IVR Solutions

This section of our technical library presents information and documentation relating to IVR Solutions and custom IVR software and products. Business billpay phone systems and toll free answering systems (generally 800 numbers and their equivalent) are very popular for service and sales organizations, allowing customers and prospects to call your organization anywhere in the country. The PACER and WIZARD IVR System is just one of many DSC call center phone system features..

Contact DSC today. to learn more about our IVR services and IVR application development software.

Fleet uses IVR to smooth employee benefits administration - Fleet Services Corp.'s interactive voice response system

Communications News, March, 1993 by Miana Franzen

During employee benefits enrollment season, the Human Resources (HR) Departments of various Fleet organizations had to process up to 30,000 enrollment forms submitted by employees.

These forms had to be first checked by HR for gross errors or omissions. Then the data would be entered and batched electronically for further processing by the HR System. The system would go through multiple iterations of edits until all input was ready for posting.

The process was error-prone and labor intensive for HR and Fleet Services Corp. When Fleet Financial Group began to consolidate its benefits administration into a corporate facility, the Corporate HR Director decided that the enrollment process and many other routine HR functions needed to be automated.

The Fleet voice response applications were implemented by the Systems Development Division of Fleet Services Corp. I am part of the Systems Development Division, and my principal responsibility is business planning for electronic banking systems.

Fleet operated various response systems in its banking and non-banking subsidiaries for years. Its banking systems include an older teller audio service, phone billpayers, as well as the more recent customer voice response systems in several banks.

We are a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fleet Financial Group, a $45 billion diversified financial services company. The seven subsidiary banks of Fleet Financial Group are located throughout the Northeast; its financial services subsidiaries operate nationwide. Fleet Services Corp. is responsible for the corporation's data processing and bank operations activities.

Corporate HR and Fleet Services worked together to define the requirements and the design of the voice response systems for support of various HR functions. The most immediate need was to automate the Flex enrollment process.

Calls are directed to the Providence, R.I.-based Rolm switch. A caller may exit to Corporate HR in Providence at any time.

The system eliminates calls to and from HR which were needed to clarify, clean up and complete the enrollment process. It eliminates clerical time associated with data entry of enrollment and change forms. Overtime was usually a big component here. And it eliminates programming time needed for support of repeated reruns of enrollment data.

In the future we will have 401K information and transaction request support for changes in contributions and investment directions, as well as loan requests. Pension information based on pre-calculated data will be available; additional if/then answers will be mailed on request.

Administrative support for routine policy inquiry, vacation/sick day status information, and message center will be available.

Earlier, Fleet had decided to enhance its customer service by offering to all its banking customers a 24-hour, 7-day a week voice response information service. A centralized Fleet Anser Center was implemented in 1990 in conjunction with that voice response service. The service provided by the system includes deposit account information (balances, deposits, checks, ATM/POS transactions), product rates, seasonal taxable interest, and soon-to-be-implemented stop payments.

Our Answer Center voice response system involves an AT&T telephone switch and Perception Technology Vocom V running Amarex application software. The initial configuration had four 96-line BT-III's to accommodate additional call volume due to Fleet's 1991 acquisition of Bank of New England.

Several months after the Fleet Answer Center voice response implementation, we deployed another system for credit card and home equity service. This Vocom V configuration began with one 32-line BT-II and was recently expanded to two 48-line BT-III's.

Fleet Answer Center is located in Utica, N.Y., while Fleet Credit Card Services is in Niagara Falls. The 800-number customer calls are directed to those two locations to minimize the cost of call transfers. However, both systems are monitored from the Data Center in Albany, where Network Operations covers them on a 24-hour, 7-day a week basis.

This voice response system architecture gave us highly reliable service. Call volumes equaled our most optimistic projections. The fact that 75% of all calls are fully satisfied by the voice response system attests to the success of the implementation.

We have implemented and are currently working with product developers and users to formulate plans for several traditional and non-traditional voice response applications.

Our Treasury Express provides Fleet cash management clients with informational and transactional functionality.