"With greater emphasis on providing better customer service, companies worry about the extra expense needed to provide the service customers are demanding. Conversational IVR systems help bridge this gap. To be sure, whether utilized at a large organization, telephone company or call center, a conversational style, speech-enabled search solution is a large factor in achieving increased productivity, cost savings and exemplary customer service. This new type of technology is paving the new speech-enabled IVR road of the future" (Bannon, 1999).
The key issues that present themselves in this case are (a) automated speech recognition (ASR) and interactive voice response (IVR) systems have advanced considerably in the last two decades, and (b) the benefits of such increases outweigh the actual and potential loss.
This paper will provide insights on (a) the business benefits and limitations of IVR technology at Verizon and other companies, (b) the potential improvement of these company systems, (c) the business situations that would benefit most and least from IVR technology, and (c) the future anticipation of IVR technology over the next 20 years.
References Bannon, M. (1999). Conversational IVR:
The Future of Speech-Enabled, Telephony-Based,
Directory Search and Auto Attendant Technology.
Retrieved on December 23, 2007 from http://www.opengroup.org/comm/the_message/magazine/mmv5n4/ivr.htm
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