Market Strategies International, a full-service custom and syndicated research and strategic consulting firm, is about to release its innovative and proprietary 2008 IVR-ASR Energy (Interactive Voice Response and Automated Speech Recognition) Benchmarking Report that examines and ranks the effectiveness of systems developed by energy companies.
The IVR-ASR Energy Utilities Benchmarking Report identifies the electric, gas and combination utilities that rank highest, along with ratings for both touchtone and speech recognition systems. The results are examined from both the company and customer perspective. It identifies those companies whose menu systems successfully balance internal objectives and customer preferences based on three key measures: functionality, usability and aesthetics.
"What makes this study valuable to energy companies is that they can learn which best practices their competitors are using and incorporate those into their strategy," said Mark Camack, Market Strategies vice president and one of the study's authors. "It also highlights the typical mistakes that have been made and how those mistakes can impact a company."
The report shows that DTE Energy's "press or say" system ranks #1 overall, with the highest total score ever given to an energy utility as part of this annual report. PacifiCorp (Pacific Power & Rocky Mountain Power), Louisville Gas & Electric (now a part of E.ON US), Union Gas (Ontario), Citizens Gas & Coke Utility and Portland General Electric have also been recognized in the report for their "best in class" performance, along with nine other Top Quartile companies.
The Top Quartile of companies will be revealed by Camack at Conferences Connect's Customer Contact Management for Utilities event April 22-23, 2008, in Las Vegas.
Market Strategies International's IVR Benchmarking Report is an expert review, conducted by four senior IVR-Usability specialists. The 60 companies included in the 2008 report were all called in the first quarter of 2008, and evaluated using a consistent, proprietary scoring template developed by the Market Strategies International evaluators. No pre-subscription to the report is required, and additional companies not included in the original benchmark may be added, since the evaluation and scoring process can be replicated.
Subscribers who place an e-mail order by May 15 will pay just $995 for this comprehensive report. The cost is $1,495 after May 15. Study subscribers receive a free, proprietary teleconference analysis tailored to that company's IVA-ASR menu structure with Market Strategies' system evaluators. Subscribers can also receive hands-on analysis on how their systems compare both in functionality, usability and aesthetics.
A free webinar is available for those interested in learning more about the IVR-ASR Energy Benchmarking Report at 2 p.m. EDT (11 a.m. PDT) on Thursday, May 8.
