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Computerworld - Customized speech-recognition technology added to PG&E Corp.'s interactive voice response (IVR) system has helped the San Francisco-based utility pare customer support costs while improving customer satisfaction, said managers interviewed last week.
The parent of Pacific Gas and Electric Co. installed the customized speech-recognition system developed with ScanSoft Inc. and Nortel Networks Corp. last fall to help automate account identification and provide other customer self-service functionality, officials said.

Steve Phillips, manager of PG&E's contact center enhancement

The Windows server-based system has been integrated into the utility's Nortel IVR system, along with its customer information, outage management and field order scheduling systems, said Steve Phillips, manager of PG&E's contact center enhancement.
Drivers behind PG&E's adoption of speech-recognition technology included improving customer satisfaction and the utility's so-called technology take rates, Phillips said. The latter measures the percentage of customers whose needs were satisfied using the IVR system without speaking directly to a customer service representative, he said.
In addition, the speech-recognition system provides PG&E with the ability to start and stop self-service transactions that telephone-based touch-tone systems couldn't handle, he added.
Based on customer surveys, the speech-recognition system has already improved PG&E's customer satisfaction and technology take rates, said Kent Barnes, a senior project manager in PG&E's contact center enhancement group.
Before the installation of the new system, PG&E started conducting monthly surveys of about 560 IVR users.
In the first quarter of 2004, 61% of customers rated the IVR system "excellent" or "very good." The approval rate increased to 67% last summer, before dipping to 64% right after the system was installed, said Phillips. By June, satisfaction ratings had climbed to 69%, he added.
The technology enabled PG&E to improve its technology take rate from 33% to about 38%, said Phillips. Based on an average cost increase of $5 to $9 for a PG&E customer service rep to handle a call rather than the IVR system, Phillips said, the utility's $3 million investment in the speech software and associated hardware was paid off in less than a year.
Investments in customer self-service systems will remain one of the most popular areas for investment by power company IT operations, Gartner Inc. analyst Zarko Sumic said in a research note.
Utilities are "eager" to reduce customer support costs while improving the quality of service, Sumic said. "To meet higher complexity at the transformational level and increase ROI potential, leading energy companies will complement Web channels with advanced voice technologies" such as speech recognition and speech synthesis over the next two to four years, he said.

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