Paper Info
Title
A comparative study of speech in the call center: natural language call routing vs. touch-tone menus
Abstract
This paper presents a field study that compares natural language call routing with standard touch-tone menus. Call routing is the task of getting callers to the right place in the call center, which could be the appropriate live agent or automated service. Natural language call routing lets callers describe the reason for their call in their own words, instead of presenting them with a list of menu options to select from using the telephone touch-tone keypad. The field study was conducted in a call center of a large telecommunication service provider. Results show that with natural language call routing, more callers respond to the main routing prompt, more callers are routed to a specific destination (instead of defaulting to a general operator who may have to transfer them), and more callers are routed to the correct agent. Our survey data show that callers overwhelmingly prefer natural language call routing over standard touch-tone menus. Furthermore, natural language call routing can also deliver significant cost savings to call centers
Year
DOI
Venue
2002
10.1145/503376.503427
CHI
Keywords
Field
DocType
call routing,comparative study,field study,natural language call routing,call center,main routing,telephone touch-tone keypad,automated service,standard touch-tone menu,natural language,appropriate live agent,usability,survey data,service provider,touch tone
Keypad,Call setup success rate,Computer science,Call control,Natural language,Call management,3pcc,Multimedia,Telecommunications service,Priority call
Conference
ISBN
Citations 
PageRank 
1-58113-453-3
11
1.23
References 
Authors
5
7
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Bernhard Suhm139239.62
J Bers216613.31
Dan McCarthy3224.39
Barbara Freeman4212.99
David Getty5192.27
Katherine Godfrey6131.63
Pat Peterson7202.93