Archive 2007
27.11.07 | Carrier Sunrise acquires voice
portal for customer service with 240 ports and speech recognition
in 4 languages
 Sunrise,
the number two telephone services provider in Switzerland, provides
its 2 million private and business customers with a complete range
of solutions for landline and mobile telephony as well as DSL Internet
access. CreaLog now replaced a Nortel voice platform in the Sunrise
help desk operation.
After a comprehensive evaluation phase with test
installations from a wide range of suppliers, Sunrise chose a CAS
interface connection of the CreaLog Voice Portal to the existing
Nortel Meridian with coupling to a Genesys Contact Center.
The services previously available on the Nortel
platform were recreated step by step and migrated to the CreaLog
platform. Additional new self-service functions were developed with
VoiceXML and run on the CreaLog Voice Portal as well.
CreaLog supplied Sunrise with a total of four systems
having 240 telephony channels and Nuance speech recognition in German,
Italian, English and French.
With this project, CreaLog has now acquired a top
telecommunications provider as a customer in Switzerland along with
those in Germany (Arcor) and Austria (Telekom Austria)
01.10.07 | CreaLog expands sales team
 On
October 1st, Dietmar P. H. Wyhs joined the sales department at CreaLog
as a senior account manager. Mr. Wyhs was previously at NMS Communications,
where since 2003 he was the regional manager for central and eastern
Europe and the Middle East and supported network operators, value-added
service providers, network equippers and integrators in the area
of media server solutions, SIP, VXML and SS7. During this time,
Mr. Wyhs acquired an extensive knowledge of the carrier market as
well as customer requirements from numerous large projects.
At CreaLog he will support the same customer segment as well as
our internationalization efforts in this area.
His other career development includes
- Studies in computer science at Johannes Kepler University in
Linz, Austria
- Sales manager at TPS Labs
16.05.07 | Energy provider Pfalzwerke:
Fault reporting center, alerting system and customer prequalification
The 500-strong workforce of Pfalzwerke in Ludwigshafen supplies
1.6 million people with seven billion kilowatt hours of electricity
per year in Rheinland-Pfalz.
The Pfalzwerke rely on CreaLog voice portal technology to prepare
for the high volume of call traffic occurring in the event of large-scale
faults.
The failure reporting center in Landau is the service center for
the 8 distribution grid teams in the individual regions. All calls
about power failures made to the number 0800 7977777 converge here.
The callers first give their post code in order to check whether
there is an existing power failure in their local network. If so,
the caller hears an announcement detailing the known faults in his
area. He is then asked to stay on the line if he wants to report
a new power failure.
The announcements on existing failure are recorded locally by the
8 regional distribution grid teams and activated and managed by
them on the central voice portal. This allows for maximum flexibility
and ensures that the information given is up to date.
The CreaLog voice portal is also used for alert systems. Alert emails
sent by an administrator are converted into speech by the voice
portal using text-to-speech software and then distributed via the
telephone network to the participants in the alerting system. This
means that even staff who are not at a workplace with email access
can be kept up to date at all times.
As a result of the good experience had with its previous voice portal
services Pfalzwerke will now also equip its customer service facility
at Ludwigshafen with a CreaLog voice portal for prequalification
of its customers.
14.05.07 | Voice portal provides PAYBACK customers with their current points total
With PAYBACK, Loyalty Partner is operating the biggest and most successful bonus system in Germany at the current time. With just one card, shoppers collect points at more than a dozen well-known retailers. Cash or rewards can be redeemed with as little as 200 points. The new CreaLog voice portal improves the customer service provided by Loyalty Partner:
- PAYBACK service on the telephone is always accessible - there is no waiting queue and no annoying busy signal.
- Customers can find out their points total, order a replacement card, change their PIN or be transferred to the call center.
- Easy to use, thanks to modern speech recognition including barge-in facility (announcements can be interrupted).
"This means", says Fabian Schwarz, Customer Service Director at Payback, "that the new voice portal has achieved one of our major objectives: PAYBACK customers now have access to quicker and more comfortable telephone service - around the clock and 365 days a year!" Of course the people in charge at Loyalty Partner had defined a whole range of specifications and objectives before tackling the voice portal project.
One important goal was a noticeable reduction in costs. But how could this be compatible with "customer satisfaction" or "round-the-clock access"?
Fabian Schwarz has a persuasive answer: "The call center is the very place where a substantial cost reduction is possible. Until now our agents have had to read out the total points. However, that is one of the services - as we know - that can be easily automated. Such simple matters are therefore handled by the voice portal, while more complex subjects, such as complaints or queries about ordering rewards, are still dealt with by actual agents."
Good experience with CreaLog
In light of these requirements, the market observation identified only a small number of potential vendors. In the end, CreaLog won the contract. Fabian Schwarz recalls: "Of course the price-performance ratio first had to add up. Moreover, we had had good experience with CreaLog as the supplier of the old solution, which was still designed as a push-button dialing system. Our teamwork was always excellent - and that was ultimately the deciding factor!"
Expanding voice portal services even more
What is the next step? "We can easily imagine expanding the system in a few months time by adding extra functions. For example, in the field of 'amendments to customer master data', i.e. address changes etc.. This process could no doubt be automated by the CreaLog system!", says Fabian Schwarz.
11.05.07 | CreaLog customers Sparda Nuremberg and Kreissparkasse Esslingen
awarded the 2007 bank marketing prize
Every day more than 40,000 customers of banks, savings institutes and cooperative banks talk to voice-controlled CreaLog voice portals. Increasingly, they are using self-service telephone banking and brokerage.This makes our platform one of the most widely used voice-controlled phone banking systems in Germany.
So it is no surprise that no fewer than 3 of CreaLog's clients presented their telephone banking solutions at this year's Bank Call Center Forum in Nuremberg. Two of them were even awarded the 2007 bank marketing prize ("Best bank in inbound customer service") for their innovative telephone banking voice portals. Congratulations!
Kreissparkasse Esslingen - Excellence in VUI Design
Patricia Demuth, Call Center Director, accepted the award on behalf of the Kreissparkasse Esslingen-Nürtingen. In addition to a large number of services, the banking voice portal offers some award-winning features in the voice user interface (VUI) design.
This means, for example, that the voice portal confirms number sequences in the same way as they are input by the caller. For instance, if the caller says the bank code number in blocks as: "710 500", the voice portal confirms: "seven hundred and ten, five hundred". If he says it in single digits "7 1 0 5 0 0", then the voice portal confirms: "seven one zero five zero zero". This substantially facilitates communication between caller and voice portal. For further information read this article (in German).
Sparda Nuremberg - Multi-site CTI
The Director of Media Sales, Mario Kraus, accepted the prize on behalf of the Sparda Nuremberg from the event organizer, Detlef Effert. The Sparda Nuremberg uses the central Sparda Bank voice portal at St. Ingbert, but operates its own call center at another site in Nuremberg.
In this configuration the Sparda Nuremberg uses multi-site CTI via dialed connections. All functions such as transferring the caller and his data from the voice portal dialog to call center staff, as well as returning the caller to his previous position in the voice portal, were realized by CreaLog as a distributed configuration. This is how the central voice portal is combined with the bank's local customer service facilities! For further information read this article (in German).
Improve your competitiveness
The savings institute and cooperative banking sector is the very place where voice portals offer a good opportunity to improve accessibility and customer service around the clock and at the same time make cost savings. This enhances the appeal and competitiveness of these regional banks in respect of their competitors such as large banks and internet banks.
Event organizer Detlev Effert presents
Mario Kraus from the Sparda Nuremberg with the 2007 bank marketing award
08.01.07 | Telekom Austria's Call Center Leads in European Ranking
If one were to compare the results of Telekom Austria's customer satisfaction study with the study „Contact Center Satisfaction Index Europe“ (by Aspect and consultancy Leo J. Shapiro), which examines customer service in Great Britain, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, Telekom Austria is clearly ahead.
In a European average 67 percent of the customers queried, 69.9 percent in Germany, rate their latest contact with a contact center as "very good" or "good". Telekom Austria, on the other hand, counts 75.1 percent of those queried among their "very satisfied" or "satisfied" customers.
With more than 1,000 employees spread out at a number of locations throughout Austria and an average of just below 10 million customer contacts annually, Telekom Austria operates one of the largest and most modern Austrian call centers.
Successfull - not without reason
Since December 2005 the telephone navigation of the most important customer hotlines no longer runs exclusively by dialing certain buttons on the telephone (DTMF), but rather via a new and innovative Voice Portal from CreaLog. The Voice Portal technology guarantees that the roughly 30,000 callers per day speak with the right partner quickly and thus receive the right information regarding the respective query as quickly and conveniently as possible.
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