Government Ministry enhance satisfaction, efficiency, & Reducing Costs.

March 18, 2002 -- New Zealand's largest government department, the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), has implemented a voice recognition solution aimed at enhancing customer satisfaction and reducing ongoing costs.

The Speech voice Solution assist in handling an estimated 700,000 annual over-the-phone transactions. The solution removes the need to use the telephone keypad or wait for an available operator. It uses voice recognition technology to allow MSD callers to complete a variety of self-service transactions by speaking directly to the department's computer systems.

The voice recognition technology is enabling our department to cope with substantially more calls into the call center without the need to increase staff, In addition, the existing staff can focus on more complex calls as many of the repetitive inquiries are now being handled by the new system. This supports our key objective of spending more time helping people and less time completing routine transactions.

The new system supports a number of routine transactions including benefit inquiries, debt inquiries and income declaration calls. Clients call 800 number, say their Social Welfare number and confidential PIN and are able to request different types of information by saying what they want quickly and easily in a way that makes sense to them.