Answer; absolutely. 

Some people believe automation delivers cost savings at the customers' expense.  We disagree.  We deploy automated solutions that will save you money and allow you to offer more services to customers, via more channels, on a 24-hour no-queue basis.  They'll enhance rather than compromise your ability to give customers a service they'll value highly.

You can save money…

There's no question that automation can save you money.  By reducing your dependency on contact centre agents, you can expect to reduce your operating costs by up to 95%, depending on the extent of automation you choose to use and the balance you want to achieve between agent and automated service.

…and make life better…

Your customers will have greater cause for satisfaction because:

• They'll have 24-hour access to your services
• They'll never have to queue, even during your busiest periods or when unexpected call peaks threaten to overwhelm your resources
• They'll get a consistently high quality service every time they call

Jim Hennigan, Managing Director, Eckoh
"Automation should never involve compromise for the customer.  We design every solution to improve our clients' profitability, but in every case we challenge ourselves to improve life for customers by giving better, faster access to more consistently accurate services than can be delivered by any agent workforce". 

Of course, getting it right for customers means designing the service with them in mind.  Automation in general - and speech automation in particular - performs poorly if people allow their enthusiasm for what technology can do to over-ride their focus on what customers want. 

A commonsense approach

At Eckoh we take a commonsense approach.  We take a human situation and see how technology can improve it, rather than taking a technical capability and shoehorning the people to fit.  We use conversation specialists, script writers and psychologists to design services that mirror natural human decision making patterns and that can negotiate the intrinsic but subtle differences between what people say and what they mean.

Automation is good news for customers because it allows you to offer services that simply wouldn't be economically viable - or even possible - using an agent workforce.  For example:

1. Broadcasters simply couldn't deploy enough agents to handle the call volumes that result from their most successful audience participation TV shows.   By building services that handle up to 8,000 simultaneous calls and up to 650,000 calls per hour we've helped them to introduce new entertainment opportunities for viewers that have also proved to be rich sources of revenue. 
   
2. Twenty-four hour telephone based cinema information services that offer, not just film times and the opportunity to buy tickets, but film reviews, cinema directions and other local leisure options would be economically unviable for the largest cinema chains, with 50 plus outlets, each with multiple screens.  With automation they're able to offer all this and more.  Immediate access to up-to-the-minute power restoration information would be beyond the logistical capabilities of electricity companies when disruptions in the power supply send call volumes soaring by 200%. 
   
3. Our automated solutions take the strain and provide location specific power restoration information based on customers' telephone number and post code - and can automatically keep them up to date with repair work via telephone or sms.
   
4. As a final bonus, automation can not only satisfy your customers and save you money, it can also enhance your revenues; automated 24-hour sales lines increase your window of sales opportunity without adding any cost to the business.