Retail Voice Portal

1

White Paper

Comprehensive Customer and enterprise solutions ©2010 teletech holdings, inc. - all rights reserved.

retail voice portal

Retailers invest significant time, money and resources to provide the best customer experience

possible. But one area that is often overlooked is the process of managing the phone calls

coming into their stores.

Large retail organizations with sites dispersed nationwide often experience millions of inbound calls

per year to local stores. Calls can range from simple requests for store hours, to checking inventory

or placing orders within specific departments, to more specific technical questions requiring a

trained specialist. Customers expect their calls to be answered quickly, routed efficiently, and

handled to their satisfaction. But retailers are burdened with managing both in-store and on-the-

phone customers, and the callers themselves are often frustrated with the resulting call experience.

The result—Unanswered, or poorly handled, calls can significantly impact customer satisfaction

and pose a large detriment to revenue generation. Solving this challenge isn’t always easy.

Typically, each store has its own telephone system, which can be costly, difficult to manage, and

not always able to handle each call to the customer’s satisfaction. And while there are different

alternatives to solving the challenge, retailers must be careful to make sure the solution they

choose is the best solution for their organization.

Centralized Toll-Free Number—Many stores have deployed a centralized toll-free number,

but found that individual stores wanted to retain their local phone numbers (or customers still

continued to call the local numbers). Also, this solution often involves a complex (and costly)

process to transfer and connect calls back to the local stores.

Remote Call Forwarding—Another common solution is remote call forwarding, a service feature

that allows calls coming to the local store number to be automatically forwarded to another

location, usually to a centralized call center. But this solution can pose additional challenges, as

the calls cannot usually be transferred back to the store and can generate expensive toll charges

and long distance fees.

Common Menu with Speech Recognition—Many retailers implement speech recognition in store

call menus, giving them a common prompt and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) management

process across stores. While upgrading in-store IVR systems with speech can certainly improve

customer satisfaction, costs can be high. This solution requires hardware and licenses within

each store, which can quickly become an expensive and cumbersome system. In the long-term,

this system can also become less efficient, require a sophisticated process to keep all menus

consistent, and take months or even years to deploy.

“With more options

than ever, it’s hard to

keep customers coming

back. technologies and

processes that enable

retailers to retain the

right customers and offer

a positive end-to-end

customer experience

will help retailers to

justify higher margins

and increase customer

satisfaction.”

DataMonitor “Retail strategies: Generating loyalty in a fickle world” Publication Date: November 2006

2Comprehensive Customer and enterprise solutions ©2010 teletech holdings, inc. - all rights reserved.

retail voice portalWhite Paper

Key Retailer Needs

“ Large numbers of organizations are declaring that improving the customer experience is one of their top objectives for the next three years.”

- Gartner “Investigate how CRM technologies improve customer experiences” Publication Date: December 12, 2006

With a clear need to improve the customer experience by answering, routing and resolving their

calls successfully, retailers are looking to vendors for a practical, cost-effective solution. We have

identified three key challenges that this solution must address:

Are my store personnel currently burdened by incoming calls? Yes No

By not effectively answering and/or handling incoming calls, stores can often unintentionally

cause customers to have their calls routed to the wrong place or dropped entirely, plus

experience busy or congested phone lines and extended hold times. In addition, store personnel

can be easily overwhelmed by struggling to manage both in-store customers and ringing phones.

The end result can be a bad experience for both the customers and store personnel.

Is it important that my stores maintain a local phone number? Yes No

Often, it is important to maintain a local presence across all store sites. This can foster a sense

of community by dialing a local number and allow callers to relate to a store on a local level. In

many cases it can benefit both the store and the customer to speak directly with each other,

and a local number can help customers feel they can easily reach a store associate in a specific

department.

Is building and fostering brand value a key objective of my organization? Yes No

The value of a brand is often measured by the corresponding customer loyalty. To most

effectively build their brand, retailers strive to make the customer experience consistent across all

touch points, both within and across stores. By managing phone systems differently within each

store, or providing multiple ‘voices’ on call menu prompts, retailers miss out on the opportunity to

push their key brand elements into all customer experiences in an effective manner.

If any of these three key criteria are important to your organization, read on to find out more

about the Retail Voice Portal.

Solution Overview

“ Speech applications … have provided incremental benefits to retailers and continue to drive hosted speech business in this {retail} vertical.”

- DataMonitor , “Voice as a Service: Understanding trends in hosted and managed speech” , Publication Date: June 2005

Retail Voice Portal is a centralized inbound call management solution for geographically

dispersed retailers. It provides a transparent solution for callers to dial a local number and have

their calls optimally routed to either a local store or a centralized contact center. As an end-to-



end solution with out-of-the-box integration, it provides a unified routing and call management

system—all running over a nationwide Internet Protocol (IP) network.

With Retail Voice Portal, many of the challenges discussed earlier in this paper can be solved.

Stores retain their local phone numbers and can still receive calls, but it becomes only the limited

amount of calls that actually require store personnel. The call routing itself is done seamlessly

without expensive switching fees, and no additional hardware is required in each store.

From a caller’s perspective, the dialing process remains the same, but the overall experience is

improved. Customers dial their local stores as they are used to, and are routed over a nationwide

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) network to a centralized speech-enabled Interactive Voice

Response (IVR) platform. Regardless of which local store number they are calling, they hear

a consistent branded voice, are asked to say the product or service they want, and are then

quickly and efficiently routed to the optimal place to handle their request.

From a retailer perspective, this solution enables each store location to better handle routine calls.

In addition, centralized service delivery center associates can be utilized to generate previously

untapped store sales and to answer more complicated or technical questions. In times of peak

demand or seasonal fluctuations with high call volumes, this automated process also allows

retailers to deflect calls away from individual stores, allowing employees to focus on in-store

customers.

The sophisticated voice application handles a wide range of departments, products, and

services. It is designed to provide easy updates to store-specific information such as business

hours and location or general announcements across all locations using a centralized

management console. This flexibility dramatically reduces ongoing operational costs compared

to traditional in-store IVR deployments.

Retail Voice Portal is delivered through an alliance with TeleTech, Level 3 Communications, and

Versay Solutions. TeleTech offers the complete, integrated, proven solution for the retail client, as

well as the service delivery center associates required and/or associate-supporting applications.

Level 3 Communications provides the nationwide IP backbone and the local telephone numbers

through its Local Inbound Service. Versay, and its parent company, Vail Systems, provide the

voice application and call routing functionality as well as the underlying IVR platform.

By leveraging the expertise of these three industry leaders, Retail Voice Portal offers an

unparalleled solution with unmatched capabilities. Together, the three companies represent over

40 years of combined experience, which incorporates enhanced telephony applications and

converged voice and data services, one of the largest communications and internet backbones

in the world, and full-service customer management solutions backed by over 40,000 service

delivery center associates.

deployed quickly as

an integrated system,

retail voice portal often

requires no equipment,

software or hardware to

buy. a pilot program can

be launched without the

need to visit individual

stores’ sites, with the

initial stores going live

typically within 90 days.



Technical Overview

The figure below depicts the calling process provided by Retail Voice Portal. Customers call

into the stores as they are used to, dialing local store numbers through the traditional telephone

(PSTN) network. The call is then seamlessly transferred to TeleTech’s private VoIP network to a

centralized IVR platform. This allows customers to experience the same high quality as if they

were on a traditional phone line, but without any costly switching fees.

The customer interacts with the speech-enabled IVR to receive store information or to select a

department, product, or service as required. Calls are then transferred, dependent on business

rules, to the store for which the customer originally called (using an existing in-store PBX) or

to a centralized specialist in a contact center or an at-home agent (TeleTech@Home) from the

TeleTech GigaPOP®.

The TeleTech GigaPOP® is a global hosted virtual contact center environment characterized by

high availability, redundancy, and scalability to customer needs. It is the diverse interconnection

and integration point for all client voice and data, and avoids using traditional technology

requiring duplicate hardware. The GigaPOP’s high availability and redundancy of systems

provides failover, business continuity and disaster recovery from outages. Client back-office

applications and store systems can also be hosted and accessed through the TeleTech

GigaPOP®, allowing agents access to the same systems that store employees use on a daily

basis.

Retail Voice Portal’s ability to route calls to either an associate or the store is an important one,

which cannot be achieved with many other competitive solutions and again avoids expensive

toll charges or long distance fees. Retail Voice Portal provides a common IVR across all stores

regardless of geographic location that can easily be updated with timely information as needed.

For example, during a busy holiday season or the launch of a popular product, all stores can

easily create and change updates on product availability, store hours, etc.



Retail Voice Portal allows users on the PSTN to place calls to local numbers through Level 3’s

Local Inbound Service. This service is available in over 300 markets, allowing local dialing to

over 90 percent of the United States population. The calls are transported from the PSTN to the

Level 3 network, where Level 3 converts the calls from TDM to Internet Protocol (IP). Level 3

then transports the calls over its IP backbone and delivers them directly to Versay’s speech IVR

application running on Vail Systems’ SIP-based enhanced application services platform.

The Vail SIP platform is a highly scalable, fault-tolerant network with fully redundant resources

across multiple sites that support speech IVR, CTI, both TDM and IP call processing, and related

converged data and voice services. Through a sophisticated software-based switching fabric,

Vail enables calls to be routed across the network and between systems seamlessly and cost-

effectively. In addition, the Vail SIP Platform provides supplemental core services such as whole

call recording, which can be used for customer experience quality monitoring, agent training, and

transcription services in order for the system to maintain optimal coverage of customer requests.

The Versay speech application presents the caller with a conversational voice user interface and

a consistent, branded persona that is developed jointly with the retailer. Routine inquiries such as

store hours and directions are handled within the IVR using self-service. The Retail Voice Portal

application also listens for more complex requests that are mapped to the store’s full range of

departments, products and services. Calls are then routed, either to a centralized contact center

or to the appropriate retail location based on pre-defined store or region-based business rules.

When call requests are best handled with specialized associates calls can be routed to either

a TeleTech service delivery center or the retailer’s internally-managed contact center. In times

of peak demand or as the need arises, TeleTech can implement a solution that incorporates a

hybrid of the two. Associates in either case can also utilize the full line of TeleTech OnDemand

hosted service delivery center solutions that include Agent Desktop Management, Business

Intelligence and Quality Assurance, and Performance Management.

Because it is deployed as a single system with tight integration and seamless call flows, Retail

Voice Portal can be launched quickly and effectively. Typically, retail clients have implemented a

phased rollout plan that begins with a pilot of 10-15 stores. Within the pilot program, this solution

can be launched without the need to visit individual sites, with stores often live within 90 days.

Bottom-line Benefits

Customers of the Retail Voice Portal have seen substantial benefits, which include:

Increased Revenue—By reducing or even eliminating hold times (or calls not being answered

at all), retailers can capture lost revenue opportunities. Within some busy stores, up to 50% of

calls can go unanswered. In many cases a high portion of these calls facilitate purchases and

result in additional revenue. By not having their calls answered, customers will often dial a local

competitor and get the product they want elsewhere.

in January 2007, retail

voice portal was

awarded the internet

telephony product of

the Year award. each

year internet telephony

magazine bestows its

product of the Year

awards on companies

that have demonstrated

excellence in

technological

advancement

and application

refinements. retail

voice portal has

demonstrated to the

editors of internet

telephony that its

products or services are

committed to quality

and innovation while

addressing real needs in

the marketplace.



Improved Customer Experience and Strengthened Brand Image—Customers call the same

local store number they always have, but are quickly, efficiently, and seamlessly routed to the

appropriate place. This improves the overall call experience and allows retailers to build and

incorporate key brand elements within the call process — through customized menu prompts,

consistent call handling and the ability to bring in trained associates as needed.

Higher Store Productivity—Retail Voice Portal reduces the need to rely on store staff to answer

phones, allowing them to spend more time on the floor with on-site customers. In times of

peak store demand, this solution can minimize the need to hire new staff to help with higher

call volumes.

Case Study

Retail Voice Portal goes live with a Major Global Retailer

TeleTech’s strategic relationship with a top global retailer helped to solve a major problem the

retailer was having with their store phone systems. Faced with over 100 million calls per year

into their 800+ retail locations — and an average of 50% of those calls going unanswered — the

retailer turned to TeleTech, a key business partner who was already providing them with other

customer management solutions.

The retailer launched a Retail Voice Portal pilot program with 15 stores — during a time of both

seasonal call spikes and a major new product launch. During the pilot program alone, the retailer

moved from only half of the inbound calls being answered to nearly all (98% calls answered with

a 2% abandoned rate). By answering these calls and handling them efficiently, the retailer saw

additional revenue of $1500-2000 per store, per day. By tracking where calls originated from, this

additional revenue was recognized on an individual store basis. On average, calls transferred to

an associate, rather than to in-store personnel, had an answer time of 12 seconds and customer

satisfaction was over 70%.

Because of this success, the retailer is now implementing a phased rollout of Retail Voice Portal

to their other stores.



TeleTech OnDemand Hosted Services leverage almost three decades of TeleTech experience,

including leading applications and technologies delivered over a secure, private, and scalable

network. Through our centralized data centers located throughout the world, our customers

benefit from increased global access to all major markets. This allows our clients to interact with

their customers across all touchpoints — from the telephone to the web — on a global scale.

With TeleTech OnDemand Hosted Services, there is no need to independently license software,

purchase on-premise hardware, or provide ongoing technology support. More specifically,

TeleTech OnDemand enables your employees to provide services to your customers, while

leveraging the power of our fully managed solutions. Our solutions are easy to implement and

scale seamlessly to support your business growth.

Our hosted services leverage the same fully integrated suite of technologies and global

infrastructure that we use to support over one billion customer interactions annually with tens of

thousands of associates across the globe. Combining our centralized and virtualized TeleTech

GigaPOP® technology with the standardized systems and services we use in our service delivery

centers, our hosted services are proven, reliable, and continually refined and expanded based on

our own rigorous use.

Level 3 Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: LVLT), an international communications company,

operates one of the largest Internet backbones in the world. Through its customers, Level 3 is

the primary provider of Internet connectivity for millions of broadband subscribers. The company

provides a comprehensive suite of services over its broadband fiber optic network including

Internet Protocol (IP) services, broadband transport and infrastructure services, colocation

services, voice services and voice-over IP services. These services provide building blocks

that enable Level 3’s customers to meet their growing demands for advanced communications

solutions. The company’s Web address is www.level3.com.

Versay provides speech solutions and services that deliver a compelling caller experience and

a tremendous return on investment. By leveraging standards, Versay provides customers the

greatest flexibility, control, and investment protection possible. With a wide range of consulting

services and pre-built application components, Versay is committed to helping enterprises deploy

self-service solutions that fully exploit the power of speech.

Versay is a subsidiary of Vail Systems, a leading provider of enhanced telephony application

hosting services. Vail’s highly scalable, fault-tolerant SIP Platform automates millions of calls

per month for a wide range of services including VoiceXML speech application hosting, natural

language enterprise call routing and voice conferencing. For more information, visit www.versay.

com and www.vailsys.com.

ContaCt teleteCh:

[email protected]

1.800.TELETECH or

+1.303.397.8100 (outside the U.S.)

www.teletech.com

Retail Voice Portal

Documents

Transcript of Retail Voice Portal