A Cork-headquartered software firm has signed up five of the top 10 debt collection agencies in Britain to use its automated voice messaging software in the 12 months since it entered the market.
VoiceSage has developed technology that enables large amounts of telephone numbers to be dialled automatically. A tailored message can then be played to the recipient of the call. At the end of the message, the recipient is provided with a selection of options, which they choose from by pressing the corresponding button on their phone keypad.
Call-centre costs drop dramatically as live agents are only required to deal with the exceptions, explains Paul Sweeney, VoiceSage's European marketing director.
"By lowering the cost of the average call, you can cover more instances and so improve the quality of customer care," says Sweeney.
Indesit/Hotpoint, for example, uses the software to ensure customers will be at home at the allotted time for a delivery. Customers due a delivery are called and told their allotted delivery time - they can simply accept it by pressing one key or, if it is not convenient, they press another key and are patched through to a call centre to arrange a new time. The system has cut the call costs associated with each delivery from £2.80 to 40p (€4 to 57 cent).
The software runs on a web-based platform that VoiceSage hosts on behalf of its clients, who are charged on a per-transaction basis.
"We can then sell it into a department of a company, rather than having to look for a big company spend," says Sweeney.
"They also don't need their IT department to get up and running."
Voice messages can be recorded using a standard microphone connected to a PC, while the data on customer phone numbers can be pulled from a spreadsheet.
Founded in 2003, the company currently employs 12 staff in Britain and Ireland. It has been funded to date through a combination of private individuals and Enterprise Ireland backing.
Sweeney says the company will be profitable within the next year and it has funding in place to see it through to this point.
The company has developed versions of the software for logistics, collections, marketing and contact management. As a result, it has been winning business from a variety of Irish and British blue-chip customers, including Irish Broadband, debt collection agency Interim Justicia, catalogue seller Scotts of Stow, and Endsleigh Insurance.
Sweeney says customers can configure the system to automatically authenticate the recipient of the call using an interactive response challenge, while unanswered calls or those that go to voicemail are reported automatically.
