IVR Deconstructed

Hollywood likes to go into black holes, but no one will ever go into a black hole and actually come out again. At least not in their physical form. They can only do it in their minds.

University of Colorado physicist Andrew Hamilton recently told Discover Magazine that “all the light and material that ever fell into the black hole piles up in a tremendous collision, generating a maelstrom of energy and an infinitely bright, blinding flash of light.”

Yeah. You don’t wanna go in there.

Tied to the Big Bang, black holes may be some of the earliest structures in the universe. Many may have influenced the formation of the universe.

Every galaxy has a behemoth black hole billions of times larger than our sun at its center. Beyond that, every galaxy may have millions more.

Black holes can form during supernovas, where large stars collapse in on themselves at their death. They continue to suck things in around them, ever growing in mass and gravitational pull.

Some scientists, like Hamilton, believe black holes may provide keys to understanding the universe. These scientists are applying the laws of physics to the inside of black holes to see what’s there.

It turns out there may be two event horizons—an outer one and also an inner one.

Scientists believe the outer horizon is the gravitational gate to the black hole—walk past the gate on the sidewalk and you’re fine…go in the gate and the black hole sucks you down in.

The inner horizon is where everything—all mass, pressure, energy—gets stuck, builds up and then collapses. The inner horizon may be the most violent place in the universe, with all kinds of crazy things going on.

According to Hamilton, particles at the inner horizon may go forward in time while others go backwards. If you were there, you might feel like you’re falling towards the center while your buddy felt like he was falling away, although both of you were falling in.

The inner horizon may also be a giant particle accelerator, one which doesn’t slow down or stop and may reach speeds and energy levels greater than the Big Bang. It may create mini black holes or even entire alternate universes.

So yeah, there’s some serious stuff going on in black holes, if Hamilton’s theoretical physics are even half true. And he’s not even past the inner horizon yet.

Anyway, here’s what a black hole devouring a star looks like:

CTI or computer telephony integration is a general term that has several meanings, but is most often used in reference to call center technology and screen population software.  Data that is collected from a caller, either via their caller ID, IVR database lookup or information from a PBX, is transferred to a CTI system which in turn populates data on an agent desk top.  Using CTI software in conjunction with IVR gives call centers the ability to send any type of customer data to call representatives prior to their interaction with the customer.  IVR systems can collect data from callers, use caller information to pull data from a company database and transfer that data to the representative.  This data can include any information about the customer that will help the call center agent better address the customer’s inquiry.  In addition, by using screen population software, call centers can also cut down on average call hold and handle times.  This is accomplished when agents have access to data that allows them to login to a customer account, review any past notes and issues and be ready to handle the customer’s concerns before the call begins.

CTI systems are also used to match various data points to calls that transfer between call centers or to calls transferred into an automated system/IVR application.  Some examples of IVR applications that use CTI data are post-call customer satisfaction surveys or automated third party verification services.  These applications use data from the CTI system to correlate a customer account to information collected from the caller.  If a company wants to use an IVR application to confirm purchase of goods and services or to survey a customer, data will flow from the call center CTI system to the IVR application.  This data is then matched to customer satisfaction survey data or a recording that verifies the customer’s purchase of products or services.  These are just a few examples of how a CTI system can be used to match data with phone calls.

IVR technology serves as the perfect solution to provide flight-tracking information over the phone and a number of developers have integrated with various flight tracking systems to provide this information to callers.  The benefits of integrating IVR with a flight tracking service are that any caller, anywhere, can access arrival and departure times.  In addition, many Airline Reservation Systems (ARS) that provide more detailed information about flights and handle bookings offer APIs.  These APIs make processing travel reservations possible through IVR.  Developers can use VoiceXML (VXML) to program call flows that extract data from any number of ARS services to fully automate travel reservations over the phone, without recourse to agents.

In terms of the data that can be used in an ARS IVR application, most systems contain fares and fees, schedules, ticket records and reservation lists.  Airlines have internal reservation systems but also list their tickets and provide access to their bookings through ARS services.  There are nine primary ARS systems.  They include SabreSonic, Altea Res, Takeflite, Topware AirSuite, SkyVantage, AirKiosk, KIU and Horizon.  Airlines choose which systems will process their reservations and distribute their tickets.  In order to build an automated reservation system, developers would have to integrate with a number of ARS services to process tickets from all the major carriers.  Additional information about Airline Reservation Systems can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_Reservations_System

Many contact centers connect live callers to agents without first allowing their customers to access information through an IVR system, leaving many callers in a call queue for an indeterminate amount of time.  Poorly implemented IVR has left a negative impression in the minds of many consumers.  This is why so many companies opt to connect callers to live agents without first giving their customers access to a self serve option.

The problems with IVR, as we discussed in previous posts, lie in poorly designed call flows and scripts that keep callers away from agents instead of providing them with the information they need in a useful and accessible manner.  When the voice user interface is designed correctly and the most frequent caller requests are presented as the initial menu options, the technology can both improve call times and delight customers.  There’s no reason why a company should keep callers on hold when many routine calls would be best served by IVR.

To determine which calls would best be served by IVR, contact centers should analyze their call patterns and look for frequent requests.  Often, call center agents are answering the same questions and in many cases taking calls from customers who repeatedly ask for information that can be presented through an automated system.  Examples of frequent calls that can be automated well are account balance inquiries, company contact information, account status, product information, outstanding balance, last payment and current payment due.  In addition, many customers call contact centers to pay bills.  This task can also be automated to reduce call hold times and the overall minutes processed by a contact center, thus reducing costs.

Two months after the earthquake and tsunami, the Japanese are looking to their schools as heralds of progress, signs that life is indeed moving forward.

When the government reopened schools last month, the world was a little surprised. While late April is the normal start of the Japanese school year, there was nothing normal about this April in Japan.

In March, the previous school year ended. (Japan runs mostly on a three-term system with month- or two-month breaks between each term.) There are normally graduation ceremonies at the end of March. In many towns, there weren’t.

At Okawa Elementary School in Ishinomaki, only five of the 21 graduating students survived the tsunami, according to Reuters. There were 108 kids in all at the school. Seventy-four were dead or missing. There wasn’t a graduation ceremony.

The story was similar in other northeast coastal towns. MSN has reported that over 1,000 students and teachers were lost in Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate prefectures. Hundreds of schools are now shelters. Almost 200 need either major renovations or total replacement. Thousands more need work.

In Otsuchi, the townspeople were still using the middle school’s gymnasium as a morgue a week before classes began, according to the New York Times. Of the 15,000 people living in the town, 1,600 died or went missing when the tsunami hit.

Coming back to school was obviously a different affair this year. According to the Times, kids from all over Otsuchi had to pack into a single middle school—the only one standing. Half of them are still living in shelters, missing either one or both their parents. And their bus ride or walk takes them through devastated neighborhoods, constant reminders if they needed them.

Still, the kids are back at school, learning again, moving forward. It’s important for the Japanese, because those kids’ education is the foundation of Japan’s future…its security.

After World War II, the Japanese educational system was fundamental to the nation’s recovery. It became the driving force behind Japan’s rise as an economic power.

Education may be a saving grace for the Japanese after this disaster. They may rely on it even more. It helped them once. It may again.

So, yeah, it’s good the kids are back in school.