Companies operating inbound call centers are rapidly discovering the advantages of implementing speech-enabled self-service systems to better serve their customers. With today’s “automated agents,” customers can very often get the information they need and/or conduct simple transactions without the assistance of a live agent. This is not only allowing companies to reduce call center staffing levels, it is also enabling them to deliver better customer service, as their agents can now devote their time handling more complex or higher value transactions, rather than low value, or “informational” transactions which bring in little to no revenue.
But like most of today’s software solutions, the speech enabled self service systems can be implemented either “on-premise” or delivered via the hosted, or “Software-as-a-Service” (SaaS) model. So now the big issue facing companies with inbound call centers is not so much whether to deploy a speech enabled self-service solution, but rather what model to use in order to deliver it. With so many different pros and cons coming into play for either model -- not the least of which is the licensing and/or pricing models used -- the business case for choosing either strategy has become quite complex.
As such, some of the software vendors offering these solutions are now offering both on-premise and hosted, as well as “hybrid” delivery models in order give their customers much greater flexibility in terms of choosing which delivery model they want to use. One such vendor is cutting edge speech technology firm Voxify, which specializes in speech enabled self-service solutions for the call center industry. The company just recently announced that it is now offering on premise and “hybrid” deployment options to its customers.
This means customers have the option of delivering Voxify’s “Automated Agents” via a hosted (i.e. managed) or via a hybrid hosted/on-premise architecture to achieve even greater contact center efficiency and cost savings, as well as improved scalability. With the company’s new and innovative on-premise/hybrid model, customers can use existing ports on their in-house speech servers to help make use of existing infrastructure and thus reduce service costs.
“We’ve traditionally been a hosted/managed service company – and we continue to be a managed service company - though the difference is that we view ourselves as being deployment agnostic,” explained Roger Nunn, Voxify’s VP of sales, in a recent interview. “Our focus is on the application - that is our core competency. So we are announcing the availability of an on-premise deployment capability. And the breakdown of that is that the application piece – which is still developed and deployed by Voxify – will continue to be hosted, but the XML
browser can be at the customer’s site. Because very often the speech ports are already owned by the customer … so with this model they can continue to leverage those.”
Nunn said the new hosted/on-premise model is ideal for contact centers seeking ways to handle planned or unplanned spikes in call volume without having to hire additional agents or go to contract with a third party outsourcers. He points out that this overflow capability brings a huge advantage to the contact center, simply because it is near “impossible to lease 1,000 agents for 15 minutes,” yet many centers can experience huge pikes and fluctuations in call volume which can be hard to predict or plan for. Voxify’s automated agents – which have natural language capabilities and are therefore ideal for self-service and advanced call routing
purposes - enable contact centers to handle large numbers of calls arriving nearly simultaneously.
According to the company, the new on-premise deployment model “gives contact centers the ability to manage their speech infrastructure without having to invest in the expertise required to manage, tune, and support sophisticated speech applications.” The “overflow” option offers “additional benefits of capacity, redundancy, and business continuity as the contact center’s speech infrastructure is replicated in the Voxify hosting network.”
Nunn said with the new on-premise model, “we’re replicating the whole infrastructure, in one of our hosting centers, to give our customers overflow and scalability similar to what is offered through a hosted deployment.” Should a contact center experience an unplanned call spike or interruption in operations, calls are handled seamlessly by the Voxify hosting network.
The other huge advantage here is the redundancy factor. Should one of your company’s servers fail, or should you happen to experience a huge and unexpected spike in call volume, the hybrid system can “failover” to the remote, or hosted system and your call center’s automated agents can continue to deliver self-service without skipping a beat.
This dilemma of selecting either on-premise, hosted or “hybrid” service delivery models will be explored thoroughly during an upcoming TMC webinar entitled “
Hosted vs. On Premise IVR? Four Deployment Strategies that Protect You from Risk and Change.” Attendess of this informative webinar will learn four strategies that will allow them to harness the advantages of both worlds. Come find out if it is better for your call center to deliver its automated solutions via your company’s own network, if there’s an advantage to going to contract with a third party provider, or if there’s a “compromise” solution that will best suit your needs.
The webinar will be held at
12 noon ET/9 a.m. PT, on Wednesday, November 7, 2007. It will be hosted by Roger Nunn, Voxify’s vice president of worldwide sales, and Nancy Jamison, an independent market analyst and owner of Jamison Consulting. The event will be moderated by Erik Linask, associate editor, Technology Marketing Corporation. To register for this informative webinar, click
here. To see all of TMC's upcoming webinars, please visit our
webinar page.
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Patrick Barnard is Associate Editor for Customer Interaction Solutions magazine and Assignment Editor for ContactCenterSolutions. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page.