Voice-XML is expected to gain a greater hold in the Chinese market over the next four years.
IVR enables callers to conduct phone-based transactions or get routed to the right department or agent through touchtone or speech input. The technology helps companies reduce overhead costs, improve customer service and even increase revenue generation through upsell and cross-sell campaigns.
The next-generation IVR platform technology is based on Voice-XML, an industry open standard. Voice-XML brings the power of the web to telephony applications. Developers can build and extend IVR applications leveraging the same web infrastructure assets, significantly reducing the cost of construction and delivery of new capabilities for the traditional phone customer.
Over 80% of IVR implementations in China today are traditional touchtone IVR systems based on proprietary languages. Maintenance, upgrades and data integration can, therefore, be expensive and complex, causing vendor lock-in and placing companies in technology siloes. Some companies have developed and deployed their own proprietary IVR systems in-house but many of these companies face problems when it comes to scalability and flexibility.
The limitations of traditional IVR systems are finally being exploited in the North American and European markets and this is making inroads into China. Therefore, a growing number of Chinese businesses are investing in Voice-XML platforms not only to prevent vendor lock-in but also to provide more sophisticated levels of caller interaction, such as self-service, enhanced routing and speech recognition.
Many are also turning to Voice-XML to better leverage their existing web and application assets as they look to deploy an IP infrastructure. Key local vendors such as eSoon are among the leaders providing Voice-XML platforms in China. By 2010, China will account for almost 40% of Voice-XML shipments in the Asia Pacific region.
Companies in China have an opportunity to leap-frog past traditional IVR systems to next generation IVR platforms based on the open standard Voice-XML. This provides the levels of interoperability, flexibility and agility needed for businesses to compete more effectively and efficiently in a rapidly expanding consumer market.
