Driving down enquiry times

Citation

(2004), "Driving down enquiry times", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 53 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijppm.2004.07953dab.014

Driving down enquiry times

BMW Group is using ScanSoft’s SpeechPearl speech recognition software and RealSpeak text-to-speech software to resolve queries made to the BMW internal hotline. Scansoft claims that BMW has cut in half the time it takes to resolve enquiries from the 100,000 employees. The speech solution supports both German and English languages, and was implemented by computer telephony integrator Flintec.

As part of the implementation, Flintec updated BMW’s previous touchtone system, which is integrated with a Remedy IT service management solution, and a Genesys digital telephony solution.

When an internal BMW customer calls the English or German IT hotline number, they are connected to an operator who brings up their details and asks about the query. The operator then looks in the knowledge database to see if an identical query has previously been solved. If it has, they can remotely fix the problem or advise the customer.

If not, the query is elevated to the level-two support group. After examining the query, level two support personnel will respond to the query, if possible, or elevate it to the level-three support group, making it a high priority query.

When a query associated with a particular internal customer is elevated to high priority status, the system immediately telephones the appropriate standby technician and connects that technician to the Remedy database.

The RealSpeak system accesses the query from the database, and reads the description to the technician. The speech system guides the technician through a series of questions. In this way, the technician is able to solve the query by interacting with the speech-activated Remedy system.