FOR A PROFESSIONAL VUI-DESIGN

 

1. ANALYSIS

Only a thorough analysis of all requirements – in your company and of your customers – will ensure a functional implementation!

• Determination of the needs and objectives of customer consultants, marketing, management, IT; and their requirements for a VUI-Design (Voice User Interface-Design).
• Inclusion of studies and market analyses defined through the preferences, criteria, and requirements of customer groups.
• On the basis of the analyses a detailed definition of all requirements is developed.

Only taking all factors into account will provide an adequate VUI-Design.

 

 2.  USER-CENTERED VUI-DESIGN

A professional VUI-Design is always based on user perspectives.

• How would the caller prefer to have the conversation?
• How can I implement this preference for accomplishing my purposes?

The customer’s requirements, expectations, and procedure preferences must be focused on throughout the entire product cycle.

3. VUI-DESIGN AND QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Voice dialog and the corresponding hardware must be integrated as investment into QM!

• Generating business objectives based on criteria for successful performance and operating figures:
  Customer satisfaction, calling completion ratio, comparison with competitors.
• Early developing and testing of prototypes to get feedback on usability – as input for further optimization procedures.
• Regular performance of automated and repeatable testing procedures to identify and eliminate weak points.

By combining reporting and testing data you achieve transparency of quality.

 

4. LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT

A professional VUI-Design requires regular administration!

Please note:

• Individual parts of a voice user interface – such as prompt texts, personas, features, dialog sequences, and grammars – are strongly dependent on each other.  Uncoordinated replacements of single details may cause the design to become defective.
• The first version of a VUI is NEVER the best! Only a life cycle management allows for a perfect VUI design!

Therefore:

• For changes and additions, only standardized and well-planned handling on the basis of a life cycle management method can guarantee constant quality!
• Include a continuous, professional VUI administration in your planning.
• Implement regular control mechanisms and testing solutions to guarantee quality assurance – i.e. through usability tests and user feedback interviews as well as expert analysis and evaluating reporting data.

Generate key performance figures from your reporting data to adapt to your purposes when administrating your VUI design.

 

5. THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY

Choose an adequate technology and make the best use of innovative technologies!

• Choose a voice recognition designed for special applications to achieve a maximum recognition ratio – taking into account dialects, foreign languages, and natural language understanding (NLU).
• Check whether the respective application requires a voice synthesis (text to speech TTS) or TTA.
• Provide for the right configuration of the product parameters through experts.
• Consider dependencies – e.g. in case of database connections via backend integration on the internet.

Implement innovative technologies as a basis for a flexible VUI design – after making sure they are fully developed.

 

6. DIFFERENTIATED EVENT HANDLING STRATEGY

Your clients will appreciate consistent event handling – inconsistencies are unsettling and annoying – only the weak points of the VUI will be remembered!

• Do not always repeat the whole question, sometimes a simple “Pardon…” is sufficient.
• It is necessary to introduce context sensitive error correction for complex voice dialogs.
• Provide clear input options for the caller in case of recognition problems.
• For multiple errors: Never show same reaction to errors. Instead, introduce a multi-stage error correction – including random prompting.
• Always install a help function available from anywhere.
• Provide for an assignment to a customer service representative as final escalation level.

In error situations, a customer-friendly VUI design becomes apparent– inexperienced callers will not become desperate as they are guided step by step through the program.

 

7.  THE SPOKEN TEXT

Create texts for listening!

• An effective VUI design does not have to include an actual person at the other end of the line.
• It avoids phrases from written texts and instead uses words and vocabulary that is familiar to the caller: “Create texts for listening….”
• Questions need answers – causing correct “turn-takings”:
  Target group-specific phrases require specific response phrases. This way higher recognition rates can be achieved through predictable responses.
• For multilingual dialogs: Pay attention to special characteristics of the individual languages.
• Implement barge-in to allow the caller to interrupt just like in a person-to-person dialog.
• Record the prompts by using a natural accentuation: Melody and rhythm increase user acceptance and help to remember contents.

The new generation of voice recognition allows for a customer-friendly VUI design offering a variety of options to create natural dialog sequences.

 

8. THE RIGHT VOICE – CORPORATE VOICE

Target group-oriented choice of person and style of speaking –the right voice that goes with your company.

Please note:

• The right choice of voice is crucial for the Hear & Feel of voice dialogs and thus customer acceptance!
• Callers deduce a number of characteristics from the voice on the other end of the line – such as origin, social context, sympathy, or aversion – and transfer that impression to their attitude toward the company.

Therefore:

• Careful and target-oriented choice of person and way of speaking.
• Use of experienced speakers with trained voices.
• Early commitment of a specific person as wording, tone of announcements, and dialog structure are developed according to his or her voice.
• Use of specialist expertise and professional studio equipment for high quality recording and post-production– with specialists in charge of the recording.

Voice coaching guarantees the correct implementation of the prosody and speaking style of your choice.

 

9. APPLICATION OF ADDITIONAL AUDIO-MATERIAL

Music and sounds increase the value in use and allow you to stand out among competitors through corporate branding!

• Attach sounds, music, and earcons to menu items and operations to increase the memorability of contents and to improve caller orientation in the dialog sequence.
• By applying additional audio material, customer satisfaction with using automated voice dialogs can be improved.
• Already existing resources, such as jingles or speakers from radio or TV advertising spots, should be used  ‡ audio branding.
• Optimal Hear & Feel because of non-speech audio material.

Only a subtle use of additional audio material will be effective. Acoustic overload of the VUI should be avoided by all means.

 

10. OFFERING THE RIGHT MIX

Customer satisfaction will best be achieved, if it is possible to switch flexibly in both directions – between automated speech dialog and customer consultant.

• Intelligent bridging of waiting times: If the telephone connection of the desired customer consultant is busy, a voice portal with individual information can take over and inform about the current degree of occupancy or waiting time.
• A well-working VUI design allows the customer to easily switch from voice dialog to customer consultant – for many users this is an incentive to use voice self services without calling a customer consultant.
• From customer service counseling, the customer can be forwarded in different ways to the voice dialog for further operations/information.
• Application of so-called “assisted services”: This is a combination of self service and contact to customer service, such as entering customer data and legitimizing the customer by voice computer followed by a personal customer counseling.

Intelligently combining personal customer counseling and automated voice dialog is part of a professional VUI design.

 

11. WELL-ARRANGED DIALOG DESIGN

Keep it simple! Only a well-arranged dialog guarantees easy handling!

Please note:

• Graphic user interfaces (GUI) offer a number of input boxes in parallel. By contrast, with VUI information is mostly entered sequentially and thus comparatively slowly.

Therefore:

• Provide for redundancy, especially for applications that are rarely used: Repetitions support the caller´s short-term memory.
• Offer clear options and install so-called “short cuts” for experienced users to lead them quickly through the program and to not bore them.
• Arrange for an adaptive adjustment of the dialog sequence for specific user profiles – depending on the usage frequency of the respective customer.

To consider a fast way to access the desired information with variations in the VUI design supports customer acceptance of automated voice dialogs.

 

12. VOICE USER INTERFACE PROMOTION

Make customers aware of VUI benefits and familiarize them with handling it!

Main benefits are:

• 24/7 availability
• Access from anywhere via voice
• Easy technology – telephone or cell phone
• No waiting time
• Voice is fast and direct
• Voice is the most natural form of communication
• An automated system is always in a good mood
• Optimization of dialog sequences through as few entry confirmation requests as possible
• Speeding up dialog sequences by implementing asynchronous plausibility checks in the background – e.g. via the customer database
• Finding the right mix between self service (VUI), partial self service (VUI & customer consultant) and assisted service (customer consultant) for your target group.
• Playing with language features: Language causes emotions, is individual, friendly, focused, functional, entertaining, target group-specific.

Automated voice dialogs are available round the clock, from anywhere and easily – by voice via telephone or cell phone – and cost-effective and without any waiting time.

 

ARE YOU LOOKING FOR THE PERFECT VOICE DIALOG?

Increase your customer satisfaction. Telenet experts are happy to support and advise you on the different ways to achieve it. Contact our sales team to schedule an appointment, telephone: +49 89 36073-260, e-mail: .