Medical aid giant Discovery Health has extended its lifestyle benefits offering to members of its Vitality programme with a speech recognition-based solution from Intelleca Voice & Mobile.
In the first of many services to be rolled out using the integrated voice recognition system provided by Intelleca, Discovery has enabled Vitality members to buy Vodacom and MTN airtime at a discount of 15% on prepaid recharge vouchers. In a first for cellphone users, the offering is available on a 24-hour basis through the medical scheme`s automated speech service, and also online through DiscoveryWorld.
Trent Rossini, CIO of Discovery Health, says Discovery required a solution that would be sufficiently robust and reliable to support the various services it plans to roll-out as part of its ongoing strategy to offer Vitality members a wide range of benefits through the scheme`s self-service channels.
"The discounted airtime is an unprecedented offering in the local market. To offer this and similar self-service benefits in the future, we needed a speech-enabled solution that would be stable and reliable enough to provide our members with excellent service, and scalable enough to grow in line with our future requirements," says Rossini.
With the speech-powered solution in place, Vitality members not only have easy access to discounted prepaid recharge vouchers, they can also buy airtime at their convenience regardless of their Vitality status, 24 hours a day.
"This is another of the many ways in which Discovery is rolling out Vitality`s self-service functionality to over 400 000 subscribers. The best part about this offer is that it provides real cost-saving benefits for Vitality members, and they can access the service whenever they want to through their preferred channel, via phone or our Web site."
The integrated voice recognition system that enables Vitality members to access the service provides speech-driven telephony access to Web services and is based on three technologies: VoiceGenie`s VoiceXML Platform, SpeechWorks Open Speech Recogniser, and SpeechWorks Speechify text-to-speech engine, all represented locally by Intelleca Voice & Mobile.
"We spent a long time evaluating available solutions, and we ran a pilot with Intelleca over a year ago," says Rossini. "We then decided to go with Intelleca as SpeechWorks had proved to be the most mature product available. Implementation went smoothly, and the solution was delivered on time, enabling us to launch the offering as planned at the beginning of this year. This was due to a combination of a well defined project scope, our readiness from a technology point of view, and Intelleca`s expertise in the VoiceXML space."
Vitality members wanting to buy airtime are required to register and can then buy discounted airtime. Both registration and buying can either be done using VoiceXML or performed online. Once the association has been made between cell numbers and membership number, all they have to do is state their preferred payment method.
"A total of 18 500 calls were processed via our speech-enabled solution in January," says Rossini. "That`s 18 500 fewer calls for our call centre staff to deal with, which means they have more time to respond to member queries, complaints and requests. Of all the airtime sales recorded in January, 75% were bought through the VoiceXML solution, 24% online, and 1% through our call centre. We are experiencing the same call volumes during the week as on weekends, so people are definitely taking advantage of the 24-hour availability. There`s no doubt that our members are enjoying the ease of use, convenience and excellent service levels offered by the VoiceXML gateway."
The VoiceGenie VoiceXML gateway, a Linux-based voice Web solution, complies with all aspects of the VoiceXML 2.0 standard and incorporates mature integration of automatic speech recognition, text-to-speech and telephony signalling.
"The VoiceGenie VoiceXML solution enables Discovery to deliver its online services seamlessly across the telephone channel," says Mike Renzon, Intelleca Voice & Mobile MD. "The solution allows Discovery to leverage its existing Internet infrastructure and development investment, use its personalisation features effectively, and keep all communication channels in synch.
"Aside from the savings on staff and resources, the company also stands to benefit from a customer service point of view, as the solution is simple to use and user-friendly. Unlike cumbersome touch-tone solutions which often frustrate callers, speech recognition offers callers a natural conversational interface while fulfilling Discovery`s requirement for an automated solution."
"We`ve seen a growing interest in speech recognition services by healthcare and insurance customer around the world. Applications such as speech-enabled policy quotations, password reset, claims service and many others help companies offer their callers fast, reliable and user-friendly access to the information they need," says Alan Schwarz, VP, International at SpeechWorks. "We are delighted to work with Intelleca in delivering this speech application to Discovery Health."
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