Datria Announces Packaged Speech Application for Field Service

ENGLEWOOD, CO - Datria announced the upcoming delivery of a packaged, voice-enabled field service application for remote workforce data sharing. Datria Ticket Management 2.0 is specifically designed to improve the productivity of field personnel while reducing the costs to support them. "Until now, voice-enabled applications were custom built," said Art Schoeller, senior analyst, customer relationship management strategies, for the Yankee Group. "The applications were costly, time-consuming, and difficult to build and maintain. Datria is bringing the advantages of packaged software - including standards, consistent quality, and 15 to 20 percent lower total cost of ownership - to voice-enabled employee applications. More companies with mobile workforces will now be able to benefit from the power of voice." Ticket Management 2.0 allows field service technicians to manage their work and communicate with their home base using only their voice and a phone. Field representatives can call from any location using any phone and speak directly to their enterprise applications to report or receive job information. Ticket Management 2.0 converts the voice to data and updates the enterprise system. The application then "reads" the data in the enterprise system and speaks it to the field technician. The process is analogous to having the field technician call an agent in a dispatch center, except that no agent is required. By automating the process, Ticket Management 2.0 allows dispatch agents to be re-deployed for other activities such as customer service. "The ability to get accurate, real-time information to and from the field at low cost changes the competitive dynamic for our customers," said James Greenwell, chairman and CEO of Datria. "Our client companies can schedule technicians dynamically and use their resources more effectively. Our customers have reported significant revenue gains, productivity gains of 15 to 25 percent and dramatic cost savings." Ticket Management 2.0 is designed to assist companies with mid-sized to large field service organizations and will include vertical functionality for utility, cable, broadband, and telephony industries. Noting the particular benefits of Datria's systems for the utility industry, Alan Hobbs, director of customer service at Energy South, said: "After implementing Datria Ticket Management, our service revenues increased 18 percent and, on average, we completed one-and-a-half more jobs per technician per day. We also reduced overtime costs by 30 percent and cut in half the time it takes us to respond to emergency calls." Ticket Management 2.0 delivers 17 business processes in a pre-packaged application. Built on the new Datria Voice Architecture, the application runs on the World Wide Web and is based on a range of voice and data industry standards, including XML and VoiceXML 2.0. Ticket Management 2.0 also includes tools that allow analysts to manage the application. "We recognize that many of our customers don't have a lot of experience with voice-enabled applications," said Scott Martin, Datria's vice president of engineering. "We've included tools so that business analysts without voice training can configure, deploy, and maintain our applications. They get the benefit of voice without having to master the intricacies of voice processing." Ticket Management 2.0 will be available in September.