iCabbi customers are enjoying huge leaps in automation right now – and it’s all down to the newly released Voice+ Product. An upgrade to the Voice IVR & Phone Solution that allows you to automate calls for new pick up locations using intelligent voice recognition input. It also allows for much more control over your availability to service work including driver availability, bookings currently awaiting dispatch, traffic light control and dynamic ETAs. Voice+ allows you to offer the customer a better experience overall, whilst automatically scaling your bookings ensuring you no longer over book. So let’s look at the pros and cons of Voice+.
Reduce the Need to Speak to a Live Operator
Historically, the Core IVR within iCabbi Voice allows a passenger to book from 3 historical pick-up locations (i.e. “If you would like to book a taxi, press 1 for Big Ben, press 2 for London Eye, press 3 for Buckingham Palace or press 0 to speak to an Operator”). Now, with the introduction of Voice+ your passenger will be offered to speak a custom pick up location without the need to speak to a live Operator (i.e.“Please clearly tell me your pickup address including the area”). Your passenger will speak their answer and the booking is made. Previously any new pick-up locations would have resulted in the call being transferred to a live Operator, these can now be handled entirely within Voice+. Less people required to answer means significant cost-savings for fleets.
Self-managed and Entirely Customisable
One of the great benefits of the Voice+ Product is the fact that it is self-managed and entirely customisable. We are giving our customers full control to create their own call experience all done through a call flow so you can see the end to end journey. This means you can make real time changes to your scripts and flows and tweak them to whatever works for your business at a given time. You can choose to turn different settings on or off, and can edit what Voice+ says to passengers when they call in. This means you can route even more calls into Voice+ and give a different call experience depending on their requirements.
Destination on your Bookings
An area that seems to divide customers is the requirement to take a destination on your bookings. Some fleets must take a destination for customers. With Voice+, destinations are now possible. It’s the same as the voice input for pick-ups, except the passenger is also asked to say the final destination. In addition, we can also use your existing iCabbi address database and use zones / areas for drop-offs. I get a lot of questions from customers on this. I compiled the pros and cons of Voice+, and my recommendations to help decide if this product is suitable for your business.
The Pros
- Previously, fleets requiring a destination could not gain from automation through Voice, as more operators were required to answer calls. Now, these fleets can benefit from huge leaps in automation.
- Drivers are provided with the customers drop off destination before pickup
- Dispatch have a clearer picture of driver availability
- Passengers can be provided with a fixed or approximate fare
The Cons
- The booking process is longer to complete. Adding a destination will approximately increase the call time by approximately 30 seconds.
- The driver can update their own destination as they did when using the standard IVR
- Uptake % is not as high as when destination is not enabled
- Customers don’t always know their final destination. Some customers direct drivers to a location as they may not know the actual address.
Recommendations
- Understand what it is you want to achieve. Is automation your primary goal? If so, then you probably want to make the passenger experience as quick and easy as possible. Is the destination is critical to running your fleet? You may be willing to concede some call drop-offs, that could occur, if voice input for a destination is mandatory.
- Agree on what booking fields are a must on every booking, is an exact destination required? Or would an area be sufficient?
- Is a destination required 100% of the time? Is it possible that during specific times or days that destination may not be required? If so, when taking a booking you can advise customers during peak periods that a destination is required. During quieter times you can simply turn off destinations.
- Can a customer skip the option if required? Yes, if a customer is in a rush you can give them the option to skip that step.
- Be willing to test. One of the key benefits of Voice+ is the fact that it is completely self-managed and highly customisable. So, you’ll be able to try out different flows at different times and measure your results. You’ll then be able to read the data to help you decide what is best for your fleet.
Want to upgrade to Voice+?
Contact the Voice team https://icabbi.com/products/voice/