Businesses are more likely to use automated systems to answer call centre calls then to put enquiries through to call centre staff, revealed research from Dimension Data.
A survey of over 200 contact centres worldwide showed that 54% of those asked used fully automated Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology to answer basic and routine transactions.
It also revealed that those customers who are put through to call centre staff are now more likely to be connected to an IVR system to complete their enquiry, with over 40% of centres asked employing manual-to-auto technology, compared with the 7% who used it in 1999.
The Merchants Global Contact Centre Benchmarking Report from Dimension Data showed that 44% of all call centres plan to upgrade current IVR systems or to deploy new speech recognition technology within their centres in the next two years, compared with the 6% who currently used it.
Jean-Marc Pajot, Dimension Data's managing director of customer interactive solutions, Europe, said: "Cost containment pressures have meant that contact centres are increasingly viewing self-service technologies, such as speech recognition, as a cost reduction too. Experience has shown that between 30-40% of transactions that are currently performed in contact centres could be resolved without any involvement of a live human agent.
"Because voice remains the major channel used in contact centres, speech self-service technologies have proved their efficiency in reducing operational costs when implemented correctly. However, businesses must realise that the choice to use such self-service channels should always remain firmly with the customer."
