Pictured: Hertz’s Teresa Purtill with Damovo’s John McCabe
Damovo, the business communications provider, has set up an advanced speech recognition system for Hertz at its European service centre in Swords, Co. Dublin.
The intelligent customised solution is expected to handle more than 100,000 telephone calls in the first year alone.
Hertz, which has over 8,100 offices in 147 countries, opened its Swords centre in 1996. It now employs 1,100 people of 30 nationalities, mostly as reservations agents who collectively answer over 5 million customer calls a year. Because many of these calls are simple and routine enquiries, Hertz sought an automated self-service application to reduce waiting times, increase sales and offer customers more flexibility.
The result was that Damovo won a seven-figure contract to provide an automated speech recognition system for the Swords centre. Customers simply speak to a virtual agent, which then answers inquiries covering branch information and requests to check, modify or cancel bookings. The virtual agent identifies reservations, makes changes if required, and verbally confirms changes to customers.
Hertz says it is benefitting from rising revenues, lower costs and better resource management – particularly when managing call-volume spikes at peak times.
Damovo’s solution is based on open architecture and integrates fully with Hertz’s telephony system. It has incorporated software from Nuance Communications, with Damovo providing 24-7 support.
Teresa Purtill, director of European reservations and customer services at Hertz, said the system provides customers with a more efficient service. “Our reservation agents are also happier as they have more time to focus on customer sales calls.”
Damovo MD John McCabe said: “This highly-intuitive system uses natural language to offer self-service options to an increasingly mobile and time-conscious customer base.” He said the project “pushes automated speech technology further into the mainstream.”
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