AAA of Minnesota/Iowa Selects Avaya Speech Self-Service for Contact Center Operations

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. and MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL, Minn. - AAA of Minnesota/Iowa incorporated Avaya speech self-service applications to help traveling motorists in need, vacationers planning holiday trips and other callers requiring service and information. Using spoken commands, members are able to call AAA of Minnesota/Iowa and use their phone or cell phone to renew and upgrade memberships, request travel materials, get account balances or reach departments such as travel or insurance services. The company also counts on voice automation to let members calling roadside assistance update their status, find out estimated time for help to arrive or cancel calls.
                                               
Members can even use speech to order AAA's TripTik® maps and travel guides for a cross-country drive by speaking a beginning and ending address, as well as the dates they are traveling. At the end of this automated process, AAA will prepare and mail the appropriate TripTik maps, tour books, a trip itinerary and directions, and other related travel material.    

With more of the club's routine member services and transactions now automated using speech, AAA's top-tier agents are free to handle a greater number of more complex requests and critical calls, including those for travel planning services and roadside assistance.

"After incorporating Avaya's speech self-service into our business, we are seeing more members using automated self-service - and using it to completion," said Joe Alessi, vice president of marketing and information technology for AAA of Minnesota/Iowa. "We have seen a measurable improvement in customer satisfaction by using automated speech, compared to the previous touchtone system.  Avaya's solution speeds service for our busy members and frees up our highly-skilled agents to handle more of the priority roadside assistance calls they are trained for."
                               
Each call handled by Avaya speech self-service saves the organization approximately $2 compared to those fielded by a live agent.     

The speech self-service solution Avaya delivered to AAA of Minnesota/Iowa is powered by Avaya Interactive Response, the company's software platform for voice and speech applications and a key component of Avaya's suite of MultiVantage™ Communications Applications. This implementation also features voice recognition applications custom-designed for the auto club by Nuance and Gold Systems, both members of the Avaya DeveloperConnection program.

Consultants from Avaya Global Services helped AAA of Minnesota/Iowa integrate speech into its existing Avaya contact center operations, which includes an Internet protocol-enabled Avaya network linking agents at the organization's Twin Cities regional headquarters with branch offices in Des Moines and Battendorft, Iowa.