Virtual Agents Are Becoming Part Of Everyday Life!

Almost three out of four of the UK population are now talking to machines on a regular basis, according to a new Report into the usage of speech recognition services in our everyday lives.

Paying gas or electric bills, enquiring about bank balances, booking train and coach tickets, and even ordering pizza through conversations with virtual agents, real voices operated by advanced software, has become the norm as organisations throughout the UK introduce speech recognition technologies to deal with incoming customer call enquiries.

The Speech Recognition Insights Report carried out by speech recognition market leaders, Fluency Voice Technology and Call Centre Focus Magazine found that 74% of those surveyed have had experience with speech technology. The most frequent use is in banking and financial areas, 54% followed by: retail and leisure, 38%; utilities, 35%; insurance, 27%; and travel companies, 24%.

According to the public, the main advantage of speech recognition technology is that it saves time (64%), it is easy to use (57%) and means that there is no waiting time (50%) and as a consequence can talk with a virtual agent immediately.

Fluency estimates that over the next few years, call centres will be adopting these new virtual agents as part of their service to handle the majority of mundane tasks such as bill payments, brochure requests and ticket availability.

This is being driven by Fluency’s new Virtual Speech Agent (VSA) Suite(tm) launched in the UK this month enabling call centres to deploy a low cost speech application supporting all common call centre transactions across all industry sectors.

Philip Padfield, CEO at Fluency Voice Technology, says Until recently speech was only affordable to large organisations but with improved technology, falling costs and changing consumer perceptions, speech is now being adopted by the mid to small tier organisation. We consequently expect to see a more mainstream acceptance of speech over the next 5 years

Claudia Hathaway, Editor of Call Centre Focus Magazine, says: Customer demand for 24/7 service has driven advances in speech technology so today’s automated response menus are a far cry from the frustrating exchanges customers experienced when virtual agents first emerged. As virtual conversations between customers and machines become more widespread it is good to know that the general public are becoming more accepting of the new virtual agents.

The main Report findings were as follows:

Types Of Transaction

As speech becomes more mainstream, consumers are finding that it can successfully work for specific transactions. Finding out about a bank balance is the most popular (74%), followed by giving a meter reading (56%) and locating the nearest store or cinema (52%).

Also popular is making a payment such as a fine or bill (34%) and finding out about train and fight schedules (30%). Others include transferring money (22%) and booking a flight (12%).

Frequency Of Usage

The Report looked at five main sectors where virtual agents have been deployed: banking; travel; utilities; insurance; and retail.

The greatest use of speech technology is currently in the banking/financial sector with 50% of respondents using virtual agents at least once a month.

With utilities companies 54% people say they use virtual agents once every 3 months when paying quarterly bills compared to 43% in the retail and leisure sectors.

In the insurance sector virtual agents are used once a year by 60% of respondents compared with 56% of respondents in the travel sector.

Pre-conceptions Are Superficial

One of the main findings of the research was that consumers’ perceptions of speech are fundamentally changed in favour of virtual agents following their first experience of using a speech recognition system. The increase seen here was more than four fold.

Which Voices Suit Which Industry Sectors?

The Report looked at the voices that best suited different sectors including: financial services; travel; retail; and utilities. It is clear from the results that: efficiency, reliability, intelligence, credibility, calmness and being straight to the point are consistently traits that are seen as important for the voice whose company it represents.

The most popular voice chosen from a given sample for the travel sector is: age 30’s; female; London Estuary English; competent; well paced; and professional.

The most popular voice chosen from a given sample for the retail sector is: age 50’s; female; mature; efficient; and calm.

The most popular voice chosen from a given sample for the utilities sector is: ages 20’s; female; London Estuary English; strong; husky; and independent.

The most popular voice chosen from a given sample for financial services sector is: age 30’s; male; Irish accent; warm; smooth; and authoritative.

Gender Preferences

When questioned about the gender most suitable to virtual agents, interestingly the male voice has a slight edge (52%) over female for paying bills or making transactions whilst the female voice is the overwhelming choice for other types of transaction such as booking holidays or flights (68%) and buying cinema or theatre tickets (64%).

Celebrity Virtual Agents

For those who favour the use of celebrity voices they were asked which celebrity voice they would use for different types of transaction.

For banking, the following celebrity voices were mentioned: Alan Davies; Joanna Lumley; Dermot O’Leary; and Jeremy Paxton. For travel, the celebrities mentioned were: Alan Whicker; Peter Kaye; Kat Deeley; and Michael Palin. For retail the celebrities mentioned were: Jonathon Ross; Philip Scholfield; Martin Clunes; and Carol Vorderman.