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Hammacher Schlemmer Toasts Customers with A New Vintage of Automated Services
Upscale Retailer Uses Voxify's Automated Agents to Improve Customer Service and Organizational Efficiency
Alameda, CA - January 17, 2005 - The high-touch experience has finally moved from the marble floors of upscale 5th Avenue retailers to the call center using Automated Agents. Alameda, CA-based Voxify, the first company to create Automated Agents for call centers with the conversational skills to handle advanced customer service calls, today announced its breakthrough conversational technology is being used by upscale catalog retailer Hammacher Schlemmer. The deal marks the latest retail client for Voxify after a highly successful history serving travel and hospitality customers such as Continental Airlines (NYSE: CAL), Aer Lingus Airlines, Wyndham International, and World Choice Travel, part of Travelocity.
Voxify Automated Agents are being tasked to expand the live agent teams for Hammacher Schlemmer. For example, Voxify Agents will help clients track purchases they've made or items they've returned as well as request a catalog or change their mail preference. A high-touch business, Hammacher Schlemmer has had its well-trained human agents covering these tasks in the past. However, these calls generate no revenue, and could keep other valuable clients on hold. This is an especially protracted problem during the Holidays. Voxify will address this problem in the future by providing instant, 24 x 7 access to service, freeing live agents to deliver the personalized touch that has defined Hammacher Schlemmer for more than 150 years. Moreover, the firm expects that, when deployed, Voxify Automated Agents will significantly reduce the cost of handling order tracking and catalog request calls.
"We chose Voxify because we never compromise on quality. Our customers come to us not only for the best products but also the best experience, and so we apply a very high standard to all of our automated service systems. Voxify was the only speech-driven system that met all of our requirements," said Don Rogers, Vice President of Operations for Hammacher Schlemmer.
"The retail sector is ripe for automation," said Adeeb Shanaa, CEO of Voxify." Consider this past Holiday season. Here in the U.S alone, more than $23.2 billion in goods and services were purchased online. Customers who, by definition, are comfortable being served by automated systems were the driving force behind that e-tailing success. We believe this group will continue to increase because of advances in the technology designed to serve them. We also believe that's why retailers such as Hammacher Schlemmer are turning to Voxify Automated Agents to give their customers instant access to the services they need with the high-touch experience they expect."
Concluded Rogers, "Voxify stands out because its unique technology caters to the caller, rather than the other way around. We expect nothing less from any agent we hire, human or automated."
Breakthrough Conversation Engine Technology
Voxify Automated Agents are built for advanced customer service calls, such as fare finder and reservations, and can accommodate customers with varying amounts of information.
High conversational usability requires complex call path maps to handle the many variant call paths that a customer service call can take. Voxify has solved this challenge with its patented Conversation Engine technology, a breakthrough for automating the development and maintenance of highly usable speech applications. The Conversation Engine imbues the Automated Agents with advanced conversational skills, enabling them to engage callers in sophisticated dialogue, and understanding multiple pieces of information in a single response or adjusting to unexpected information provided by the caller. As a result, callers experience an Automated Agent who understands how to give them what they need quickly and easily, closely approximating the effectiveness of a human being.
Building A Retail Franchise from Success in The Travel Industry
Voxify has deep experience in the travel industry, serving millions of calls for some of the industry's largest and most successful airlines and hotel chains. Among its clients are Continental Airlines, Wyndham International, World Choice Travel, a unit of Travelocity, and Pegasus Solutions. Voxify is transferring the characteristics that have made it successful in travel and hospitality to the retail industry. Among these are the ability to scale up to meet spikes in call volume instantly and the conversational flexibility to handle everything from package tracking to orders to service calls with minimal tuning, and with practically zero capital investment. These attributes, provided through Voxify's patent-pending Conversation Engine technology, are ideal for retailers struggling to deal with the sudden spikes in call volume that come from sales, holidays, and major new product rollouts.
About Voxify
Voxify is the first company to create automated call center agents with the conversational skills to handle advanced customer service calls. Powered by the company's patented Voxify Conversation Engine, Voxify Automated Agents model the intelligence and personality of a trained live agent, allowing them to engage callers in sophisticated dialogue to perform advanced customer service functions, such as reservations, call routing, and account requests. Voxify Automated Agents are taking calls today for market leaders such as Continental Airlines, Wyndham International and Hammacher Schlemmer, helping them to be more responsive to their customers while delivering new services, closing more sales, and handling unplanned call volumes without hiring additional staff. Voxify headquarters are in Alameda, CA. For more information, call 510 545 5000 or visit www.voxify.com.
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