[24]7 Releases Visual Speech
[24]7 has debuted Visual Speech, a solution that uses predictive analytics and real-time decision-making to move existing IVRs into a next-generation mobile customer experience.
By combining screen, touch, and speech, the new solution provides consumers using IVR systems with an advanced HTML5 mobile Web experience without requiring them to download a mobile application.
It also incorporates technology from Microsoft TellMe and Voxify, both of which were acquired by the company in 2012.
"One of our goals was to build on the prediction and big data expertise we had in the organization, and, specifically, we were using that capability in the online space to help automate and provide more context to an online experience," says Kathy Juve, [24]7's chief marketing officer. "Our objective with picking up these fantastic capabilities from Voxify and Microsoft TellMe was to be able to extend those capabilities to the mobile environment by leveraging both our own Web technologies and speech. [24]7 Visual Speech is from the combination of these three companies. We were really intrigued with this intersection of self-service, speech, and channels."
With the solution, an enterprise can know in real time why a customer is calling, and when and how to expedite resolution. Predictive analytics, real-time decisioning, and machine learning work together to continuously refine the customer experience, making it smarter over time. [24]7 Visual Speech is powered by the [24]7 Predictive Experience Platform, which enables customers to maintain journey and context continuity across channels.
"At the center of our software strategy lies this big data platform. It is a real-time decisioning platform that enables us to understand a consumer's intent and then offer up the right kind of conversation with the right type of channel at the right time to serve customers," says Juve. "Visual Speech enables us to initiate mobile experience from an IVR interaction."
As a multimodal solution, [24]7 Visual Speech enhances the speech capabilities of an IVR with screen input and output, making it easy to complete complex tasks. Consumers use a visual interface of the smartphone to see complex data such as pictures, tables and forms. Entry of information can be done by touch, type, or speech, based on the consumer's preference. The multimodal flexibility increases engagement and self-service completion.
If agent assistance is needed, the full context of the journey can be transferred to either a voice or chat agent to accelerate assisted service, reducing average handle times and providing a partial automation benefit. The agent can also push rich content to an end user on the smartphone display to speed assisted-service resolution.
"We believe in this concept of omnichannel experiences," says Juve. "Consumers' needs are met from the various enterprises we do business with, such as a credit card company, a cable company, or online retailers, in any channel with the right context. "We believe that you should be able to transfer a user from one channel to another while keeping that context intact and give consumers more options."
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