To augment its call-centers, MRS BPO uses IBM Voice Gateway and IBM Watson technology to deploy virtual agents that conduct natural conversations and support consistent, compliant quality. The company takes more calls, provides faster responses, and collects more money per call.
“An industry expert once told us that we would not be able to capture payments using a virtual agent over the phone. We have been doing that, and more, for over a year.” - Alex Pettit, Lead Solutions Architect, MRS BPO, LLC
Business challenge
MRS BPO fields calls at all times of day, attempting to accommodate the needs of its many customers. Resolutions require efficient handling of unique scenarios, but human agents were not always immediately available to assist a customer.
Transformation
MRS implemented IBM Voice Gateway and IBM Watson Assistant software to create a voice agent, Adam, that customers can chat with over the phone. Adam is a trailblazing conversational IVR that needs no human supervision in order to complete transitions, answer questions and redirect customers.
Results
100% reduction in wait times from 1.5 minutes per call to zero minutes
90% greater call capacity without additional agent
20% greater revenue per call vs. human agents
Solution components
Watson Assistant
Watson Speech to Text
Business challenge story
Putting customer service first
MRS BPO continually seeks cutting-edge technologies that it can employ to enhance operations and service. To that end, Chief Innovation Officer Michael Meyer launched a project to bring voice recognition technology to the company’s customer interactions.
Meyer and Lead Solutions Architect Alex Petit developed multiple prototypes of virtual call-center agents, which they named Adam. But these early iterations encountered many difficulties. They could not distinguish many words, and they were not prepared to handle a myriad of typical customer service situations. Ultimately, the prototypes’ inability to filter background sound from foreground sound rendered the technology unusable.
“There were many preliminary iterations of the virtual agent project that we declared failures,” says Pettit. “Failure, however, was our biggest advantage. The Adam we have today was the product of learning from mistakes, ignoring negativity, and remaining on the bleeding edge of technology.”
For the next generation of the project, Meyer, Pettit and team sought a more advanced voice recognition technology.
Transformation
Lifelike conversations without human error
Once MRS engaged the IBM Watson platform and began to utilize its IBM Voice Gateway and IBM Watson Assistant solutions, the potential impact on Adam became obvious to Meyer and Pettit. Virtual agents based on Voice Gateway software handle payment calls, execute rules-based responses to simple or complex requests, and provide natural responses to many questions, such as, “Who is MRS?” and “Why are you calling?”
But MRS continues to iterate and improve the solution. "Adam exists in an agile technology environment," explains Meyer. "We are always learning from his daily interactions and adding more intelligence and capabilities into him." Put simply, Adam only ever makes the same mistake once.
Results story
Enhanced service and greater business results
Jeff Freedman, CEO of MRS, says, "Through Adam, customers are accomplishing many of the same tasks only live agents could address in the past. Furthermore, customers are no longer waiting in long queues for an agent to become available, or limited to calling during normal business hours. When customers engage Adam, they do so by speaking naturally. There’s no need to listen to menu options and repeatedly press numbers on their keypad."
And Adam's impact extends beyond the calls that Adam itself handles. Because Adam handles 17 percent more calls with engaged customers than the company's human agents can, those human agents are now spending 35 percent more time conducting outbound calls and 43 percent more time helping customers with complex requests.
Further, the ability to eliminate human error from collection creates a consistently compliant workplace. Increasingly more corporate clients of MRS are deciding to use the IVR solution to improve call compliance, customer experience, and gross collections. Freedman adds, "Adam’s ability to understand and complete tasks, while handling large volumes of calls, has created operational efficiencies and helped significantly increase recoveries to levels we have never seen previously."
About MRS BPO, LLC
MRS BPO, LLC is a financial services company specializing in accounts receivables management. Technology and advanced solutions development are at the core of the MRS culture and mission. Founded in 1991, MRS has a Fortune 500 client base, and serves seven vertical markets, with three offices across the U.S.
AboutIncede.ai
Incede.ai is the AI division of Locus Solutions, Inc.; harnessing the power of Data, AI and Machine Learning
With more than half of the world’s data in natural language, Incede.ai solves business problems and creates a competitive advantage by leveraging the power of Watson AI and machine learning.As thought leaders, we collaborate with stakeholders to deploy AI solutions that deliver real value.