, if you have a hospital or medical service facility, it is time you put automatic IVR based pill reminder system in place to serve your patients better! Even call centers can offer this service to many large hospitals and health care industries.

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!

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.

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.

Recently, I commissioned a IVR Software in a call center in India. I have gone through a good learning process about not only Call Center, but also how IVR can be used smartly to serve customers better, solve customer problems at shortest possible time as well as minimizing call agent intervention!

My client is a ISP (Internet Service Provider) as well as Cable TV operator. They have large subscriber base with almost 10000 calls to the call center a day with calls ranging from customer complaint, inquiry for cable TV connection, internet connection. They had existing CRM software and they were trying to augment their call center with smart IVR Software which could integrate with existing CRM software for lodging complaint and generate complaint ticket, retrieving existing complaint status as well as retrieving officer in charge for rectifying the complaint and expected arrival time at his premises. The IVR was also expected to make outbound calls as soon as a complaint is rectified and customer had option to close if the complaint is resolved successfully or re-lodge the complaint if not resolved to his satisfaction.

One more part was to send an SMS informing the complaint has been rectified if customer has a mobile number stored in its customer record. Also SMS intimation along with complaint ticket number generated by IVR system as soon as call is disconnected from IVRS.

We used Dialogic D300 boards and ISDN protocol. The total Call Center Software consisted of IVR, Voice Logger, ACD ( Automatic Call Distribution), IVR Triggered Agent Screen Capture Module, SMS (Short Messaging Service) Module and MIS ( Management Information System).

So, using this smart IVR Application, a customer could do the following without having to talk to call agent :-

1. Lodge a complaint, get a complaint ticket as his service like internet or cable TV. Complaint ticket is read out to him through IVR instantly as well as expected rectification time.
2. He gets an SMS alert as soon as complaint has been lodged which he can use for checking complaint status in future.
3. While checking complaint status, he could escalate his complaint if he was not satisfied with the status.
4. He could lodge an inquiry about new connection with inquiry number.

So mainly, with this smart IVR with integration with existing CRM, a caller could get a complaint rectified without having to talk to any call agent. This has increased efficiency of call agents as well as improved rectification time for any complaints.

What is UMS ( Unified Messaging System) ?
In one sentence, UMS can be defined as a system that provides phone subscribers with the ability to access, read and reply all their messages in whatever form from any terminal (whether telephony-based, Internet-based or both) that may be available. Message types are normally, Email, Voice Mail, Fax and SMS. UMS provides a single mailbox to store all all these messages and then access these messages from mobile phone, telephone, website or as SMS on mobile phone! For more, please visit Niche Tech Services NTS1BOX product page.

With the above description, it is obvious that IVR Software will play the main part in a UMS Solution. In fact, one can view UMS as enhancement of IVR Software.

1. Accessing ‘Message’, either Email, SMS, Voice Mail or FAX one has to use an IVR Software. This IVR software will be programmed to give options to read Email, SMS, Voice Mail or FAX to a caller.

2. Depending on the choice, IVR Software will retrieve Email, read it out to caller using TTS(Text To Speech). It will also give option to reply by the caller as a voice message, which will be stored as Audio File ( WAV File) and replied to sender as email attachement. For Option to download as SMS, IVR Software will trigger SMS Module to send out the email as SMS.

3. For Voice Mail, its a straight forward retrieval and playback of stored messages.

4. IVR Software can also send and receive FAX! The CTI Card has to have FAX support.

5. For SMS again, SMS texts would be read out to the caller and a voice message would be sent as reply to the SMS sender.

Best part of an UMS is, for every incoming message, be it SMS, Email, FAX or Voice Mail, a subscriber can be alerted by a outbound IVR Software.

UMS can be an extension of Voice Portal Software. Voice Portal operators can easily upgrade their IVR Software to give functionality of UMS. This can be new revenue earner for voice portal.

So, IVR Software can be extended to serve as UMS.

One of the best usage of IVRS is Complaint Management. Using IVRS in complaint management is a real value addition in customer care operation. Any organization which has reasonably large number of customers should go for IVRS. Here is how one can use IVRS in complaint management:-

1. Caller call up complaint number of the company and lodges his complaint, he gets a complaint number generated automatically by IVRS. Also IVRS will announce expected date of rectification or call back by the company.
2. Customer calls again. This time he checks for his status of previous complaint. IVRS retrieves the complaint status and announces accordingly.
3. Customer has option to transfer the call to human agent or transfer the call to other departments.

So with the above example, it is pretty explanatory that IVRS can be used for complaint management in any industry. Attached is a small call flow diagram for Faulty Telephone Number Complaint.

Call Flow Diagram for complaint Management

The above call flow is pretty simple! Here is some detailed call flow of complaint management.

1. Customer calls Complaint Number of the company. IVRS prompts the client to enter customer identification number of serial number of the product.
2. If customer ID is entered by Caller, it will check if any previous/recent complaints are there. If yes, it will announce the status, elese IVRS speaks out list of equipments purchased by the customer and asks to enter the faulty one. And continue with #4 below. Else continue #3.
3. If customer enters serial number of a product
4. IVRS will announce list of commonly known problems, faults of the product and asks for choosing one among them. Also this will have option to record the complaint in voice.

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4. IVRS records the choice by the customer, record the voice if any, and then store the above information in a database, generated a complaint number along with tentative rectification date and announces them to the customer.
5. As soon as customer hangs up, IVRS will create a complete database record and send out an email to the concerned person.
6. Another great enhancement is SMS. Once a customer lodges a complaint, an automatic SMS would go to his Mobile Number along with Complaint Number and expected rectification date.
7. IVRS will have record of all call activities as well as complaint MIS. This will help management of the company in improving customer care as well as monitor employee performance.
8. The IVRS can also be integrated with existing CRM or web based complaint management system.

There are many IVRS companies who can deliver such a solution as above. But integrating SMS and existing CRM is not that easy. Niche Tech Services (P) Ltd is one such company which specializes in customise IVRS as well as SMS and existing CRM integration.

The above two examples can be extended to any industry.