Voice Commerce: A Sound Proposition for Business
By Traci D. Egly and Andrew W. Sinclair
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Stunning advances in voice-activated technologies and the resulting
innovative and customer-pleasing business applications have caught the
attention of business executives worldwide. Once developed and fully
implemented, basic voice-recognition systems can achieve accuracy rates of up
to 97 percent—equivalent to human levels of recognition.
According to an Accenture study, the adoption of automated voice
technologies—speech recognition, voice identification and text-to-speech—to
support commercial activity will increase five-fold over the next three years.
Given how voice commerce enables businesses to dramatically reduce call-center
operating costs while at the same time improving the customer experience, this
trend will be particularly strong in the financial services, telecommunications
and government sectors.
These findings are part of Accenture's “The Unexpected eEurope"
study *, which draws on interviews with 840
executives in 25 countries. Among the findings, the study reveals a high level
of interest in the adoption of voice-commerce technologies to improve business
productivity and enhance customer service.
Getting Louder,
More Strategic   Although only 6 percent of the businesses interviewed for the
study report that voice commerce was providing important opportunities to their
organization in 2001, 30 percent expect it to be doing so within the next three
years (see Figure 1). In the United States, the
proportion of businesses taking advantage of voice commerce will reach 45
percent (up from 15 percent in 2001), compared with 23 percent in Europe and
Japan (up from about three percent in 2001).
Voice commerce will be pursued vigorously, particularly by businesses in
consumer-conscious sectors, such as financial services (39 percent within the
next three years), telecoms (35 percent) and government (27 percent.) In these
sectors, organizations that ignore voice commerce's ability to transform the
way call centers work could miss out on significant cost savings and the
potential to improve customer satisfaction.
The study suggests that voice commerce will be frequently pursued by
companies as part of a multi-channel strategy: three-quarters of the businesses
who thought voice commerce would become important to them also thought the same
of wireless commerce. One example of this strategy is provided by Italian
financial services company Xelion, which offers the option of accessing its
services via a voice-activated channel in addition to standard Internet
connections, WAP-enabled mobile phones, personal digital assistants and a
traditional call center.
In fact, voice commerce may be critical to the success of other forms of
eCommerce. For example, being able to operate wireless devices in this way will
make it easier to use mobile phones for transactions that require data entry.
This will improve the customer's experience, remove dependence on the telephone
device and enable commerce to be extended to situations where people need to
work hands-free.
A Strong Business Case for Cutting Costs and Improving
Services
Business support for voice commerce is no
surprise, since it cuts costs and improves service. Adding voice commerce to
current sales and service channels can slash the cost of incoming service calls
significantly.
By reducing the amount of time customers or mobile worker have to spend
waiting for their calls to be handled, voice commerce also enhances the level
of service. In addition, it has a much greater reach than traditional eCommerce
or wireless commerce—all that is needed is an ordinary telephone. For example,
office products catalogs have thousands of items. A voice-enabled ordering and
payment function can automate typical transactions, with convenience for the
customer and savings for the company. Those thinking of voice-enabling their
catalogs should investigate whether voice-enabled applications can be placed on
top of existing web and IT infrastructure.
Voice commerce can also be used to generate new sources of revenue. A
number of mobile operator have already developed voice portals. These portals
both enhance the operators' brands and give access to a range of
revenue-generating services, such as voice dialing, directory services, the
latest news, weather and stock prices.
Buywayz, a company partly owned by the Irish Farmer Association, sends
out information on discounted product offer to its members using the text-based
short message service available on mobile phones. With the support of a
prerecorded voice print, member can place orders securely with minimal effort.
Voice Commerce Limitations Quickly Falling
Away
Early deployments of voice commerce tend to
concentrate on transactions such as basic account inquiries, requests for
information, placing orders and account payments. Once these simpler
voice-commerce systems are in place, more complex transactions can be added.
A common challenge for businesses is customer acceptance of
voice-commerce applications. Customer resistance is strongest where
voice-commerce services cannot recognize speech accurately enough. Since
building and tuning the language databases needed to support high levels of
voice-recognition accuracy can be a lengthy process, many businesses are
deploying voice-commerce capabilities gradually, giving them time to improve
its accuracy and giving customers time to become comfortable with the new
service channel.
Although more complex systems take longer to implement and refine, the
time and cost required for this is decreasing rapidly, thanks to improved
development tools, expanded language databases and the growing use of
application service providers.
In addition, soon telecom carriers are likely to extend their network
services and provide enterprises with similar standard platforms for processing
voice to meet the expected demand from large enterprises for carrier-grade
quality and scalability. When this happens, the cost of entry into
voice-enabled commerce for many businesses will be further reduced.
A large population with a common language has made the United States the
global leader in voice commerce. Thirty-nine percent of executives in the
Accenture survey expect the United States to remain the leader over the next
three years. However, the consolidation currently taking place in the
voice-technology industry is currently benefiting other countries, not least by
making development tools available in languages other than English.
Businesses taking an early lead in voice commerce are, for the most part,
deploying the technology gradually. This allows the necessary language
databases to be developed and refined, and gives customers the chance to get
accustomed to the new way of doing business. Fortunately, voice-commerce
technologies are well suited to this strategy. By taking this approach now,
some businesses are familiarizing themselves with the challenges of voice
commerce, taking steps toward improving their productivity and building a
longer-term competitive advantage.
*This Outlook Point of View is based
on Accenture's "The
Unexpected eEurope" study. The study draws on 840 interviews carried out
during 2001 with board-level executives from 25 countries. Sixty interviews
were conducted in each of the following countries: India, Japan and the United
States. Thirty interviews were conducted in each of the following countries:
Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany,
Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal,
Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United
Kingdom.
Traci D. Egly, partner—Accenture Technology Solutions, Communications
& High Tech, leads Accenture's voice-technology initiatives. She is based
in Kansas.
Andrew W. Sinclair, senior manager—Accenture Strategy & Business
Architecture, Communications & High Tech, is based in Sydney.
For more information, please contact us.
The views and opinions expressed in this article
are meant to stimulate thought and discussion. As each business has unique
requirements and objectives, these ideas should not be viewed as professional
advice with respect to your business.  To Top
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