Voxeo Talks

This recent Harris Interactive poll should be of interest to anyone who works on mobile customer service initiatives or mobile-payments programs – Harris’ recent study took a look at what smartphone capabilities people are using, and what capabilities they are comfortable with.

About 55% of the respondents indicated they had a smartphone capable of performing advanced functions. At first glance, the results seem to suggest very limited mobile adoption:

According to a recent Harris Poll, very few are taking advantage. Smart phones today can store information to make our lives more efficient – information that can be scanned to make a purchase, or displayed as a ticket for admission, allowing us freedom from printed confirmations or carrying bulky wallets. However, when asked about a list of items that one could scan their mobile or smart phone for, only small minorities report having done so in each case.

They reported single-digit percentages for use of most functions that could improve or streamline a customer’s experience, like utilizing the smartphone in lieu of a movie ticket or airline ticket, or to make payment for a purchase of apparel or convenience items. However, pairing these numbers with the second set of questions asked, which revolved around comfort levels with these activities, shows an interesting contrast. A couple of comparisons:

• 5% have scanned their smartphone as a movie ticket. 47% are “very” or “somewhat” comfortable with the concept.
• 3% have scanned their smartphone to pay for a purchase of clothing or electronics, while 39% would be “very” or “somewhat” comfortable using a gift card-style account in this manner and 24% would be “very” or “somewhat” comfortable using a stored credit card in this manner.

In general, higher comfort levels were found among younger consumers (age 18-35 “echo boomers”) and men.

So, why the huge gap in use vs. comfort? There are a few possible theories – the dichotomy could possibly be driven by the existence of a limited number of retailers offering self-service options that take full advantage of smartphone capabilities, lack of communication of the availability of these functions, the multi-channel self-service functions not yet delivering the value customers are looking for, or retailers currently offering these programs not doing enough to make the “somewhat” comfortable consumers feel secure with their implementations.

The takeaway for those offering or planning to offer additional mobile self-service options to their customers is that a potential userbase is out there and possibly growing, but the utility, positioning and data security and compliance of your services will all be critical if they are to be a success. Harris finished the article with the results of a question they asked about when, if ever, information stored on mobile phones would be used more pervasively as a form of payments than cash. Only 30% said “never”.

Want to find out more about how Voxeo delivers multi-channel self-service on a secure platform your customers can be comfortable using? Get our whitepaper, Delivering On the Value Of Multi-Channel Customer Interactions.

Smart businesses know their customers and can leverage that knowledge into personalized and efficient self-service channels that build loyalty and improve customer satisfaction.

Join Voxeo and Digital DataVoice on Tuesday, May 1, 2012 at 1 PM Eastern time to explore how personalized customer self-service leads to happier, more loyal customers and contact center cost savings. Hear from some of the industry’s leading experts who will explore the design, development and business benefits of modern, personalized IVR and multi-channel self-service.

Best Practices Covered Include:

-Personalized multi-channel self-service design and development

-How to deliver dynamic, relevant and specialized content to the caller

-Using personalization to provide proactive outbound service

-Using personalization to more effectively cross-sell and upsell

-Metrics from companies that have improved their customer experience with a well designed IVR

We were very pleased to announce at SpeechtTEK this morning in New York that we have extended our 100% Uptime Service Level Agreement (SLA) to text messaging (SMS).  For many years, we’ve offered a 100% Uptime SLA for voice/IVR … essentially we believe so strongly in our infrastructure that we’ll credit your account if we have any downtime.  Today we extended that 100% Uptime SLA to text messaging (SMS).

Today, so many companies are starting to use text messaging as a way to communicate with their customers.  However, companies are NOT thinking about the reliability of their text-messaging services. Yet, if text messaging is to be a core part of your customer communication, you really need mission-critical reliability.

That’s what we announced today!

We also explained again our SMS offering and offered a video:

• Outbound Messaging. Allows applications to send outbound text messages and campaign blasts.  Used to provide proactive alerts, send reminders, and allow users to take action on messages, such as accepting an offer, making a payment, or confirming an appointment.  
• Inbound Messaging. Allows applications to receive inbound text messages and automatically reply with requested information, present users with dynamic menus or choices, and route requests appropriately. 
• Normal phone numbers.   Voxeo customers can send messages from and receive messages to “normal” phone numbers, such as (407) 555-1212 in the US.  Phone numbers for the US and other countries around the world are available from Voxeo on-demand, ready in just minutes, with no wait times or significant monthly costs.
• Short-code phone numbers. Voxeo customers can also send and receive text messages using “short code” phone numbers, such as 12345.  Short codes take more time to obtain from mobile carriers but are best for high-volume or high-profile text messaging applications.  Voxeo manages the short code provisioning from start to finish.
• Multi-Modal Interactions.  Companies can also use Voxeo to deliver “multi-modal” applications that use both voice and text in the same customer interaction or with the same phone numbers. For instance, a customer calling to make a payment through an automated voice system could then receive a SMS confirming the transaction.
• Development Simplicity. Voxeo’s easy-to-use tools enable developers to create new SMS text-messaging applications – and to text-enable any existing VoiceXML application with very few or even no changes. In addition, customers can use  Voxeo’s VoiceObjects Application LifeCycle Suite to graphically build one application and seamlessly deploy it across multiple channels including voice, SMS, IM, video, and the mobile web – all while accounting for differences in user interfaces.  Alternatively, customers can use a simple HTTP-based API to send and receive SMS messages.
• 24X7 Monitoring and Support. Voxeo provides unmatched technical support and customer service. Unlike other vendors with limited, tiered, or cost-based support models, Voxeo Customer Obsession teams are available to Voxeo customers for free 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to rapidly resolve issues, answer any questions, and  share best practices.

The short video demonstrates how easy it is to create text messaging apps:

How to Create Text Messaging (SMS) Applications on Voxeo’s Platform

If you would like to try this out yourself, simply go to evolution.voxeo.com, sign up for a free account and check out our tutorials.  And when you are ready to launch you’re application into production, we’ll be glad to talk about our 100% Uptime SLA!

Have you wanted to easily create an application that communicates with your customers via voice, SMS/texting, instant messaging, Twitter and more? (what we call  Unified Self-Service) Have you looked at our VoiceObjects product but didn’t have an easy way to deploy the required on-premises server?

Today we are pleased to announce that we are making the ability to create multi-channel self-service applications simpler than ever with the release of VoiceObjects On-Demand.

No more need to have your own VoiceObjects server.  Simply download the desktop client and start building applications!  What you get is:

1. Instant startup.
2. Instant expansion.
3. Zero hardware costs and affordable pay-as-you-go pricing.
4. Full control over application integration and lifecycle management with no vendor lock-in.
5. Mission-critical infrastructure including multi-site redundancy, business continuity, and proven scalability.
6. Direct access to Voxeo’s world-wide hosted VoiceXML IVR platform, deployed in seven sites around the world.
7. Direct access to Voxeo’s high-quality, inexpensive speech recognition capabilities in 40 languages.
8. Direct access to other Voxeo features including encrypted call recording and SIP VoIP connectivity.
9. Connectivity to existing on-premise VoiceXML IVR platforms from Avaya, Cisco, Genesys, Intervoice, and more.
10. Voxeo’s unmatched 100% uptime SLA including 24×7 support and guaranteed 20 minute responses.

Oh… and did I mention that it is free to get started?

Don’t take my word for it, though, head on over to this page and check it out yourself:

http://www.voxeo.com/vo-ondemand

You can also watch this video introduction:

We’re very excited to have this new service available… and we’re looking forward to seeing what you all build with it!

Join us for our Jam Session in June on “Unified Self-Service: Creating multi-channel communications apps using Voxeo tools”

Unified Self-Service is a concept that allows you to develop one application and deploy it for multiple communications channels. One development team, one platform, one set of logs, analytics. Develop your business logic once  and use it anywhere. This jam session will explain how Unified self-service can save you money and time while providing a higher level of service. We’ll discuss how organizationshave delivered Unified Self-service, and how you can use Voxeo tools and technologies to create Unified applications.

Join us for this session on Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 8:00 AM Western, 11:00 AM Eastern, 5:00 PM Central European.

REGISTER NOW

Visit Voxeo at SpeechTEK Europe 2010, May 26-27, 2010 at the Copthorne Tara Hotel in London.

Experience all Voxeo offers including free developer solutions, market leading multi-channel self-service capabilities and Unlocked Communications(TM) – a unique approach that enables unparalleled choice, flexibility and innovation. Discover what over 100,000 developers and thousands of enterprise customers already know. Learn more about Voxeo and our support of more than 50 languages in the Americas, Europe and APAC. See how we can help you increase customer loyalty while reducing costs.

Visit us at booth #4 to learn what we can do for your business.

Get your free exhibition pass or a discounted conference pass to visit SpeechTEK Europe.

To schedule a meeting at SpeechTEK, please contact us.

View the Voxeo Business-hosted  Webinar we held featuring Forrester Research, Inc. on “How to transform your Customer’s experience While Driving Down Costs”.

Customers today expect more when they engage with companies and offering merely “good” service is no longer sufficient to retain their loyalty. Contact centers need to quickly respond to changing customer demands and deliver dynamic support consistently across all channels. This webinar examined innovative solutions that support the new customer imperative. It provided insight into emerging market trends for contact centers including social media, blending inbound and outbound automated transactions, cross channel communications and customer experience analytics. Additionally, it is essential that today’s contact centers support solid business goals and deliver world class service while lowering operational costs. The session discussed best practices for achieving this optimal customer support balance.

Dan York, Director Conversations at Voxeo and Elizabeth Herrell, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, Inc. talked about customer expectations on phone self-services, benefits of multi-channel strategies in customer service, and the usage of new channels such as social medias within this service offerings. They provided best practices for state-of-the-art services, that increase customer satisfaction and reduce costs.

View the recorded session.

Join us for our Business Webinar on April 15, 2010.

Dan York, Director Conversations at Voxeo and Elizabeth Herrell, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, Inc. will talk about “How to Transform your Customer’s Experience While Driving Down Costs”.

Customers today expect more when they engage with companies and offering merely “good” service is no longer sufficient to retain their loyalty. Contact centers need to quickly respond to changing customer demands and deliver dynamic support consistently across all channels.

This webinar examines innovative solutions that support the new customer imperative. It will also provide insight into emerging market trends for contact centers including social media, blending inbound and outbound transactions, cross channel communications and customer experience analytics.

Dan York and Elizabeth Herrell will talk about customer expectations on phone self-services, benefits of multi-channel strategies in customer service, and the usage of new channels such as social medias within this service offerings. They will provide best practices for state-of-the-art services that increase customer satisfaction and reduce costs.

Looking forward to welcome you in this webinar.

Date: April 15, 2010

Time: 9:00 AM Western, 12:00 PM Eastern, 6:00 PM Central European

REGISTER NOW

At ITEXPO back in January, Eric Linask at TMC interviewed me in what has seemed to become a regular every-six-months routine. In the interview, I discussed:

• the Cloud Communications Summit and pushing communications out into “the cloud”
• security issues related to cloud communications
• what’s next in communications, including multi-channel communications (a part of which we refer to as Unified Self-Service)

The big black vehicle behind me was being raffled off as part of the event promotion… hence why we were there. (Wouldn’t it perhaps have been more interesting if we did the interview inside the vehicle?) Anyway… here’s the video: (and will astute observers notice anything about me that is different from the other videos I’ve done?)

Over at eComm Europe in Amsterdam yesterday, Voxeo CTO RJ Auburn did his characteristic stirring of the pot with a talk called The Rise of Real-Time Text and the Demise of Voice. The Twittersphere seemed to be quite amused by the CTO of a “voice” company saying this – an oft-twittered phrase was:

Voxeo is talking about text, not voice! Kids don’t talk on the phone, they text or IM. So the future is text.

To people reading this blog or any of our other blogs, these statements shouldn’t come as any real surprise. Today the way companies interact with customers definitely includes voice – and for ten years now we’ve helped over 100,000 developers, over 45,000 companies and over half the Fortune 100 deliver exceptional customer service over voice.

But any look at communications trends today – including our own usage as individuals – will show that we’re increasingly moving to a world in which voice is only one of the many channels that customers use to interact with you – and it may not be the preferred channel. It’s not just the fact that “Kids don’t talk on the phone” – it’s also that we as consumers/individuals don’t want to wait on the phone while a call center agent takes forever to look something up on a slow computer system. We want to multi-task… we want to get other things done. But yet sometimes we also want to just get a person on the phone.

From a Voxeo perspective, we call this “Unified Self-Service™” – the idea of developing one application and allowing customers to interact with that application through whatever communication channel they choose: voice, SMS, IM, Twitter, mobile web … whatever.

We’re not just talking about this, of course… we’ve made it real today… with our Prophecy 10 platform, with our IMified platform, with our VoiceObjects product… you can sign up for a free account in our Evolution developer portal and write a VoiceXML app that interacts with users via voice (from the PSTN, SIP or Skype), via SMS or via IM. Today. Now. It’s that simple. Or go over to Tropo.com and write your multi-channel app in JavaScript, Ruby, python, PHP or Groovy. One application – many channels.

You’ll obviously see us writing and speaking more about this topic in the weeks and months ahead. But rather than listen to us – dive in and try it out!

And in the meantime, check out RJ’s slides – they are done in RJ’s typical excellent style (and yes, he presented the 94 slides in under 15 minutes):