Interactions - May/June 2010

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.