issuing warnings, and an infor-
mal name for pain experienced
when engaging in excessive typ-
ing on these devices has already
arisen: “BlackBerry Thumb.”)
So, then, it turns out that
when it comes to the simple
task we described here, the
most cutting-edge technologies (desktops, laptops, smart
phones) do not compare with
our humble telephone. In other
words, even with expensive
hardware and the service
charges that come with them, it
would take more time and effort
to accomplish the simple task of
learning your current checking-account balance while using
such technology than it would
by doing so with a phone and an
IVR system.
What does it tell us? Simply
that IVR technology is here to
stay. It is here to stay because
for certain tasks, it can do the
job at a lower cost, more quickly, and with less effort on the
part of the end user than any of
the most cutting-edge communication technologies out there.
But then, you ask, why do
people hate IVRs? Why do they
groan and shake their heads in
dismay when they realize they
are about to interact with a
machine over the telephone?
The interaction we described
is not your typical exchange
between a user and an IVR
system. Your typical IVR would
have greeted you with some
30 seconds of chest-thumping
messaging about the company,
followed by some mindless
instructions—such as, “For
English, press 1” or “Please
listen carefully, as our menu
options have changed.” It would
have listed a long menu of
options; required you to select
the “check balance” option,
then “the checking account”
option; and then would have
required you to enter your full
checking-account number. And
finally, for security purposes, a
PIN, and only then would have
finally given you the balance. A
grueling three or four minutes
would have elapsed. And if you
had not committed your 14-digit
checking account number to
memory, you would have had to
get up and retrieve your check-
book, unless you happened to
have it nearby!
So, what did it take to have
the ideal IVR system we initially
described to behave as it did?
Here are the keys to its effectiveness: ( 1) it recognized who
the caller was, ( 2) it knew that
they were calling to retrieve
their checking-account balance,
( 3) it did not waste time talking, saying only what it needed
to say, and ( 4) it let the caller
speak their answers.
Can this interaction be implemented with today’s technology? Absolutely. With caller ID
and the last four digits of the
caller’s checking account (easy
to memorize, especially if you
are calling once a week), the
user can be identified and validated, and the balance retrieved
and spoken back to the user
in a matter of seconds. With
some intelligence in the back-end (a simple Naïve Bayesian
algorithm would amply do), the
system can quickly learn that
most of your calls are about
balance inquiries. With that
knowledge, the system can
adapt its interaction to shorten
all of its verbal prompts to the
bare minimum (e.g., “The last
four digits?” rather than “What
are the last four digits of your
checking-account number?”),
ask only for the information
needed to accomplish its task,
and then execute that task. And
with the current state of speech
recognition, letting the user
speak back the last four digits of
their account and say “no” is a
trivial task.
There is no reason, then, why
every single IVR system in use
today cannot be as effective as
the one described here. Give the
customer a system that helps
them, that solves their problem
without wasting their time, and
they will use it and love it every
time.
About the Authors
Ahmed Bouzid has been
practicing professionally in
the IVR industry since
1995, when he joined
Unisys Corporation’s
Weiye Ma obtained her
Ph.D. in speech processing
and recognition from
Katholieke Universiteit
Leuven (Belgium) in 1999.
doi: 10.1145/1744161.1744166
© 2010 ACM 1072-5220/10/0500 $10.00