BBN Technologies

Get Your Callers To The Right Place... The First Time

Whether you use live operators or an IVR, getting callers to the right agent or to the right self-service application is the critical first step of every inbound call. Yet both can misroute callers. And IVR design problems can train callers to: (a) exit the IVR prematurely, and/or (b) avoid using self-service.

The Cost of Call Steering Failures

Call steering failures drive excess cost and erode caller satisfaction. Incorrect routing and early opt-outs waste agent and caller time when the caller has to be transferred to get to the correct agent. And, self-service suffers when callers take the wrong IVR path and fail to reach the application. Most centers under-estimate the impact of these issues - which typically waste 5-12% of total agent talk time.

Root Causes of Call Steering Problems

Most call steering problems are due to caller behaviors that were not understood and therefore not factored into the call steering strategy. This "design gap" has many sources:

Incomplete profile of callers & their needs   Limited visibility of actual caller behavior   Over reliance on generic approaches

Over zealous use of speech recognition   Excessive messaging/jargon in menus   Little attention to helpful error recovery

Call steering failures can also be caused by IT/telecom problems. Insufficient resources or network/database issues typically deliver callers to default destinations.

Analytic Insights For Caller-Centric Design

The AVOKE Call Steering Analysis is a professional services engagement that delivers specific and quantified recommendations to maximize call steering success in your call centers. BBN consultants utilize the AVOKE Call Browser system to capture and analyze thousands of your callers from dialing to hang-up. Using the resulting database of your callers and their behavior, the AVOKE Caller Experience Methodology reveals specific strategies to improve call steering and quantifies their impact. Project deliverables are ideal designing new call steering strategies, or for diagnosing and optimizing existing systems.