Typically, I jump to the wrong conclusion, and assume it means individual voice recognition. I imagine myself ringing the bank. From the first nervous "Hello", the computer immediately knows it's me and diverts the call to a stern lady in Mumbai. "Mr Gofton," she says, "you're late again with your credit card payment.
The government won't allow us to extract blood for this offence anymore, so you're going to have to stand in the corner until you're sorry."
In fact, what Merchants is highlighting is the rapid progress that is being made in what is called natural speech technology, which can guide callers through a basic transaction or an information library. Some airlines have been using the technology for a while, so that if you ring up and slowly spell out, when prompted, exactly when and where you want to fly, the computer will tell you what flights are available.
Paul Scott is business development director for customer interactive solutions at Merchants' parent company, Dimension Data. He says the technology has improved dramatically over the last 12 to 18 months, in terms of its accuracy in understanding human speech, and correctly steering people through the right hoops to answer their query. As a result, installations are on an accelerating trend.
Cheap? No. Scott estimates it could cost half a million pounds for the equipment, software and "tweaking time" to deal with a simple task such as registering a pay-as-you-go mobile phone.
On the other hand, the potential savings are said to be enormous. It costs just 25p to handle a call that would cost 拢2.30 to 拢2.40 through a call centre agent. The equipment can also be rented.
According to Scott, one mobile phone company will save 拢14m a year through the use of speech recognition.
So, is it goodbye to the 10-step decision tree that always ends, "Sorry, all our operators are busy?" Not yet. The technology can't cope with complex transactions, and about a quarter of calls, ultimately, have to be channelled to a live operator.
The answer is therefore a hybrid contact centre, with some calls handled by a speech recognition computer and some calls dealt with by agents. It's possible this may reduce the temptation to export call centre jobs to Asia.
It may also have a bearing on another problem. In May, Merchants reported that more than a third of consumers admitted to having shouted at call centre staff. Shouting at a computer would be comparatively harmless. Of course, the option of verbally abusing a live operator at the touch of a button will be retained.
- Ken Gofton is a freelance journalist who has covered the marketing industry for more than two decades.