mplsystems, the UK-based multi-channel customer contact technology specialist, has launched intelligentResponse – a powerful new automated response solution to help contact centres handle the anticipated flood of incoming text messages resulting from the growth in mobile apps, social media, web chat, email and Visual IVR channels – delivering enhanced service quality without increasing staff levels.
intelligentResponse allows organisations to blend both automated response and assisted response activities, taking advantage of the latest text analytics technologies to filter out standard, higher volume interactions for automated response – while still routing more complex customer enquiries to those contact centre agents with the most appropriate skills for resolution. mplsystems anticipates that a typical intelligentResponse deployment will enable organisations to handle around 60% of their incoming messages automatically – resulting in massive savings in contact centre costs.
With over 50% of calls into UK contact centres now coming from mobiles – and Generation Y consumers poised to outspend baby boomers within the next two years – customer service organisations are increasingly concerned about how to handle the widely projected growth in customer text messaging.
“Customer service organisations have, until now, been reluctant to open themselves up to customer messaging from channels such as mobile apps, social media and instant messaging because they’ve been too busy trying to keep up with handling emails. Research from ContactBabel, for example, clearly shows that while text-based channels such as email, web chat and social media now account for almost 20% of inbound interactions, their growth has been inhibited by a lack or responsiveness and a disproportionately high cost of processing,” commented Paul White, CEO at mplsystems. “With the introduction of intelligentResponse we’re providing a solution to this problem – removing the productivity and cost barriers that, until now, have held back the growth of text-based channels within mainstream customer service operations.”
intelligentResponse from mplsystems directly addresses these productivity concerns, taking advantage of the latest text analytics technology to enable organisations – for the first time – to not only automate response to text channels but also process these requests through workflow actions. intelligentResponse is particularly easy to set-up, with organisations able to provide automated responses to their high volume emails and messages within just a few hours. The new mplsystems solution also features an accessible editing tool that lets users modify automated responses, and fine tune the workflow actions for effective assisted service.
“Organisations in key market areas such as Retail, Financial Services, the Public Sector and general Service provision already recognise that a large proportion of their customer interactions are concerned with relatively routine requests. With intelligentResponse we can help organisations automate the processing of around six out of ten of these standard text-based interactions, whether they’re requests for store opening times or stock availability, balance enquiries, password reset requests, service updates, change of address notifications, meter readings or delivery status updates,” added Paul White. “Many customers would far prefer conducting these type of interactions by email, web chat or SMS – rather that navigate through a self-service IVR or queue for an agent. intelligentResponse will help organisations provide their customers with a more cost-effective and responsive contact choice.”
Available either as a standalone solution or as an added value service for existing customers of mplsystems’ intelligentContact multi-channel contact centre technology, intelligentResponse offers a number of clear benefits. Customer service organisations will be able to handle a greater volume of customer enquiries without increasing their staffing levels, and agents will have more time to spend on responding to complex customer enquiries. Customers will also enjoy a more immediate and interactive service, with immediate response to a significant volume of their text-based communications.
The launch of the new intelligentResponse automated response solution for text-based service channels is based on innovative research conducted by mplsystems following the award of a grant from the UK Government’s Technology Strategy Board. The grant was awarded to encourage mplsystems’ important work on the application of the latest multi-channel textual analytics technology to support the development of the connected digital economy within the UK.
