The Customer Service Survey
VocaLabs' weblog providing news and commentary on the challenges of providing good customer service.
First Experiment for Testing VUI Design Practices
Wednesday - October 15, 2008 02:17 PM
The first experiment of common VUI design practices will be to test the kinds of input callers prefer to use when calling an automated phone system.
This is being put together by a group at Nuance, the largest vendor of speech recognition software. We're going to evaluate a couple flavors of speech recognition, touch-tone, and mixed-mode input (where the caller can choose between speech and dialing digits).
Nuance obviously has a vested interest in making speech recognition look good, but we're designing the experiment with input from a number of industry professionals outside the company. The goal is to have the best possible experimental process, so the results (whatever they may show) will be convincing.
After Nuance has a chance to publish its own analysis we will be making much of the raw experimental data available to others in the industry so they can perform their own analysis.
So watch this space for more details as things progress. I'm hoping we'll have another experiment to announce in a few weeks, and some results in a few months.
Posted at 02:17 PM | Permalink |
Service Quality Tracker for Financial Services
Wednesday - September 17, 2008 12:56 PM
We're launching our Service Quality Tracker survey for financial services companies today. This is our survey which compares the customer service quality of competing companies in a single industry. Our Service Quality Tracker for Technical Support has been running since the beginning of the year.
Service Quality Tracker is open to everyone who needs to call one of the companies we're tracking. To participate, just use one of our alternate phone numbers instead of calling the company directly. After the call, if we select you for the survey, one of our interviewers will call you back for a five-minute survey.
The phone numbers for the survey are:
| To Call | Dial | Instead of |
|---|---|---|
| PayPal | 866-706-3145 | 402-935-2050 |
| Wachovia | 866-706-3146 | 800-922-4684 |
| Citibank | 866-706-3148 | 800-627-3999 |
| Wells Fargo | 866-706-3159 | 800-869-3557 |
| Washington Mutual | 866-703-3352 | 800-788-7000 |
| Bank of America | 866-706-2915
(California) | 800-622-8731 |
| 866-706-2719
(Washington and Idaho) | 800-442-6680 | |
| 866-703-3356
(Seattle) | 206-461-0800 | |
| 866-703-3354
(Everywhere Else) | 800-432-1000 |
Posted at 12:56 PM | Permalink |
Update on Testing VUI Design Practices
Monday - September 15, 2008 02:27 PM
Several weeks ago, we offered to experimentally test VUI design practices in cooperation with interested speech application designers.
Since then, we've had serious inquiries from several different companies about doing some research, and we're starting to explore specific topics to research.
We're not putting any limit on the number of teams we'll work with--the more the merrier, as far as I'm concerned. There's also no particular time limit, though it would be desirable to have results in time to submit them as a presentation topic at SpeechTEK next year.
Once we start getting to the level of experimental design, I'd like to post draft experiments here (with the cooperation of our research partners, of course) for review and critique. This is in the interest of making sure the results will be as sound as possible.
If you're a VUI designer and want to work with us to test different design practices, let me know.
Posted at 02:27 PM | Permalink |
Experimental Testing of Voice User Interface Design Practices
Monday - September 08, 2008 02:21 PM
There's been some discussion among Voice User Interface designers about how much of the VUI design folklore is just that: folklore. It's hard to get speech vendors to spend money to perform carefully controlled experiments and publish the results for the benefit of the community at large; it's even harder to get individual clients to take such a civic-minded approach for their own projects.
I think the speech industry would benefit greatly from a more rigorous, open, and transparent knowledge base of VUI design practices. This would lead to better designs, more user acceptance, and greater project success.
VocaLabs is interested in seeing better design (and more emphasis on testing, of course), so we've decided to step up to the plate and see if we can get the ball rolling. VocaLabs will perform usability surveys for free for any designer or company testing VUI design practices for the benefit of the community as a whole.
Here are the criteria:
- You have to have a well-designed experiment testing a design practice of general interest, not a question relevant to only a particular design.
- You have to commit to analyzing the data and publicizing it to the VUI design community as a whole.
- You have to find someone to host the test application(s) (we can't do that ourselves).
- The raw data will be made available to all interested parties in the VUI design community (peer review and alternate analysis are especially welcome).
- VocaLabs has to be identified as a sponsor of the research in all publication, presentations, etc.
I originally presented this offer to the VUI Designers e-mail list a few weeks ago, in advance of the SpeechTEK conference. There's been some interest from a couple different companies to take us up on this offer. I'll post more details here as things progress.
Posted at 02:21 PM | Permalink |
Trading Four Wheels for....Four Wheels
Thursday - August 07, 2008 12:25 PM
When we moved about 18 months ago, one of the criteria for our new location was that it be more central to where everyone lives. We succeeded, and made everyone's commute shorter (or at least no longer). Since then, Dan--who used to have the longest commute at over 20 miles each way--also moved, and now lives within about two miles of the office. I now have the longest commute, at about eight miles.
All that moving around was before gas shot up to $4/gallon. With the new reality of fuel prices, all of us have taken the next step: moving from petroleum-power to pedal-power. In my case, I west a step further and upgraded from a traditional bicycle to a recumbent tricycle with a cargo trailer (pictured next to my old beater, with a load of groceries in the trailer).
All I can say is: this thing is awesome.
It's certainly no faster than a bike, especially when dragging a trailer full of briefcase and office clothes. But where my bike hurt my shoulders, wrists, and rear end after an hour of riding, the trike is like pedaling around in a lawn chair.
It also has this amazing effect on people and cars. Instead of getting crowded off the road, drivers give me a lot of room when they pass (and sometimes even smile and wave). Kids and other cyclists ask me about my ride, and cops compliment me on how visible the trike is with all the flags and lights.
So far I've been riding regularly to work for about six weeks, and I've saved about a tank full of gas. All the exercise is probably good for me, too. The only downside is that I can't ride every day: sometimes distant business meetings or weather make it impractical to pedal to work.
Oh, and just in case you're wondering: one of the other criteria for our new office location was that it have showers.
Posted at 12:25 PM | Permalink |
Going to SpeechTEK?
Tuesday - August 05, 2008 01:15 PM
The annual SpeechTEK show is coming up in a couple weeks in New York. If you haven't registered already, you can use our VIP code VIPVOC to get a free exhibit hall pass.
We'll be in booth 507, so stop by and say Hi. We'll also be doing a demo of our reporting system at the tools lab on Tuesday morning.
Posted at 01:15 PM | Permalink |
Newsletter #38 Available
Tuesday - April 01, 2008 02:09 PM
Posted by Peter Leppik
Posted at 02:09 PM | Permalink |
Newsletter #37 is available
Tuesday - February 26, 2008 02:30 PM
Posted by Peter Leppik
Posted at 02:30 PM | Permalink |
Getting some ink
Friday - February 08, 2008 01:10 PM
Posted by Peter Leppik
Posted at 01:10 PM | Permalink |
VocaLabs Newsletter #36 Now Available
Tuesday - January 29, 2008 01:39 PM
Posted by Peter Leppik
Posted at 01:39 PM | Permalink |
Ending SectorPulse
Tuesday - January 22, 2008 04:33 PM
Instead, we'll be focusing on developing and expanding our Service Quality Tracker product, which provides similar head-to-head comparisons of customer service quality, but using a different data collection method.
There are a number of reasons for the change: first and foremost, Service Quality Tracker uses data from unpaid participants who are not part of our consumer panel, but who volunteer to participate on a call-by-call basis. We think this is a superior technique, since it avoids the problem of "professional survey-takers" inherent in any paid survey panel.
In addition, Service Quality Tracker uses a live interviewer who calls the customers within a few minutes of the end of a customer service call, rather than an online survey. This opens up participation to anyone, rather than limiting it to people with Internet access--though to be fair, Internet access isn't much of a demographic limitation in the United States any more.
Other reasons for the change include the fact that most of our clients are now using a call-back interview survey, rather than panel research, so this ensures that the data we collect is as comparable as possible to the data clients are collecting for internal purposes. Service Quality Tracker is a continuous process, rather than happening in quarterly chunks, so it's possible to compare companies over arbitrary and flexible date ranges. Finally, Service Quality Tracker is easier for us to manage internally.
So while it's always a difficult decision to discontinue a successful product with a history, we think this is the right decision for us now. Look for new developments in our Service Quality Tracker over the next several months.
Posted by Peter Leppik
Posted at 04:33 PM | Permalink |
Hotshots
Thursday - November 08, 2007 01:32 PM
"Our Employees Are Our Most Valuable Asset" is so cliche that it has collapsed under the gravitational pull of its own clichedom and formed its own parallel universe of cliche.
Today we discovered a problem with one of our web pages loading slowly. We'd gotten a couple reports about this over the past couple weeks, but it's often hard to pin down a "page loads slowly" report with all the possible causes (most of which we have no control over). This time, though, we got a detailed enough report to reproduce the problem on our end, and David and Dan swung into action.
Within ten minutes, Dan had isolated the bottleneck on our production server to a particular database query which was taking about a hundred times longer than it should. David recognized the query as one which had changed slightly in a new version of our code deployed about two weeks ago, and the pair determined that the database server wasn't handling the query as efficiently as it should. We should be able to have a fix in place in fairly short order.
Of course fixing one bug isn't going to make or break us, but this is an example of the kind of efficiency and teamwork David and Dan deliver consistently every day. Thanks to them, we've been able to consistently get projects done on time, keep our systems running smoothly, and bugs rarely remain bugs for very long.
Posted by Peter Leppik
Posted at 01:32 PM | Permalink |
New issue of Quality Times is available
Thursday - October 25, 2007 12:59 PM
Posted by Peter Leppik
Posted at 12:59 PM | Permalink |
Report Card Time
Tuesday - October 23, 2007 02:44 PM
This morning we released the grades from our latest round of SectorPulse surveys rating customer service at mobile phone companies and financial services companies.
Posted by Peter Leppik
Posted at 02:44 PM | Permalink |
Busy Weeks
Tuesday - September 04, 2007 03:36 PM
Now the kids are back in school and everyone is in the office for the first time in about three weeks, but I'm getting ready to go off to ACCE next week. So I'll be busy preparing for a trade show all week.
Throw in a new client project which might kick off this week (we hope), plus a new product announcement I hope to have ready by the end of this week (in time for ACCE), and we're going to be busy busy busy.
But that's better than the alternative.
Posted by Peter Leppik
Posted at 03:36 PM | Permalink |
See us at SpeechTEK!
Tuesday - August 07, 2007 12:37 PM
Why, oh why, does everything at a tradeshow have to be so &%^* expensive?!?
I've heard all the sales arguments: "it's a small price to pay for the exposure," and so forth, and I don't mind paying the promoter for the booth space. After all, the guy who runs the show is taking a big financial risk, and doing a lot of work to bring customers to the event.
But look at some of the other prices: $110 for a single electrical outlet in our booth (not even a full circuit, either: we're only allowed to draw 500W). $750 for a wired Internet connection for three days ($400 for WiFi access). $200 for a table--not even a nice table, but a crappy folding table disguised with a polyester tablecloth. $50 for a cheap plastic folding chair. Many items cost more to rent for three days than to buy brand-new.
These are the prices the hotel and the exhibit services company charge, and they can get away with it because they have a monopoly. Want to pay less than the extortionate hotel price for electricity? Tough luck.
Oh, and if your booth can't be carried in by hand by a single person and set up without tools in under 30 minutes, you're not allowed to set it up yourself. Installation and disassembly will run almost $200/hour with a one hour minimum.
It would be cheaper to hire my lawyer and accountant to do the job instead. They'd probably do a better job, too.
Which brings me to the other half of the rant. For these kinds of prices, you'd at least expect a reasonable level of service, but that's asking too much. I pretty much assume I'm going to have some problem with the exhibitor services at every show. We've been overcharged, billed for services neither requested nor delivered, and even been dunned when the exhibit services company actually owed usmoney. Good luck getting a refund, by the way: if you overpay, often they'll only offer a credit for future services not a check for the overpayment.
Worse, the terms are some of the worst I've ever encountered. Not only do they demand payment in full in advance, but they also ask you to sign a blanket credit card authorization. Do I trust them to bill the credit card correctly? Hah!
(On that last point, by the way, I always refuse. I simply will not sign a blanket credit card authorization, especially with companies which tend to do such a poor job. We pay in advance by company check, and if the exhibit services company thinks we owe them more money after the fact, they can invoice us like everyone else.)
So if I'm ever offered the CEO position at Cisco, Microsoft, or some other huge company with tons of market power, one thing I'll do is start refusing to exhibit at these events unless the hotel and expo services companies start offering reasonable terms and prices. Sadly, at VocaLabs, we don't have the ability to make that stick.
Okay, rant over. Come see us at SpeechTEK.
Posted by Peter Leppik
Posted at 12:37 PM | Permalink |
New Newsletter Online
Wednesday - July 25, 2007 09:46 AM
Posted by Peter Leppik
Posted at 09:46 AM | Permalink |
Listen to us live
Tuesday - July 10, 2007 02:30 PM
Posted at 02:30 PM | Permalink |
New professional Services
Monday - May 07, 2007 02:09 PM
Survey Design: create a custom survey questionnaire and consult about the appropriate survey process to meet the client's business goals.
Survey Review: provide recommendations about an existing survey to improve the quality of the data and better meet the client's needs.
Process Action Review: examine the business processes a client uses to turn survey data into improved customer service, and make recommendations for a more effective process.
Data Analysis: In-depth analysis of survey data to generate specific recommendations for improving customer service.
We've developed a lot of experience in the best ways to design and implement a survey to meet the unique needs of a call center or other customer service operation. In the past, though, we've only used this expertise to the benefit of companies which hired us to perform their surveys. Now we'll be able to provide any company, whether they use a VocaLabs survey or not, with the advantage of our unique knowledge.
If you want to learn more, send us an e-mail at sales@vocalabs.com.
Posted by Peter Leppik
Posted at 02:09 PM | Permalink |
Newsletter #32 is now online
Monday - April 23, 2007 10:29 AM
Posted by Peter Leppik
Posted at 10:29 AM | Permalink |