In 2004, Vodafone made a commitment to help their call centers deliver better customer service. To achieve this goal, they decided to take advantage of speech recognition applications to automate common, repetitive tasks, and free representatives to spend more time on higher value customer inquiries.

One of the tasks targeted for speech-automation efforts was launched this May with a virtual call center representative named Lara, who handles pre-paid phone registration. In addition to improved automation rates, an important Vodafone goal was for customers to have a favorable impression of the speech application.

In order to ensure application effectiveness and customer satisfaction, Vodafone hired a team of Dimension Data IVR experts to design and build Lara. The team used Audium software for the project.

Audium also reduced the amount of time it took the team to complete the application as DiData was able to reuse components they had created in previous efforts.

The Results:

Lara has performed extremely well since her introduction: Lara has automated 60% of all pre-paid registration calls – 100% of which were previously handled by live representatives.

Independent studies show that of the callers who use the application:

• 75% report a positive experience

• 80% percent say they are comfortable talking to the automated system

• 90% percent of callers say the application is easy to understand.

These statistics were compelling enough for a panel of industry experts to recognize Lara and Vodafone as the winner of the 2004 ScanSoft Best Practices Award for the speech solution that best improved customer service while maintaining customer satisfaction.

Once Lara was complete, DiData not only had a working application, but also an easily reusable foundation of Vodafone-specific application components, as well as a solid foundation for future registration by phone applications.

Click Here to speak to someone at Audium about how you can get started with Audium software

Vodafone's Lara in the News:

ComputerWorld - Vodafone rolls out virtual staff

news.com.au - Vodafone Likes Lara