Smartphones have become pervasive and more than half of all customers use their mobile device when contacting a company for service. Currently, the majority of smartphone customers encounter rigid IVR menus, as their initial step prior to accessing information or conducting transactions. This situation totally ignores the enormous capabilities found in today’s smartphones and does little to enhance a company’s image. Fortunately, there is good news for customer engagements, as [24]7introduced a major breakthrough in customer service with Visual Speech that links the call to an HTML5 mobile experience. Visual speech combines screen, touch and speech to deliver a totally new experience to mobile users and does not require the user to download a mobile app. Additionally, its big data platform employs predictive analysis and real-time decisioning to provide a more meaningful customer engagement by better understanding the users’ intent and interests. Visual Speech simplifies an interaction by pushing relevant content to the mobile device and empowering the user to take control of the interaction.
Visual Speech supports simultaneous voice and data interactions, so a caller can see view a schedule, lists or other relevant data at the same time as they are talking. This significantly streamlines its use and results in higher adoption for self-service transactions. However, it also supports assisted service, as the full context of the engagement within the Virtual Speech application is sent to an agent when the caller requires live assistance. This is especially important for smartphone users who will not need to repeat the information already provided to the Visual Speech application when transferred to an agent. Visual speech supports both iPhones and Android devices.
[24]7, a multi-channels customer service provider, greatly increased its visibility in the intelligent speech self-service area when it acquired from Microsoft its interactive self-service assets (Tellme and many of its former employees) and its purchase of Voxify for its predictive business logic platform in 2012. The combination of predictive analysis and innovative speech self-service platform offers a compelling solution for delivering next generation mobile customer experience in the cloud.