Mobile Content Summit second edition was held today at Shangri-La Hotel in New Delhi, India. This summit was a day long event where IVRS World was a partner. This mobile content was organised by Virtue Insight and attended by more than 100 delegates from Mobile Content, Telecom industry.

Mobile Content Summit 2011

The first session was chaired by Mr. N K Goel who is president of CMAI ( Communication and Manufacturing Association of India an industrial organisation with more than 5500 member companies). During his opening remark, he had informed the captive audience that India has the lowest voice call rate in the world , still its profitability is in the range of 20-25 range which is again highest profitability in telecom industry int he world!

Mobile Content Summit

In the morning keynote was delivered by Mr. Suresh Jayaraju, vice president, Head – new age VAS ( Value Added Service), 3G service from Reliance infocomm. In his speech, he opined that India has many innovative low cost VAS ideas where “missed call” can be used to exchange many information. For example, he said that if I give a “missed call” to a person with one ring, h/she would understand that I would come after one hour, if I give missed with with two rings, it means I would be late by 2 hours!

Mobile Content Conference

Vamshi Reddy from Yahoo had explained about mind boggling amount of content being stored, processed ready to be delivered to consumers. He had also informed that, now a days there are many user generated content and this is likely to increase manifold once 3G is rolled out in India.

Mr. Keith Curran, CEO of Steadings Group, United KIngdom had talked about UK experience about Mobile VAS industry and how India will have to gear up for changes in its content development. He explained about “PUSH” and “PULL” method of product development and how “PULL” method had been phenomenal success ( obviously referring to Apple’s IPad). He had also declared that Mobile Phone is now dead and we should gear up for new gadget which will do much more and voice call would become a mere feature in it!

It was successful summit attended by top executives who are stake holders in the Mobile Content Industry in a telecom market which has more than 770 million users and increasing by 20million every month!

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.

I had finally added a WordPress Classified Plugin for IVR Marketplace. This feature in www.ivrsworld.com will allow readers to post their IVR services, Ask Experts, Advertise IVR Services, IVR Development Tools, IVR Requirement.

Looking for a IVR projects? Trying to find a IVR consultant? Looking for an CTI Board? Looking for getting CTI Board on rent ? Browse our classifieds. Have a IVR project to advertise? Looking for freelancing IVR Work ? Post a classified ad.

IVR Marketplace

1. Anyone can place an advertisement by just clicking on Place Ad. One does not need to be a registered member of www.ivrsworld.com to post an advertisement. We request to use a valid email id as that will be required for future editing. All advertisements are approved by administrator.

2. All advertisements can be browsed by, replied by Browse Ad. Anyone can reply, comment on any advertisement.

I hope this feature will be useful for many IVR users.

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.

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.

Without doubt, interactive voice response (IVR) has become the ubiquitous technology in telecommunications applications. IVR solutions have a myriad of uses that are mostly taken for granted, however, the essence of an IVR system is its ability to offer ‘self-service’ for the user, thus it can help to reduce cost and improve the customer experience.

Since introducing the world’s first ‘all-in-one’ voice board in 1998, Aculab has been setting the standard of enabling technology components – e.g., CTI cards – for IVR applications. Whatever your needs for advanced IVR functionality, Aculab has the media processing technology and APIs – voice, fax, call progress, etc. – to drive your success.

Beneficially, Aculab is able to offer a choice; from its range of IP-centric, DSP-based Prosody X boards to its host-based (SoftDSP or HMP) option, Prosody S. And you can use Prosody X for converged or mixed IP/TDM environments, where you still need E1 or T1 PSTN connectivity.

Additionally, Aculab\’s VoiceXML/CCXML interpreter set offers a powerful and scalable design option for platform vendors and service providers alike. It is the fastest, most cost-effective, high performance solution available today, which is an effective combination in any language.

IVR system features and capacities vary depending on the market segments they target. Small to medium enterprises (SMEs) may look to enhance their IP-PBX with an IVR-based auto-attendant using Prosody S, while larger companies will require a Prosody X board-based solution for a hybrid contact centre or voice portal, perhaps also using automatic speech recognition (ASR) and text-to-speech (TTS). Carriers and service providers need IVR to provide a wide range of subscriber messaging and large scale, hosted or VAS and mobile VAS service offerings. And, undoubtedly, TEMs (of all descriptions; Tier 1, Tier 2, etc.) and platform vendors supplying these user communities will also benefit from Aculab’s board and software options.

Check out Aculab at http://www.aculab.com/solutions/IVR-solutions.asp