Help Yourself

Most financial institutions performed major phone system upgrades leading up to Y2K in 1998 and 1999. Many of these phone platforms are proprietary and reaching end of life support by their manufacturers. Since Y2K, the industry has become more open with standards on programming (VoiceXML) and VoIP has had a profound impact. All major platform companies in the industry have IP-based contact center and self-service platforms. Speech continues to make progress in simplifying complex menu systems contributing to the success of self-service systems and improving customer satisfaction.

Risk reduction has become the major trigger in enterprise decisions to work with third-party providers of hosted or managed services. The term applies to both the technological risk precipitated by the end-of-life trends of existing premises-based platforms, as well as uncertainty surrounding the inevitable incorporation of IP-based telephony (VoIP) in the corporate communications fabric.

Managing risk the right way
Specifically, risk can be reduced in several ways: by having qualified staff in house to support, maintain, and tune these systems, by reducing initial financial risk by avoiding costly capital outlays in return for setup charges and variable costs with monthly minimums and by reducing time-to-market with rapid development of applications by an experienced professional services staff with application experience in the customers segment.

Financial institutions implement self-service customer care applications for two reasons: to reduce operating costs and to provide a consistent or improved customer experience. Given the current economic climate, projects which can show hard dollar savings in a short timeframe are the ones getting funded. The self-service customer care industry has two options for implementing these solutions, either on-premise or on-demand.

Implementation options are similar in the fact they are the same hardware and software platforms with the difference of ownership, expertise, and operations. On-premise solutions is where the equipment is purchased or leased to be hosted within the corporate environment and operated by the company’s employees or contractors. On-demand solutions are where hosting companies provide the same capabilities for a self-service platform with operations expertise and the ability to build applications.

Most companies over the last several years have slimmed down to where they no longer have dedicated staff for their IVR environments. Two additional skill sets lacking in most companies include voice user interface (VUI) designers and analytics specialists. VUI designers ensure that users navigate an IVR in the best possible way. Analytics specialists constantly monitor and adjust applications to ensure calls are getting completed successfully.

Developing applications can be done through in-house development teams, independent professional service companies, or professional service teams with platform companies or service providers/hosting companies.

In-house development teams have direct knowledge of your business. The benefit of professional services organizations – either independent or as part of a service provider – is an awareness of applications throughout your industry or across several industries. They also can provide experts in voice user interfaces or analytics with services billed on a pay-as-you-go basis. In choosing a third-party professional services team, be sure to perform due diligence to ensure they have experience in the financial industry.

Do you have the expertise in-house and prefer to pay via CAPEX? Then on-premise is the right option for you. No expertise and prefer OPEX, then third-party service providers and hosting is best for you. Additionally, there is a third option, a hybrid approach, called managed services where a company owns the platform but outsource operations and the development of applications.