Meet the Telephone Robot Overlords: Our New IVR System

It’s safe to assume that when calling a help desk or customer support most people would rather speak to a live human being versus an automated message system.  It can be frustrating,  but IVRs save time (and therefore money) on the phone. We have roughly thirteen million customers, and a few seconds or minutes here or there for each customerbcan really add up to longer hold times and higher staffing costs – which makes cable rates climb.

Take a look at this breakout from IVRs World:

3 rings use 8 seconds and if you receive 300 calls a day (8 hours), and picks up calls after 3 rings every time, you waste ( 300 X 8 = 2400 seconds) 40 minutes in total of your callers! As well as yours so, it makes 1 hour and 2 minutes! It may not be possible for a human to pick up a call in one ring, but trust me, an IVR system will pick up the ring without any failure, every time.

We at Time Warner Cable completely understand that robot voices can be frustrating, but also want to serve our customers in the quickest and most efficient way possible. After all, with 13 million customers, it’s not a stretch to say that we’re getting well over 300 calls a day.

If you’ve recently called our customer support, you’ve probably “spoken to” our new Enterprise Speech IVR (interactive voice response) that marries some of the intuitiveness of a live customer care representative with the efficiency of an automated voice system.

I say “spoken to” because unlike traditional IVR’s, you won’t have to choose an option by number or type your account number on your phone’s key pad. All you need to do is talk.  This new system also gives you the ability to have most of your service needs met without ever typing a number or speaking to a live customer care rep.

If you want to pay your bill, say “pay my bill.”  If you need to know your balance, simply state, “balance information.”  And you can just say “add HBO” if you are calling to add HBO to your digital cable account.  By stating your purpose and “speaking” with the automated voice on the other end, you can not only pay your bill, but you can get basic troubleshooting help for Cable, internet and Digital Home Phone, learn if there are any outages that might be affecting your service, and even find out the locations and hours of TWC cable stores in your area.

Further, this new “intuitive” system uses an auto attendant speaking in a natural language (I promise you can understand what they’re saying) to collect the necessary information from you.  To that end, the IVR also does a great job of recognizing your voice as well, even if you may speak with an accent.  The IVR was developed for Time Warner Cable by Avaya, and utilizes the advanced Speech Attendant® solution developed by Nuance.

Why has Time Warner Cable rolled out this new technology?  Because it’s quicker and simpler to navigate through.  Because it means that you can often get the answers you need without any wait time.  Because if you do need additional help from a live person, it’ll direct to the appropriate care agent.  And, because it’s available 24/7.

If you do need to call Time Warner Cable for support, remember these tips to have a successful “chat”:

• Speak naturally, at normal pace
• Avoid lots of background noise
• If you need to, you can press touch-tone keys for your credit card or phone number, and press 1 for “yes” and 2 for “no”
• Press *99 to turn off speech recognition and switch to touch-tone only mode
• If you get lost within the IVR, say “main menu”

Categories: Cool Stuff, Customer Care, Future of the Industry, What's New