ARCHIVED: Completed project: Speech Enabled Auto Attendant

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Primary UITS contact: Paul Clegg

Completed: October 13, 2008

Description: This project involves adding a Speech Enabled Auto Attendant to front-end the Bloomington Call Center for all dial "0" calls to the operator. When telephone users on the IUB campus dial 0 to reach an operator, calls will be routed to the Speech Enabled Auto Attendant. Callers will be instructed to speak the name or department they wish to connect to. After saying the name or department, callers will be connected to the person or department they are attempting to reach. If the system is unable to identify the correct individual or department, the call will be sent to the Call Center Operator. This will be a 30-day pilot, and the original routing will be put back in place at the end of the pilot.

Outcome: Initial outcome shows routing dial "0" calls to an automated system produced only a 50-60% success rate. Success means the user "spoke" a name, and the call was transferred without error. The remaining 40-50% of the callers either "dialed 0 again" to speak to an operator, or terminated the call before it could be transferred. While it's difficult (if not impossible) to determine why someone disconnected or chose to transfer to the operator, one theory suggests that when many people dial "0", they expect to reach a live operator. During the pilot, a couple of departments expressed the desire to have speech attendant available at a departmental level, and we are working with those departments case by case.

Milestones and status:

The project began in April 2008. The project plan is as follows:

April 2008: Begin negotiations with Nuance for pilot test Completed
May 2008: Finalize agreement with Nuance for pilot test Completed
May/June 2008: Procure hardware Completed
June 2008: Install server and connect to telephone system Completed
June 2008: Create communications notification plan for campus Completed
July 2008: Begin internal testing of call routing In progress
August 2008: Send out campus notification via the Monitor; also send email notification to telecommunications coordinators and LSPs
August 2008: Finalize routing and complete internal testing
September 2008: Send out additional campus notification via the Monitor; also send email notification to telecommunications coordinators and LSPs
September 8, 2008: Begin campus pilot
October 7, 2008: End campus pilot
October 2008: Analyze results of the pilot and make recommendation to senior management
October 9, 2008: Project completed

Comment process: Send email to Campus Communications Infrastructure.

Benefits: Possible solution for departmental answering points on campus

Primary client: IUB telephone subscribers

Project team:

Paul Clegg, Project Manager
Mark Spencer, Telephony team member
Tim Smedley, Telephony team member
Kaye Davidson, Call Center Manager
Sarah Engel, Communications team leader
Gregory Moore, Communications team member
Michelle Dugger, Purchasing team member
Michael Gribble, Account Manager, Nuance

Governance: Mike Lucas, Operations and Systems Director, Enterprise Infrastructure