Speech-Driven Automated Call Center Agents
Have the Conversational
Skills to Handle Advanced Customer Service Calls
Alameda,
CA � April 8, 2004 � Voxify, the first company to create Automated Agents
for call centers, today announced that its Automated Agents are in use
at CanJet Airlines, Canadian North Airlines, and World Choice Travel, a
part of Travelocity. Powered by the company�s patented Conversation
Engine� software platform, the Automated Agents for travel and hospitality
call centers are helping Voxify clients deliver new services, close more
sales, and handle unplanned call volumes without hiring additional staff.
Companies large and small face a serious problem: they don't have enough
staff to handle the calls made to their call centers, but staffing up is
cost prohibitive. �A call center is always balancing the cost of
doing business versus providing the level of customer service our clients
demand,� said Michael Vidal, Vice President of Voice Services at World
Choice Travel. �My live agents take a lot of sales calls. Naturally,
we would prefer they generate income. But because our calls are complex,
there didn�t seem to be a way to automate them until we found Voxify.�
Older speech automation required hard-coding and faced long deployment
times. Voxify Automated Agents differ by modeling the conversational
skills of human beings and adding deep training in the industries they
serve. This innovative combination makes it possible for call centers to
automate more complex calls that previously had to be managed by live agents.
Automated Agents book reservations, take orders, and sell new services.
Agents are brought to life by the company's Conversation Engine, which
ties together its patented behavioral modeling technology with proven standards,
such as VoiceXML and J2EE, to determine a caller's intent across multiple
topics � enabling Automated Agents to closely approximate the effectiveness
of human agents.
�Older approaches to speech recognition only handled the simplest interactions,
leaving calls incomplete and callers dissatisfied. But Voxify has
codified the elements of successful conversation enabling more complex
calls to be handled by our Automated Agents. Our Conversation Engine
is a unique platform offering the building blocks for human conversation
and the capability to quickly create and train new Agents for the spectrum
of customer service functions,� said Adeeb Shanaa, Chief Executive Officer
of Voxify.
Voxify Clients Deliver Superior
Caller Experience for Complex Transactions
World Choice Travel wanted to use Voxify Automated Agents� to handle
1-night reservations, confirm and cancel services, and hotel locator services.
�Voxify enabled us to cost-effectively expand our level of service to customers
and create a new revenue channel. Prior to Voxify, customers could
make 1-night reservations only via the web. Now customers can get
service through multiple channels. Voxify is achieving over 20% in
conversion rates for 1 night reservations. Now, we are generating
income from booking 1-night reservations � where before this was actually
an expense for us.� said Vidal
CanJet, Canada�s Low-Fare Airline, which provides schedule service to
eight destinations in eastern and central Canada as well as Chicago Midway,
New York LaGuardia, St. Petersburg, Sarasota Bradenton and West Palm Beach,
Flordia, turned to Voxify to help them manage spikes in call center volume.
�Our call center can run smoothly for months, but when calls increase,
they do so in a big way� said Dale Rockwell, Director of Information Technology
at CanJet. �February 19th, all flights out of Halifax were suspended
as 38-inches of snow blanketed the area. We had just gone live with
Voxify�s Flight Status Agents, and on the day of the blizzard, they handled
more than eight times the normal call volume. Our Automated Agents
served our callers efficiently while delivering a significantly better
customer experience than a touch-tone system could have,� Rockwell concluded.
Low Costs, Quick Deployment,
and Rapid Results
Automated Agents cost less per call than a live agent, whether in the
U.S. or offshore, especially when considering high turnover rates and the
time it takes to hire and train new agents. �Just like the weather
forecasters, we can�t predict when call volumes will spike,� said CanJet�s
Rockwell. �Voxify Automated Agents give us the ability to handle
increases without scrambling to bring in additional live agents and pay
them overtime. Our callers are rewarded with much shorter hold-times,
and have already told us they find the Agents friendly and efficient.�
Voxify Automated Agents are fully hosted and therefore require no capital
investment or client support. Because Voxify�s Conversation Engine�
has codified the elements of successful conversation, Automated Agents
can be ramped up in a matter of weeks, quickly delivering an agent who
understands how to give callers what they need and releasing them from
long-hold times. And Voxify clients experience the financial benefits of
lower costs on calls while improving customer satisfaction.
�The Voxify Confirm and Cancel Agent handles up to 600 confirmations
and cancellations per day, resolving them on average 29% faster than a
live agent. We are now handling more calls in less time and paying
less than we would by adding call center staff.. It�s not often that
you can improve customer service without impacting the bottom line -- Voxify
made it possible� said Vidal of World Choice Travel.
Strong Relationships with the
Travel Industry
Voxify is partnering with InnPoints Worldwide and VIP International.
InnPoints, a Voxify reseller, is a diversified reservation processing
organization. From its state-of-the-art Albuquerque Headquarters,
InnPoints provides voice, GDS and Internet reservation processing, as well
as strategic marketing programs to over 900 hotels, chains, inns and B
2 B�s.
VIP International provides technology, marketing and merchandising to
drive revenue for independent hotels, car rental companies, hotel chains,
airlines, and other travel related organizations -- more than 5,000 clients
in over 70 countries. Voxify partnered with VIP International to
bring Automated Agents� to Canadian North Airlines
�Working with InnPoints and VIP allow us to deepen our understanding
and reach into the travel industry, and we�re already seeing new revenue
streams through these relationships,� said Voxify�s Shanaa.
About Voxify
Voxify is the first company to create automated call center agents with
the conversational skills to handle advanced customer service calls. Powered
by the company's patented Conversation Engine�, Voxify Automated AgentsTM
model the intelligence and personality of a trained live agent, allowing
them to engage callers in sophisticated dialogue to perform advanced customer
service functions, like reservations, sales, and account requests. Voxify
Automated Agents are helping call centers deliver new services, close more
sales, and handle unplanned call volumes without hiring additional staff.
Voxify was founded by MIT technologists and enterprise software veterans.
Headquartered in Alameda, California, the company has a growing list of
skilled partners around the globe.
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