Markets ushering in renewed optimism

BANGALORE, INDIA: Customer Interaction Management (CIM) solutions that help organizations design and deliver superior experience for their customers has been Chennai-based Servion Global Solutions Ltd’s forte. The company boasts of expertise in areas such as consulting, implementing and managing CIM solutions and technologies.

Servion had recently deployed a new speech-enabled Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system for banking major YES Bank. The technology that allows a user to have an ‘intelligent’ conversation without a ‘live’ agent is undoubtedly a first for the banking industry in the country. In this context, G. Shankaran Nair, president – Corporate Strategy, Servion Global Solutions, talks about the new technology and Servion’s activities in the space.

Could you explain how the new Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system works?

The 'Yes Touch' Phone Banking solution includes a self-service tele-banking speech recognition application that offers banking services in both English and Hindi. It is built on a directed dialogue model, an approach to speech application that prompts users to say specific phrases in order to enter the corresponding content menu. The application is touch-tone enabled and has been scaled to provide round-the-clock service.

From a technology perspective, the ‘Yes Touch’ phone banking service is a combination of Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise (Unified CCE) on a Cisco IVR platform, Nuance Open Speech Recognizer, and KnoahSoft voice logger that facilitates intelligent call routing, network to desktop Computer Telephony Integration (CTI), speech recognition, and multi-channel contact management through voice, e-mail and chat over an IP network. The solution has been deployed by Servion.

Managing an expansive customer base can be a difficult task, more so if the system attempts to address each customer in a personalized manner. What are the challenges you foresee in this regard?

In a world where commoditization is the rule of thumb, personalization and service differentiation provide the competitive edge. However, in action, this throws up a set of challenges, such as

a: How do you allow customers to get in touch with the organization though many channels (phone, web, chat, e-mail, SMS, blogs, and other social media)that are available to them?

b. How do you as an organization provide them a superior interaction experience consistently across these multiple channels and many occasions? and

c. How do you run this operation profitably?

When a new technology of this kind is deployed by a financial institution, you might have had to address a lot of security related challenges so as to make it foolproof. Could you elaborate on this?

Security was paramount in the design and deployment of the solution. The entire solution was placed behind a firewall so that external access is limited. Apart from the dataflow being in an encrypted format, very few ports were opened up for integration with other systems. This ensured that the solution worked and at the same time was also secure.

Redressal of customer complaints forms a major part of the work when it comes to banking and related areas. Do you think 100 per cent complaint redressal through the IVR is possible? What are the steps you have taken to manage and find solutions to complaints with a technological medium?

Yes, theoretically 100 per cent complaint redressal is possible on an automated system. Let me emphasize on the ‘theoretical’ part and explain why. While the ERP systems, CRM, and CIM within organizations are supposed to be seamlessly integrated, we are far from that in reality. Though it is assumed that a trouble ticket raised by logging a complaint on the IVR should set in motion an array of back-end actions to rectify the issue, and at the same time update the customer on status, it needs not always be as simple. There are many cases that require human intervention and application of the human mind which an automated system cannot take over. So, while issues that can be automated are completed on the IVR, issues requiring human intervention are passed on to a live agent.

Yes Bank has deployed your technology which could also mean that you are set for newer arenas. What is next?

In India, technology adoption from a Customer Interaction Management (CIM) perspective is at the highest among banking, and telecommunication verticals. Now if you are to extrapolate based on certain trends from developed countries who are much ahead of us in terms of the technology curve, healthcare insurance administration, travel, and hospitality will be the next big waves. Consumer durables, healthcare and retail will follow.

Apart from the markets, Servion is constantly innovating with new service delivery capabilities across the spectrum from consulting to managed services and enhanced support packages.

Services through speech recognition can play a major role in the rural hinterland. Have you thought of any such deployment?

India is at an incipient stage in terms of adopting speech technology. This deployment at Yes Bank, for example, is the first speech deployment in the banking industry in India. So while we have acquired the skills to deploy speech technology from having done it in other parts of the world, the focus in India at this moment is to get more enterprises to adopt speech. This would initially be focused on the customers rather than an urban versus rural segmentation. It is true that speech recognition can play a major role in the rural hinterland but do bear in mind that penetration into those areas will also be restricted by the complications of multiple languages and dialects.

Could you provide details on the investment involved in the development of the technology?

Investments fall into three categories:

Infrastructure: This consists of Cisco gear (Unified Contact Center Enterprise with IP IVR). This includes hardware (servers / routers) and software licenses.

Professional services: Implementation services to deploy the solution and application development based on Yes Bank’s requirements.

Ongoing support: This is AMC for hardware/software as well as dedicated support from partners such as Servion.

How bad has been the economic slowdown for you as a company and the industry you operate in? What do you foresee two years down the line?

We are certainly seeing the first signs of a recovery phase. A lot of customers have started re-opening discussions on projects that were put on hold earlier and this is a positive sign. While we have not started seeing significant increases in new contract closures, the activity levels have gone up. The other reason this is happening is because many companies have started looking at their budgets for next year. And there is a renewed optimism in the overall markets right now, compared to the same period last year.