InterVoice's RobotOperator handles mundane HR tasks - Software Review - Evaluation

HR Magazine, June, 1994 by Jim Meade

It's Monday morning, and you know the big things you intend to do in the coming five days. Maybe you need to counsel a supervisor on moving into middle management, advise someone having difficulty with a pregnancy, or renegotiate rates with a health insurer.

But, like most HR departments, yours is probably understaffed. And, as the day begins, routine tasks dose in. You postpone big things as you answer the same small questions over and over. "How much vacation time do I have coming?" "How much is the balance in my 401(k) account?" "Are there any other jobs available in the company in my specialty?" "Can you take down my new address?"

Thanks to a technology called interactive voice response--used, for example, in the RobotOperator/401(k) from InterVoice Inc.--you can now have a computer answer the mundane questions, setting you free to pay more attention to higher questions.

"It puts the human back into human resources," says Tom Hunse, vice president of marketing for InterVoice.

WHAT IT DOES

Chances are, you've probably used interactive voice response (IVR) for something--to get a balance on your credit card, to sign up for a pay-per-view movie, or to get customer support on your computer. If so, you know that you don't have to use a computer keyboard to do it. You just use a telephone and its keypad.

InterVoice offers a sample application for giving out 401(k) information. When you call it, you first provide some sign-on information such as a personal seven-digit identification number followed by the pound sign.

Once you've passed through the introductory messages, other messages such as the following, help you to transact business:

* To hear your personal account information, press 1.

* For current rates of return, press 2.

* To learn about general plan information and investments, press 3.

* To change your personal identification number, press 5.

* To speak with a benefits representative, press zero.

According to one person experienced with an actual 401(k) voice response system, most people, most of the time, want to hear their account balances.

If you press 1, you get your balance:

* Your information is based on balances and market prices as of January 20, 1993. Your total account is $6,971.21.

You can get all kinds of information just by pressing buttons. You can even carry out simple transactions, such as reallocating your funds in your 401(k) account. You hear a message like this:

* Your contributions are invested as follows:

* Money market fund--30 percent.

* Income fund--50 percent.

* Equity fund--20 percent.

* To change contribution investments, press 1.

* To change your contribution rates, press 2.

If all else fails, you can press a key to speak with a live customer representative.

HOW IT WORKS

"This is not voice mail," emphasizes a longtime administrator of voice response systems. You aren't just calling in and hearing prerecorded messages. An interactive voice system consists of three parts--the telephone system, the computer system with stored data such as 401(k) information, and the interactive voice response computer system that works together with the other two.

Unlike most other programs HRMagazine reviews, this is not one you install yourself. "It's a turnkey solution," explains Hunse. At the time you purchase it, you arrange to have interactive voice installed. Installation is not something for just anybody to do.

An InterVoice system consists of a personal computer (which happens to be the IBM PS/2), boards with voice chips that allow the computer to talk, software that works with the voice chips, and processors that make the PS/2 more powerful.

Every company has its information database on a computer--often an IBM mainframe, but just as often some other computer. The interactive voice response system answers the telephone when someone calls in, interacts with the caller by speaking out questions and responding to touch-tone signals, goes to the other computers to extract information such as account balances, and speaks the information out to the caller.

WHAT WE LIKE

The best thing about interactive voice is that it takes some of the humdrum out of certain HR tasks. More than that, programs like the 401(k) application allow HR to handle the kind of peak demand at the start of a fiscal year that would otherwise be nearly impossible to meet.

"Seventy-five percent of the time a knowledge worker is unavailable to take a call," Hunse contends, adding that "55 percent of requests don't require any interaction."

Instead of having to leave a message in voice mail and go away disappointed, people can "talk" with the computer and come away happy.

The 401(k) plan is just one of many routine tasks that IVR can handle; others are job posting, job requirements, time and labor reporting, flex benefits enrollment, vacation eligibility, sick time eligibility, and change of address or marital status.

Another plus is that InterVoice's system is easy to use. The days of the voice systems that talk like a robot are over. The voice sounds natural and soothing. And, out of necessity, the choices are simple. After all, you have only the telephone keypad to work with. You conduct business with the computer the same way you dial numbers when you place a phone call.