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People do not mind talking to machines if they
are friendly, discovers Jorina Choy
Call the Great Eastern hotline and Lee Lee greets
you immediately with her warm and friendly voice. By telling her
what you want, Lee Lee will get you the information you are looking
for or transfer you to the relevant department in Great Eastern.
She even repeats your instructions to make sure she has heard you
correctly.
“Lee Lee” is the Singapore insurance
company’s main contact centre agent with a difference-she is
an automated voice attendant and a part of Great Eastern’s
interactive voice response (IVR) system.
She provides information on opening hours, payment
methods, directions, stock information, as well as connectivity
to real-life contact centre agents.
Great Eastern is the first insurance company in
Singapore to use IVR, thanks in large part to its champion of customer
service, Khong Bee. Khong is senior vice-president and head of Customer
Service at the company. His passion for high-quality customer service,
coupled with support from a CEO who is tech-savvy, has led him to
explore the use of new information technologies to satisfy customer
needs.
About one-and-a-half years ago, Great Eastern’s
old Nortel polyphonic system was becoming obsolete, and to upgrade
it would require a lot of re-engineering work. Khong went to the
US to check out the latest speech recognition technologies. After
speaking to an expert who develops speech recognition applications,
he learnt that it is possible to build an IVR that is “friendly.”
“People don’t mind talking to machines if they are friendly!”
quipped Khong, whose effervescent personality is befitting of someone
whose work life centres on pleasing customers.
Although his IT colleagues were initially concerned
that IVR was too new a technology, Khong was convinced of the potential
of IVR because he believed the IT-savvy consumers would welcome
it. “Less than 10 companies in Singapore were using IVR and
these were mostly stockbroking firms,” he said.
“But there is a new group of customers who
have no time to talk to people. For example, they are driving and
want to get information but they can’t punch numbers into their
handphone keypad.” And it is much more convenient for customers
to say the instructions, rather than keep removing their handphones
from their ears to punch in numbers, he added.
“You mustn’t look at the technology
but at the people,” Khong said. “My view is not so much
how to use a certain technology, but how to let customers enjoy
more convenience and comfort. These customers have moved on [with
their use of technology,] so we have to move along with them,”
he added.
But before making the final decision to implement
an IVR, Khong sent his call centre manager to the US to attend a
speech recognition seminar and to ask him if she thought IVR was
worth investing in. She eventually gave the go-ahead.
Lee Lee is powered by Nortel’s Periphonics
Voice Processing Series Information Server and Oscar speech recognition
server running Scansoft’s SpeechWorks OpenSpeech Recognizer
speech recognition engine. A Great Eastern employee, who was proficient
in English and Mandarin, went through speech training for some time
before recording Lee Lee’s voice.
The English speech functionality of Lee Lee was
launched on August 13, 2004 after several pilots. The Mandarin capability
will be fully available in December.
On why the name “Lee Lee” was chosen,
Khong explained that “Lee Lee” sounds like an English
name to English speakers, yet also sounds like a Mandarin name to
Mandarin speakers. This way, both groups of users will feel comfortable
“speaking” to Lee Lee.
Khong said customers have so far been quite excited
about Lee Lee and some even say it is “just like talking to
a real person.”
“Usually after three calls, our customers
will be able to get the hang of the system. Some even know what
to say without listening to all of Lee Lee’s prompts,”
he said.
But there are customers who complain they cannot
be heard. In such cases, Great Eastern will track back the time
of the call, retrieve the voice clip, and follow up with the customer
if necessary. It will also advise a customer to go to a quieter
environment in future when giving instructions to Lee Lee. And it
is not just Great Eastern customers who can make use of Lee Lee.
Its insurance agents also use the system to check on the status
of their clients’ policies.
The IVR was expensive, said Khong, but he emphasised
that the returns from this technology investment cannot be measured
in just dollars and cents.
“More cost to the IVR means less cost to
the Customer Service Organisation,” he said.
“You can’t quantify the benefits from
the image of a progressive, caring organisation we project, and
good morale of your staff.” He believes the investment in Lee
Lee will be recovered in a few years.
IT has proven to be a valuable tool to Great Eastern’s
customer service initiatives but Khong said it is just one of the
tools. “Our competitors can also use IVR but it’s the
people who make the difference. Culture is more important than IT,”
said Khong, adding, “We spend a lot of time training and motivating
our staff. Happy people will be able to make their customers happy.”
— Asia Computer Weekly
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