It's no wonder that we often lose the goal by focusing on the details. Plus—even more bewildering—all of our colleagues have different personalities and tend to approach problems in different ways. So there's a strong tendency to talk around difficult issues, and sometimes it seems like the talk will just keep going 'round and 'round forever to no conclusion.

In particular, some people are likely to underestimate difficulties and to overvalue solutions. These people—what I call the "technology optimists"—think that every problem can be solved simply by purchasing more technology.

Their opposites—those who practice "technology pesticism"—are continually erecting barriers, raising doubts, inventing new problems, and in general making pests of themselves. These pests slow things down by muddying the water.

IVR Tradeoffs from the Past

Let's use some examples to see why both the “opps” and the “pests" are wrong.

In the old original IVR days, the optimists thought that all telephones would become computer terminals. The only model for user interactions in those days was based on "menus," and all the customers had to do was to press a button that corresponded to their choice. There was little thought given to streamlining, integrating, delivering information clearly, or solving problems. The IVR was just a “collection of choices” and the problem was solved.

When speech recognition came along, the opps continued to push the latest glamour rather than solve caller problems. The technology got more expensive, more complex, riskier, and more difficult to apply. But it usually didn’t work much better. Not really.

During that same period, the pests kept slowing things down. “It’ll never work,” or “it’s not accurate enough” started the early resistance barriers. But quickly, “It needs to be more friendly” and “everyone hates IVR” began every discussion. Progress got bogged down and we simply repeated bad practices in anticipation that some day the technology would be good enough to satisfy opps and pests alike.

Privacy and Security Tradeoffs in the Near Future

Now we live in a new world. FFIEC and HIPAA are breathing down our necks, hackers are getting smarter, identity theft is rampant, and both web channel and phone channel need improvements to privacy and security. And they need it now.

Well the opps are out in force, saying that voice biometrics is the answer, it’s really accurate, and all you need to do is install some new unproven technology to prove it. Meanwhile, the pests are saying, “It’s not accurate enough; we can’t tolerate that high an error rate; nobody will bother to enroll. What if somebody breaks in? We’d better go really slowly, this is 'way too risky. Why not next year?”

They’re both right, of course. Just as with touch-tone IVR and speech recognition, the technologies are sexy and ready for prime time, but have their limitations. Speech is an uncertain medium. There are human factors in play. There is no one best solution that fits all problems. Does the technology have a role to play? Yes, of course. Is the technology alone the answer to the problem? No, of course not—never has been, never will be.

ACCE Sessions Address Both Optimism and Pesticism

My colleague Rex Stringham and I will both be presenting separate sessions at ACCE in Phoenix. My talk—“Trends in Call Center Automation”—describes how to get past the opps and the pests and to focus on the customer-service and business realities that drive decision-making. The technologies—IVR, speech, CTI, desktop, VoIP—must be subsumed into a larger concern for integration, people, workforce management, and respect for customers. The solutions, of course, revolve around the application and integration of technology, not the technologies themselves.

Similarly, Rex will deliver a brand new session on telephone multi-factor authentication (TMFA). He will describe ways to use existing technology to increase security and privacy right now—without infrastructure changes—as well as how to fold voice biometrics into a larger picture if that’s the answer for you.

Neither opps nor pests will get much out of these sessions. But if you’re interested in solving business and customer problems through the effective application of technology, I hope we’ll see you there!

—Bruce Balentine