Renée Epple from Guthy|Renker provides a case study using the Spoken Smart IVR>

1. Is Your IVR Smarter Than a 5th Grader?
Spoken Smart IVR Case Study
Renée Epple, Guthy|Renker

2. 2
The client
Introduction to Guthy|Renker
Guthy|Renker is a $1.5 billion direct
marketing company, one of the largest
and most respected in the world, with
distribution in 68 countries. Founded in
1988, Guthy|Renker has discovered
and developed dozens of well-loved,
high quality consumer products in the
beauty, skincare, entertainment and
wellness categories. Familiar brands
include Proactiv, Wen Hair Care by
Chaz Dean, and Cindy Crawford’s
Meaningful Beauty.
• Proactiv
• Wen Hair Care by Chaz Dean
• Cindy Crawford’s Meaningful Beauty

3. 3
Challenge
Direct Marketing company sought responsiveness
Starting point
• Seeking an IVR
• Replace incumbent
menu-based IVR
Basic needs
• Identify the caller
• Determine caller
intent
• Automatically and
efficiently route the
caller to the correct
queue
Requirements
• Nimble A/B testing
capabilities
• Test every IVR call
flow element
• Test, evaluate and
iterate regularly
• Proven user-friendly
and responsive
experience
• Incremental
improvement with
each IVR iteration

4. 4
Goals
Stated goals for Spoken Smart IVR implementation at G|R
• Improve caller
identification rates
• Improve caller intent
rates and thereby
routing accuracy
• Evaluate access to
agile IVR interactions
for continual testing
and improvement

5. 5
Approach
Pilot plan implementation and evaluation
Pilot
• Implement at 60-day
pilot for a
percentage of call
volume for a single
brand
• Focus on immediate
goals of improving
caller ID and caller
intent rates
Evaluate
• Use caller ID and
caller intent rates to
determine success
• Experiment with
very important ability
to iterate the IVR to
determine if the
flexibility was
valuable
Expand
• If both the
immediate goals
and flexibility
experiment were
successful, expand
to full call volume for
that brand and to
other brands as well

6. 6
Process
Redundant, live-live system for reliability
• Spoken Smart IVR
implemented as a fully
redundant cloud
• Geographically
diverse data centers
• Live-live configuration
• High availability with
no business disruption

7. 7
Process
Integrated call flow
ACD integration
The Spoken Smart IVR was integrated with the existing
ACD, which created a session ID and then handed the
call to the Spoken Smart IVR.
Spoken Smart IVR
Key tasks were: determine ANI match, ID the caller and
the caller intent. Attributes from client data cache were
used to determine the best call flow match for caller
intent.
Handoff
Then the SSIVR hands the call back to the legacy ACD
to route the call to a self-service IVR module or a live
agent with screen pop of caller ID and intent.

8. A gradual transition

9. 9
Rollout kickoff
One brand, 10% of call volume
• Began with a core brand
• Spoken Smart IVR handled 10% of the core
brand call volume
• 60 days
• Success
• In that time, iterated through a dozen A/B panels
• Showed definite improved match rate for caller ID
and intent
• Rolled out to 100% of core brand call volume

10. 10
Additional brand rollout
In two phases: 30% one week and 100% the following

11. Results: 10% containment
10% containment in self-service for one brand
11
• Call data revealed that callers
were unclear on how to use
the product
• Added voiceover to the call
flow instructing on the
product’s proper use
• 10% of eligible calls were
handled exclusively within the
self-service Spoken Smart IVR

12. The biggest benefit of the Spoken Smart IVR is the
ability to grow and iterate the IVR in a fluid and
continuous manner.

13. Results: 47% containment
47% containment in self-service for order status queries
13
• Caller uses order status keyword
such as “package” or “shipment”
• Automated API pulls up past and
upcoming ship dates and package
tracking information
• Spoken Smart IVR reads back
whichever is most applicable based
on business rules
• Results:
• 23% self-service containment rate
for order status queries
• 24% referral to other self-service
• 25% well-qualified callers to
agents to place orders

14. Results: putting wrong info to good use
An innovative solution to a call flow conundrum
14
• Callers were asked for house
number
• Spoken team noticed some callers
were entering 10 digits
• Guessed that the callers were
entering a phone number
• Suggested to run the input as
phone numbers
• New initiative to automatically run
any 10-digit input as a phone number
• Returned an additional 2% match

15. The Spoken system’s agility and flexibility allows us
to immediately address caller issues that we
discover through the call data.

16. 16
Business impact
Measured results
Increased caller ID rate
Increased caller identification rate by around 10
percentage points
Increased caller intent rate
Increased caller intent identification by around 10
percentage points
Self-service containment
Contained 10-45% of callers in customized self-service
modules

17. 17
Key benefits
A flexible solution providing valuable insights
Agility
Provided a
nimble
system for
simple A/B
testing to
iterate the
best caller
experience
possible
Improve
Improved
caller ID
and caller
intent rated
by around
10
percentage
points
Innovation
Offered
productive
and creative
solutions to
challenges
Reliability
Upgraded
to a fully
redundant,
high
availability
cloud
system
Professionals
Engaged,
action-oriented
thought
leaders
were fully
invested
in
understan
ding and
driving
client
business
success

18. This is the smartest and most engaged vendor
partner team I can ever recall working with. The
Spoken team always added incremental thought
leadership that continually takes the dialogue above
and beyond.

19. Is Your IVR Smarter Than a 5th Grader?
Spoken Smart IVR Case Study
Renée Epple, Guthy|Renker