8/7/2019 APEX First Touch - Contact Steering Strategy - SMS Steering Tactic - Product Brief - 102110

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According to recent studies*, teenagers (13 to 17) send

and receive an average of 3,339 texts/month, whileyoung adults (18 to 24) send and receive an average

of 1,630 texts/month. Among teenagers, texting is

favored over most other forms of communications,

including instant messaging, e-mail, calling, and face-

to-face meetings. Although these studies show that

75 percent of teenagers now have mobile phones, the

calling function is not really a priority, with the average

teenager making only about ve voice calls per day.

This shift in the location and style of the way today’s

younger generation communicates should be a

clear signal to any organization offering mobile and

customer services (e.g. Network Operators, ValueAdded Service Providers, Contact/Call Centers,

Enterprises) that their younger generation customer

base not only prefers, but will most likely demand,

texting (not voice) as the primary method to interact

with them, even when they become adults.

The SMS Steering Tactic of APEX First Touch specically

addresses the inevitable need for text-based services.

By offering texting to their younger users as an

interface to various mobile and customer services,

organizations are better positioning themselves to

minimize churn, while improving their potential for

increasing average revenue per user (ARPU) through

additional text-based value added services. With

this Tactic, organizations can offer Interactive Text

Response (ITR) and rapidly steer “text conversations” to

user-requested automated services.

.SMS Steering Tactic

As one of the Tactics in the Contact Steering Strategy,

the primary objective of SMS Steering is to enable users

to interact with an organization’s self-service system

through texting. By delivering text-based information

through a series of back and forth interactions between

a user’s handset and the Interactive Text Response

(ITR) system, organizations can offer text-based

services through their self-service system.

For example, by entering a specic short code, the

ITR system will enable the functionality of a customer

service menu within a text message, allowing the user

to select the content they are looking for. In such an

interaction, the text conversation may be xed or may

be controlled by input text messages, and/or one or

more external databases and/or computers, etc.

Another text-based service gaining in popularity is

the Interactive Mobile Coupon Service (IMCS), enabling

organizations to promote opt-in interactive offers

to their customers. IMCS leverages the power of the

customer base against vendors interested in promoting

their products and services to a specic demographic

group, bringing value across the entire chain -

Customers - opt-in option (engage/disengage at

will) with time and location based services.

Vendors - access to prospective customers who

choose to be targeted.

Organizations - additional revenue source while

bringing value to the customers base.

Other Tactics in the Contact Steering Strategy include

Intelligent Routing, Call Steering and USSD Steering.

*Nielsen Company; Pew Internet & American Life Project

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APEX First Touch™SMS SteeringTactic

Offer Interactive Text Response (ITR)and rapidly steer “text conversations”to user-requested automatedservices.

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Enhancing APEX First Touch Dialogs

A Dialog is the automated “conversation” between the

user and the self-service system, and consists of one

or more Strategies and their Tactics. Dialogs enable

organizations to clearly dene how to enhance the user

experience, lower costs and improve automation rates.

  Strategy  Tactic

IVR/IVVR Optimization Language Control

Personal Greeting

Announcement

Call Prediction

Contact Steering Intelligent Routing

Call Steering

SMS Steering

USSD Steering

Agent Pre-Queue Agent Call back

Up- and Cross-Sell

Customer Validation

Address Validation

Call Recording

Post Call Survey

Notication

IVR/IVVR Optimization: Enhance the User Experience

This Strategy focuses on making the frequent user feel

known, welcome, and appreciated by personalizing

their experience. IVR/IVVR Optimization uses whatis known about the user (via web services, customer

databases, etc.), and collects information for future

use (via customer speech or touch-tone input). Most

importantly, this Strategy implements the business

rules to make it easy to use the information.

Contact Steering: Shorten Call Duration

Shorter calls mean more satised users and the

potential for repeat business. Through knowing the

user, anticipating their need, and letting them express

what they specically want with an open question,

instead of suggesting every option, users are steered

to their desired destination quickly and effortlessly.Shorter calls also mean efcient organizations who

save money by using fewer resources.

APEX First Touch SMS Steering Tactic

Agent Pre-Queue: Reduce Agent Time

Making better use of hold-time can easily enhance the

user experience and increase potential revenue. This

Strategy collects and passes information to live agents,

allowing calls to be handled quicker and efciently.

Additionally, with this Strategy the user has more

choices while on hold, including hanging up and being

called back by a live agent. Organizations can also

increase revenue without taking more live agent time,

by up- and cross-selling products to callers while on-

hold, instead of at the end of each call.

Post Call: Survey and Notication

Based on the APEX SDP™, APEX First Touch can

automate follow-ups and conrmations through its

multi-modal capabilities using phone, fax and e-mail.

Additionally, customer satisfaction can be measured

and improved through surveys at the end of the call.Getting users the information they want faster with less

effort, and getting to know the user through surveys

are key benets of the APEX First Touch.

Key Benets of SMS Steering

Offer Texting as an Interface to Customer Service

Steer Text Conversation to Automated Services

Meet the Demand of Teenagers and Young Adults

Increase ARPU with Additional Text-Based Services

Enable Immediate Automated Responses with ITR

The Need for SMS SteeringFollowing are some of the signs pointing to the need

for the SMS Steering Tactic:

The fastest growing segment of the customer base

is teenagers and young adults.

Overall text usage is increasing, while voice usage

is at or decreasing.

Offer additional revenue-generating value added

services such as Interactive Mobile Coupon Service.

APEX Service Delivery Platform (SDP)

The APEX SDP™ is a mature, eld-proven and future-

proof platform. Its distributed architecture andredundancy options ensure scalability, reliability and

high-availability, while its OmniVox3D® Application

Server and OmniView Service Creation Environment/

OAM&P Console offer rapid application deployment

needed to stay ahead of the competition.

Since 1989 and across 95 countries, over 250 Network

Operators, Call/Contact Centers, VASPs, and thousands

of Enterprises, have relied on APEX for their mission-

critical and revenue-generating enhanced services.

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www.apexvoice.com sales@apexvoice.com

+1 818.379.8400 +1 800.727.3970 (USA)

© 2010 APEX Voice Communications, Inc. Specications are subject to change without notice. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Rev. 10.21.10

Dialog