“Great Expectations”: Making use of Callers’ Experiences from Everyday Life to Design a Satisfying Speech-only Interface for the Call Center

Abstract

Speech-activated self-service systems in corporate call centers can ­provide callers with an experience that is much closer to the ideal of talking with an experienced agent than is possible with TouchTone™ systems. The closer analogy to live conversation has its benefits, but can also introduce pitfalls for the novice designer. In this chapter, we look at the expectations that callers bring to these phone calls, ranging from broad expectations with regard to self-service in general, to the more specific expectations of human-to-human conversation about ­consumer issues. We recommend several steps to the system designer to produce more successful interaction between callers and speech interfaces. They focus on the thoughtful use of user modeling achieved by employing ideas and concepts related to transparency, choice, and expert advice, all of which most, if not all, callers are already familiar with from their own everyday experiences.