Your Call is (Not That) Important to Us

Emily Yellin's Your Call is (Not That) Important To Us is a fast, fun read about the customer service/call center business, with a little bit of IVR thrown in. The book does well when it describes the history of customer service. There are some insights into companies that try very hard to get it right, like FedEx and Zappos and Jet Blue. It doesn't do as well with the speech IVR material. She grants too much credibility to fringe players like the MIT profs who want to create "emotional" computers and the companies pushing interactive avatars.

One of the central observations in the book is that customer service doesn't occupy a very high place in the list of priorities at most companies. This I've seen many times in the companies I've worked for or consulted with. Personally, I'd love to work at a company that decides at the highest levels that customer service is a top priority. The challenges of getting customer service right are very hard, even with a lot of support from executives. Without that support, it's impossible.

WSJ discovers speech IVR

A story about speech IVRs appeared in a very unlikely place, the Wall Street Journal. The story emphasizes the importance of the sound of the voice as a driver of customer satisfaction, but there's really more to it than that. I think the sound of the voice is important, and have done research to show it, but customer satisfaction also depends on understanding why the customer is calling and providing the right functions in an intuitive manner. The Comments section really show more understanding of this than the author of the article. Thanks to Jenni McKienzie for forwarding this.

Branded sounds

A company I used to work for many years ago had a highly distinctive, memorable jingle that it used in all of its TV ads. I was doing full time IVR design at the time, and I realized that this jingle could be used as an earcon, a branded auditory icon for the company's many IVRs. I wrote up a proposal on auditory branding and gave a big pitch to one of the execs, explaining that with all the attention and money being spent on visual branding at the company, it would make sense to spend a little time thinking about auditory branding. I offered to lead the effort. The exec listened politely and nodded several times, but nothing ever came of it.

So, I was interested in this article about auditory ads and attention. Despite the breathless title, there is probably nothing in the actual research related to addiction. Rather, there are definite neurological correlates to memory and attention, which is probably what was being measured here. In fact, the research was conducted by a company that is selling its services, rather than by a science lab, so I have questions about the validity of the findings.

In any case, my ex-company's memorable ad jingle appears in the "Top 10" list. When you own a inimitable resource like this it pays to figure out a way to leverage it. There is certainly an idea here that should be followed up on.

Ally Bank: "We speak human"

Ally Bank is a new pure-play internet bank. To introduce themselves to potential customers they purchased a 2 page ad in a recent Business Week:

"There are times when you just want to speak to a real, live person about your money. And at Ally Bank you can, anytime, 24/7. Just just push "0" to speak to a real live person. It's that easy. No complicated phone trees to navigate and no repeating yourself three times to a robot. We even publish our current wait times on our website. It's just the right thing to do."

With all of the financial turmoil and lost investments and failed banking institutions that have beset consumers recently, Ally Bank's pitch to new customers is this: avoid the stupid IVRs whenever you want and talk to a person. This is not a glowing recommendation for the speech IVR industry.

In fact, when it comes to bad IVRs, there is plenty of blame to go around. Companies that install IVRs as a front end to their call center go often go into projects with inflated expectations of what speech IVRs can reasonably do. Others do not, but don't feel that usability is very important and will settle for "good enough," however that is defined. Vendors will oversell the technology's ability to recognize speech, or put more emphasis on the technology than on design.

There are lots of reasons why speech IVRs fail. And there are now companies like Ally Bank that are exploiting consumers' dissatisfaction with telephone automation. I hope every company with a speech IVR will take notice.

The "automated lady" isn't helping

This CNN article describes the frustration of homeowners who reach a recorded message when they call banks regarding foreclosure. I cringed at the homeowner's exasperation with the "automated lady," because I know how frustrating the situation is. The callers need to talk to a person but the banks are using a simple IVR to keep customers away rather than using the IVR to serve them. I can just imagine the chipper "automated lady" persona starting her greeting with pain-enducing phrase "Your call is important to us..."

The banks have resorted to a conventional solution to an unprecedented situation - play a recorded message and drop the callers into a queue. I understand that the number of calls and average call times are overwhelming the call centers, but there are much better uses of the technology. For example, you can use automated call backs to let the customers go about their business rather than forcing them to stay on the line.

There's really a huge opportunity here for an IVR integration company to help banks, if they can get into the banks and talk to managers about solutions. If anyone in an overworked bank call center wants to find a way to make their IVR help with their workload, contact me.

Persona and in-car navigation devices

This writer for the Washington Post has a problem with the personae of in-car navigation devices, and with speech recognition systems in general. The article a little over the top in its opinions because the writer is trying to be humorous, but it fairly points out that the speech output of devices can become annoying very quickly if not done properly.

Note that the problem as identified isn't necessarily with the sound of the voice, it's the lack of context machines have when giving directions, and the fact that the problem reveals itself over time, as in a long car trip. These things are often not tested well, or tested at all. The article also identifies lack of "naturalness" as a problem with speech systems, but trying to achieve an undefined kind of "naturalness" causes problems as well.

Speech IVRs as hearing-impaired foreigners

I listen to recorded utterances from people talking to speech IVRs. One thing that people often do when when the IVR doesn't understand them is to change their speech pattern: they'll talk louder or more slowly. If the caller is soft spoken and there's noise in the background, then talking louder will help. Under most circumstances, though, shouting doesn't help, and talking more slowly almost never helps.

If you've ever traveled abroad (or live outside the US) then you may have witnessed US tourists trying to make themselves understood to non-English speaking locals. Often, the tourists will shout and talk more slowly, adding helpful gestures in an amusing pantomime, in order to make themselves understood. In fact, adding gestures can help, and speaking more slowly can help if the local speaks some English, and if it isn't done to the point of changing one's pronunciation.

Having witnessed these two scenarios many times here's my theory of the day: callers to speech IVRs believe the systems to be hearing impaired foreigners who are best communicated with by shouting and speaking slowly to. If you were to watch these people on the phone I'm confident that you'd see the pantomime routine as well.

All of our computers are assisting other customers...

Ray Kurzweil is an innovative thinker and inventor who has gotten a lot of attention for his wild predictions about the future of technology. Here's a link to a story with some of his predictions (Thanks to Ahmed Bouzid for pointing out this article). Kurzweil gets a hearing because he's delivered some real cutting edge technology with his work on optical character recognition and automatic speech recognition.

So, what are the implications for speech-enabled IVRs if, as Kurzweil predicts, computers become smarter than humans? It isn't hard to imagine the following Blade Runner-like scenario.

[Customer calls a company and reaches a human customer service rep]

• CSR: "All of our computers are currently assisting other customers. If you'd like, I can try to help you. Otherwise, please remain on the line for the next available computer."
• Caller: "NO! Please, just let me talk to a MACHINE!"

Ha ha. We voice interface designers enjoy our little jokes. Seriously, though, people really get bent out of shape when discussing machine intelligence. I think it violates peoples' sense of specialness to have their intellect compared to a computer's. In any case, predictions by Kurzweil and others about the future of technology are great topics for conversation, so long as one keeps things in perspective.

Is your IVR persona Devo?

Distinctiveness and originality count for much when establishing a brand. Brand managers often push designers to create unique, memorable products, which designers are usually happy to do. A speech IVRs persona, the image created in the mind of the customer by the system's voice, vocabulary, and interaction style, is a tempting target for marketers who want to create a differentiated experience for callers.

When distinctivess and originality are pushed far enough, as in this fine video, the audience may be left puzzled, confused, even outraged. I call highly idiosyncratic, over-the-top IVR personas Devo IVRs, in honor of the band's memorably distinctive songs and videos.

Nearly all IVRs are intended to help callers accomplish a work goal. Highly idiosyncratic personas rarely help callers achieve goals, and may even hurt if the presentation is distracting enough. Sometimes this is a hard message for branding experts and marketers to hear.

The passing of Alex, and the "Alex Rule"

Alex, the African Grey Parrot who was said to be able to use language, died last week of unknown causes. The announcement of his passing was delayed in order to give researchers time to "get over the shock and talk about it."

I became aware of Alex in the mid 1990's when I was doing research on spoken word perception. A visitor to the lab where I worked described meeting Alex, who was already famous among language researchers. She was required to wear sterile surgical scrubs before entering the room where Alex was kept. We lab workers were very impressed with our visitor and her story of having met near royalty in the language world.

One of the issues regarding Alex's use of vocalizations was whether the bird was using language in a human sense. That is, did Alex use words and word order (syntax) in order to express ideas? Selective portions of written transcripts of conversations between scientists and Alex appear to show language use at about a three-year-old level. A portion of a conversation is found in this article in Scientific American.

The really compelling examples of Alex's language skill are the recorded conversations. It's hard for people to see and hear these snippets of interactions and not think that the bird is using language in a human way. Maybe we're wired this way, to accept human vocalizations as expressing human-level emotion and thought.

In a way, our speech IVRs are a little like Alex. They're programmed to produce human vocalizations and recognize and act on snippets of input ("utterances" is the preferred term, instead of words, phrases, or sentences). From this very meager verbal repertoire the humans who call and talk to the systems tend to ascribe capabilities to the system that don't exist. This shows up in callers' generating long, verbose utterances, and courtesy language, and descriptions of such systems as "smart" or "stupid," depending on the systems' performance. Unlike Alex, however, most speech IVRs are neither cute nor engaging, and people who talk to them are usually just trying to get a request fulfilled and get on with their day. Designers who "personify" their VUIs-that is, name them and embue them with personality-are usually making a mistake.

To designers of VUIs I submit the Alex Rule: Don't personify your VUI unless you can make it as charming as Alex. You can't create a VUI as charming as Alex, so don't try.

Deckard's Rules for VUI Development

In my last post I raved about the great science fiction movie Blade Runner. Based on the some of the issues raised in the movie, I'd like to propose (only partly in jest) Deckard's Rules for VUI Development. The rules are named for the character Deckard rather than Tyrell because (1) Tyrell got it wrong and (2) Deckard had to clean up the mess.

Rule 1: Don't over-engineer your system
Replicants Roy and Leon were built as fighters, presumably to protect property on off-world colonies. They were also created smarter and stronger than humans, and could pass for humans on Earth. Is it a good idea to build autonomous agents that are smarter and stronger than you and give them the capacity and motive to kill? No. It's a bad idea. Build your VUI system to do what its users need it to do and nothing more. And don't try to build something that could pass for a human.

Corollary to Rule 1: Keep your eye on the ROI
The technically sophisticated replicants were designed to self destruct after four years on fears that they could develop uncontrollable feelings and emotions if allowed to live any longer. Replacing advanced technology is extremely expensive - better to build your system to last, and maintain it as needed.

Rule 2: Words are powerful shapers of behavior - be brief and to the point
Deckard and Sebastian were manipulated into doing what others wanted them to do; Deckard into chasing replicants and Sebastian into setting a meeting between Roy and Tyrell. The dialogs required to do this were terse but gave sufficient direction to the targets that they understood what needed to be done. Good VUI dialogs are short and give users direction on what they need to say, without resorting to the painful "In order to do x, say x" construction.

Rule 3: Our methods for evaluating advanced technology isn't good enough - we need better tools
The Voight-Kampff test for determining whether a subject was replicant or human was nearly obsolete. It took Deckard, a trained evaluator, 100 questions to determine Rachael's identity. Our evaluation methods for VUIs are in a similar state. We still mostly rely on usability testing and questionnaires that were developed to evaluate web pages and GUIs. I gave a presentation at a UPA workshop in 2002 and pointed out that our old usability test protocols aren't sufficient for evaluating things like autonomous agents and speech systems. We need better evaluation methods.

Blade Runner: Director's Cut

I watched the 1982 movie Blade Runner the other night. I think it's one of the great science fiction movies of all time, but don't take my word for it, check out the online reviews. In the world of the future, dangerous work on other planets is done by "replicants," near-human artificial beings; they form an exploited class. Harrison Ford is a detective who must chase and destroy some replicants who have travelled back to earth in order to escape their enslavement. How near the replicants are to humans is one of the main concerns of the movie. The movie re-visits, with a little twist, one of the oldest arguments in artificial intelligence: if a machine demonstrates behaviors that in a human would be acknowledged as "intelligent," can we call the machine intelligent? A lot of philosophers insist that "no," intelligence is the property of humans only, and intelligence can reside only in things that think with wetware, or biological brains. Computers think with silicon and wires and thus can never be considered intelligent.

The little twist introduced in the movie is not over the replicants' supposed intelligence. The replicants clearly are intelligent. The movie even tweaks an old AI argument in one scene when one of the replicants beats its creator in chess. At one time it was said that machines could never play a good game of chess because chess requires insight and intuition, those very high level forms of intelligence, that machines could never possess. What's more, machines can only do what you program them to do, so how can you program something that's better than yourself? Of course, that argument has been settled pretty decisively.

Instead, the movie explores the idea of whether the artificial beings are capable of emotion and feeling. The replicants show a great range of emotion: anger and cunning, loyalty, sadness at the death of one of their group, resentment over the treatment of others in their class, and fear over their impending deaths. In fact, they demonstrate far more emotion than the humans in the movie. Harrison Ford's character is a tough guy detective type who drinks in order to suppress his emotions. His employer shows little concern for him despite his poor condition.

So, the question. If the replicants display what appears to humans as emotion, are they really feeling emotion? If so, do we need to be concerned over their exploitation? Were the replicants emotions something that they were programmed to display, or was this a side effect of having made them so complex? Lots of interesting questions, with no answers forthcoming in the movie. Certainly Ford's detective was affected by the replicants. He feels physically ill at having destroyed one, and it's suggested that the demands of the job are one of the reasons he drinks so much. By the end of the movie, one's sympathies are with the exploited replicants.

What does this have to do with VUI? Besides the obvious fact that the replicants have astonishing speech recognition capabilities (there's not a single "Sorry, I didn't understand" in the whole movie) there may be lessons for those who concern themselves with the design of the VUIs persona. I'll discuss the lessons in my next posting.