When Is Speech Technology too Creepy?

Personalization Needs to Remain Relevant

While the practice of Google ads following prospects on future searches is off-putting to some, others readily accept it, just as they regularly accept that an IVR system can identify them by their phone number and, in some instances, even anticipate the reason for the call.

But personalization needs to work with other company systems, or it will become a source of frustration, according to TrackIf consultant Kim Garretson. For example, Google ads might continue to be offered for products that are out of stock, or an IVR system may have incorrect customer information, even if it has been updated in a company’s customer relationship management or enterprise resource planning systems. This is more critical than ever as retailers, financial services firms, and other companies move to omnichannel marketing and sales strategies.

Using personal information can facilitate omnichannel business, Nowlin-Green adds. If a customer is viewing treadmills on a company's Internet site, for example, and then calls the contact center, the agent can respond: "I see you were looking at our treadmills. Is that what you are calling about?"

"It shouldn't be much of a surprise if a customer starts searching through one channel, and then contacts the company through a different channel," Nowlin-Green says.

But Brendan Witcher, a principal analyst at Forrester Research, says that while transparency is important, informing a customer that you can monitor his Web activity might be a step too far.

Instead, the agent can be proactive and access the Web activity when the customer calls, but let the customer initiate the discussion. Revealing that the Web activity is available can be unsettling to customers, Witcher says. He also doesn't like the idea of, say, treadmill ads showing up on subsequent Web sites after a search for them, or the practice of follow-up marketing messages via other channels.

Consumers are more comfortable with messages through various channels from financial institutions with which they have accounts, and targeted "deal" offers from certain retailers. But too many deal offers, while not creepy, exactly, can become annoying. Even if consumers don't notify a company that they're opting out of such messages, they may just automatically move them to spam folders. Similarly, customers may just hang up on unwanted IVR calls, meaning the effort spent on personalizing the messages is not cool or creepy, just wasted.

Nowlin-Green and other experts say that advanced speech recognition/personalization is starting to gain a similar level of comfort, particularly after the introduction of iPhone's Siri and other voice-activated personal assistants. Speech recognition helps customers who increasingly use mobile devices to contact a company, because speech is sometimes easier and quicker than keying in information, particularly when hands are occupied with driving or other activities.

Speech Personalization in Practice

For example: A customer calls Discover Financial Services near her payment due date. After the phone number triggers automatic authentication, and additional customer information (i.e., date of birth and last four numbers of credit card) is entered via voice or keypad, the system will respond: "We see that your due date is approaching; would you like to make a payment?" Such recognition saves steps in the payment process.

Though the technology exists, Discover does not use the customer's name in the message. Name usage is considered by some to be creepy and others to be cool, so companies need to test such personalization to determine whether it helps or hurts.

Hotels and motels can use similar technology to ask a customer if he is calling about a previously made reservation. Other companies can use such a system to anticipate a customer's reason for calling and thus speed up the process.

But how much of the available information to use is complicated, differing among industries and even among companies.

"People need to be able to turn something off," Nowlin-Green says. "Some don't want to be greeted by name. You have to do a lot of A-B testing. Don't waste time when it's wrong. You have to be able to adjust to what people want."

Similarly, marketing experts say that companies need to enable customers to change the frequency of personalized and other messages.

"Personalization is in the eye of the beholder," says Jay Wilpon, senior vice president of natural language research at Interactions. "When there is a link between personalization and security [as in account identification], it adds value. Do people want personalization infringing on them? I don't think so."

For personalization to be cool rather than creepy, companies have to offer full transparency, according to Nowlin-Green and several other experts. Customers want to know how a company obtained their personal information. When they agree to certain promotions, customers don't always realize that their personal information is used elsewhere, because disclosures are full of legalese.

"If a user sees their sensitive information show up somewhere unexpected, and they're not sure how it got there, they are going to find it disconcerting and creepy. That feeling may overwhelm any magic or benefit they receive from the feature," Boeke says.

"It's creepy if people don't know how you obtained their information," Nowlin-Green agrees.

So opt-in and opt-out language needs to be very clear, Boeke says. Additionally, customers need to have the capability to opt out in the future, even if they originally opted in.

The cool-versus-creepy calculation doesn't need to be complicated; just go to the source—the customer—Garretson advises.

"Companies spend tens of millions of dollars on collecting personal information and other data to predict the next best offer for their audiences, but it's still a guess," Garretson says. "Why are you guessing? That's the creepy factor. If someone looks at a camera online, through cookies and other techniques, that information follows them around for weeks. Be more proactive in gaining a customer's trust. Why are you guessing? Ask the customer."

"Transparency and control are crucial to trust," Boeke adds. "However, I don't think they are enough. There is a third element that holds everything else together: integrity."

Companies build integrity by keeping their promises to customers, according to Boeke. If personal information is to be used only in a certain way, such as to track loyalty participation, then don't use it elsewhere, even with a sister company.

"If you don't follow through on what you promised, you may never get another chance to repair the trust you've damaged, because your users can just move on to another app, or another vendor," Boeke says.

Experts also advise against collecting any personal information that doesn't add value for the customer or for the company. Some companies routinely collect social security numbers or other personally identifiable information that is not necessary to conduct business and could also create a liability for the company, especially if there is a data breach.