Nuance warns on call centres
Nuance Communications' Ian Turner has warned that call centres should use speech recognition technology to support live agents and replace them where necessary during the worst periods of the pandemic
As the number of people diagnosed with swine flu soars, the government predicts the UK workforce will reduce by 15-20% at the pandemic's peak, with the potential to plummet by 35% in the likely event that every school closes. The decimation in the workforce will have a significant impact on business continuity and service delivery. It is essential that Government and businesses take this threat seriously and put plans in place now to enable them to operate effectively.
During a recent Whitehall meeting with 100 senior government officials, leaders from emergency services and captains of industry, the Government's Civil Contingencies Secretariat described the virus as one of the most serious threats to the UK in years. Without sufficient contingency planning, swine flu could potentially bring the country's infrastructure to a standstill and Government and emergency services are currently doing all they can to minimise the impact a widespread outbreak could have. However, it is not just Government that has a duty to prepare for this threat. Utilities have a very important part to play and must devise strategies which allow them to meet statutory responsibilities to ensure vital services function, no matter how severe the problem becomes. Clearly, utility companies recognise this responsibility; Centrica has been looking at how its call centres will be able to cope with mass staff absenteeism, whilst there are fears that British Gas' efforts to speed up call centre response times and the number of customer enquiries it handles per hour might unravel.
Such challenges are being overcome by forward thinking organisations using speech recognition to automate calls. Business continuity plans should be updated to include speech recognition technology to support live agents and replace them where necessary during the worst periods of the pandemic. Speech recognition technology has evolved considerably over the last few years and is being successfully implemented to mitigate the pressure of working with a skeleton staff by efficiently routing calls to the relevant department first time, by automating the identification of callers and by completing tasks for them – ensuring organisations can handle an influx of calls at peak times or remove the need for agent interaction altogether.
Both British Gas and EDF rely heavily on speech recognition technology to deliver a consistently high customer service. Based on a company handling 1 million calls per month and increasing its call automation rate with speech technology by just 5%, a company should be able to handle 600,000 additional calls per year with ease.
In an emergency, having a fail-safe, rapid emergency notification procedure in place is also vital. Through the power of voice commands, it is now possible to automatically and rapidly contact designated people (up to thousands) in a crisis. A broadcast via voice, email, mobile phone, pager or SMS alert can be initiated from any telephone, using speech commands, anywhere in the world, at any time. As every crisis in the UK over the past 20 years has shown, rapid and clear communication with staff, customers and suppliers is the most essential ingredient in an effective response. Therefore, this capability should be considered by any organisation that claims to have a credible business continuity strategy.
Ian Turner, General Manager Northern Europe at Nuance Communications
