Case Study
DIRECTV offers satellite television in all fifty states. It has 24 call centers, providing customer service from the stage of the curious potential customer, on to the point of sale and through technical support and billing, among other things. The company has won customer service awards, including the highest score for customer satisfaction in the satellite and cable TV category, as rated by the American Customer Satisfaction Index in the first quarter of this year. J.D. Power and Associates ranked the company "Highest in Customer Satisfaction Among Satellite/Cable TV Subscribers" for the eastern United States.
El Segundo, California-based DIRECTV has been providing satellite television service for twelve years and it has worked with Omaha, Nebraska-based IVR developer West Corporation for almost that long.
The relationship between the two companies is something they describe as a partnership, and it's an excellent case study in successful speech-enabled IVR outsourcing. We asked DIRECTV's call center technology manager Mike Uhlenkamp to describe, in his own words, the nature and the history of DIRECTV's close business partnership with West Corporation. DIRECTV's IT director Jeffrey Knight added some thoughts, as did West's vice president of professional services, Bruce Pollock.
DIRECTV also makes a great case for switching from touch-tone IVRs to speech-enabled systems. With 1,500 television channels and endless combinations of packages to choose from, DIRECTV's touch-tone IVR was getting maze-like. It was time to begin the conversion to a natural language speech-enabled system.
Right now, DIRECTV's upfront routing is done by West's natural language speech system, and the sports package ordering system is undergoing a conversion. Movie ordering by phone is a simple directed-dialogue speech system and the rest of the system is touch-tone. Touch-tone also provides an important failsafe for the speech servers, not to mention the occasional thick-accented caller.
Call Center Magazine: When did DIRECTV start working with West?
Mike Uhlenkamp: DIRECTV was formed in 1990 and began service in 1994. The company decided to focus on its core competency of providing world class digital television entertainment and chose to outsource operations outside of that area, including customer service. Our partnership with West began in 1995, with a prospect IVR which was a lead generation, Name, Address/City/State capture application. By 1998 there were over a dozen separate applications. From 1999 to 2001, a second vendor shared a portion of the IVR development. In 2002, the IVR was consolidated under West, who since then has provided all inbound IVR services and some out-dial notifications services for DIRECTV.
Call Center Magazine: What was the drive to move to speech-enabled IVR systems? Will DIRECTV be replacing all touch-tone systems?
Mike Uhlenkamp: There were two driving forces behind a move to speech-enabled systems: to improve customer satisfaction and to increase self-care rates.
DIRECTV has a complex business model. We face a very rapidly changing industry and extensive competition. We also do not have a true retail branch presence, so our contact centers are our major channel for communication with our customers. We offer over 1,500 digital video and audio channels including about 130 basic entertainment channels, 31 premium movie channels, over 30 regional and specialty sports networks, approximately 70 Spanish and other foreign language and special interest channels and approximately 50 pay-per-view movie and event choices.
To support the wide range of customer service functions and multiple products required of our business model, we found that our DTMF (touch-tone) menu structure became very complex. They were heavily layered and at times created customer confusion. In addition, we often had to provide long lists of available movies or programming packages. That process was somewhat cumbersome and ineffective. The combination of the wide range of customer support we must provide with the limits of a DTMF application drove us to a decision to move to speech-enable the application where it made sense.
Call Center Magazine: Was "natural language" important to DIRECTV?
Mike Uhlenkamp: Speech, and specifically natural language, provides us the ability to support a larger number of services while still allowing the application to be uncluttered and easy to use. We are able to shorten our average call length by allowing a caller to jump directly to the functionality they need rather than trudge through layers of menus. We were also able to replace the lists we once utilized with the ability of a customer to simply tell us what they are looking for.
Our direction going forward is to utilize the right technology for the right purposes. In some cases that may be natural language, in others a directed dialogue speech application and in others, DTMF. Customers will definitely see continued growth in our use of natural language and other speech products, but it won't mean the elimination of DTMF.
Call Center Magazine: What does DIRECTV want out of its IVR system? How much are you willing to automate and at what point do agents need to handle calls?
Mike Uhlenkamp: We want a system that provides our customers with a wide variety of self-care functionality in an easy-to-use interface while still allowing them a simple process to reach an agent if they need further assistance. We believe that if you build a system that is easy to use and that provides good functionality, your customers will prefer to use it in many cases or make the choice to at least try it. But, they have to know they can get to an agent at any time if necessary. DIRECTV is focused on providing best-in-class customer service and that includes a truly world-class IVR.
Call Center Magazine: What was the process of rolling out the new system like? How long did it take?
Mike Uhlenkamp: The implementation of our natural language system was a great experience and it really deepened the relationship between West and DIRECTV. We accomplished the roll-out in only 8 months. This timeline was from concept on through to production and is a very tight time-frame to deploy such a system. Everyone involved worked incredibly hard as a team to insure the system was designed right and would provide us the gains we were looking for in the areas of customer satisfaction and improved utilization. I think we learned to work more closely and efficiently together and improved our communication processes at all levels. As a result we have been able to share in the great success of this deployment.
Call Center Magazine: You've described your business relationship as something greater than a mere client-vendor relationship. What makes it more than that?
Mike Uhlenkamp: The communication between West and DIRECTV is an absolutely integral part to having such a great relationship. Failure to have proper communication prevents an effective relationship from forming. It is also about everyone working as a single team rather than two different entities. Often times utilizing a third party in your business results in a relationship I would describe as "us" and "them." In our relationship, it's more about "we." We all strive for a single goal of building a great application. Doing so is mutually beneficial and we all realize that, which allows us to concentrate on being successful at providing user-friendly and effective IVR self-care tools.
Additionally, I think that the teams have been able to form true friendships during our work together.
Call Center Magazine: What are some of the advantages of outsourcing a service like your IVR, rather than handling it in-house? What about challenges?
Mike Uhlenkamp: From my experiences working in both in-house and outsourced environments, I think there are potential advantages and challenges to each.
I think the biggest benefit to using an outsourcer is their experience and your ability as a client to leverage that knowledge. The vendor will usually have a wider range of experience or a greater set of resources to draw upon than an in-house staff. You can draw upon their experience to minimize your risks and to enhance your use of best practices. It can also make venturing into cutting-edge technology easier if you can share the risk with your vendor. Additionally, a vendor sometimes has a bigger incentive to say "yes" than an in-house technical team. That said, even in an outsourced environment, you are often still reliant on in-house technical staff for things such as middle-ware and host-system development.
As for challenges in an outsourced environment, communication is generally more complicated and challenging. Often times there will end up being more parties involved than if everything had been in-house. You may also have to relay communications to your vendor that an in-house team would have picked up during the regular course of business. You will also have to assist the vendor in understanding your business processes, policies, etc. Their core competency lies in the IVR development and though you will generally partner with someone that has experience in your industry, they may not understand your specific business or company. This sharing of knowledge will be an ongoing part of your communication needs. The key thing about our relationship with West is that over our decade-long partnership, they have come to understand our business quite well, so when we work together on initiatives, we spend our time efficiently and effectively on attaining joint goals and objectives rather than discussing basic aspects of our DIRECTV business.
Call Center Magazine: What's the next step in your partnership?
Mike Uhlenkamp: Looking into the future, we see the partnership between DIRECTV and West continuing to grow and develop. We have additional plans to continue moving our IVR applications forward and continuing to improve customer satisfaction and utilization. We have come a long way in providing great self-service tools to our DIRECTV customers.
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Copyright 2006 CMP Media LLC. All rights reserved.
10/1/06, Issue # 1910, page 26.
