IVR systems boosting enterprise productivity

Communication is the power of connectivity, and yet another milestone that has empowered enterprises to facilitate in achieving their objective and result is via platform where personalized communication has been regarded the key for their success.

Interactive Voice Response is a communication technology that allows a computer to detect voice and touch tones using a normal phone call. It empowers organizations to interact with database for acquiring information or query handling or for pushing the information.

The IVR system can respond with pre-recorded or dynamically generated audio by equipping direct callers on how to proceed. IVR performs almost all the functions where interactions can be broken down into a series of simple menu choices. This technology does not require any human interactions over telephone and generally scale well to handle large call volumes. It is a flexible and scalable platform which also supports possibilities of sending information in automated, manual or scheduled mode.

In case of large enterprises where monotonous calls are in large volumes for e.g. in case of banking institutions,  calls like balance enquiry or statement request for users accounts, usage of IVR technology as a  medium of communication helps the organizations to streamline their operations along with better customer service.

IVR enables users to retrieve information like bank balances, revised interest rates, flight schedule, reservation confirmation, order status etc. This new means of communication being a highly automated system results into high response rate, high productivity with lesser human efforts and also reduces the overall cost of communication.

Examples-

• The New Delhi Municipal Council is all set to revive its ‘Interactive Voice Response System’, by launching special software to enable local residents to register complaints through SMS.
• Many Call Centers are now replacing their manpower with an IVRS (Interactive voice response system).
• Banking and Financial institutions are using IVRS for their services like payment reminders, bill delivery status, payment made details etc.
• Education and training institutes are using the IVRS for lead generation for their courses.

 

ValueFirst Messaging Pvt Ltd, a leading provider of mobility services to enterprises has recently launched its Voice messaging suite named “ValueCallz” which is an extensive Voice Broadcasting Platform that simply broadcasts any pre-recorded interactive voice relay simultaneously to many individuals at a particular point of time. It enables organizations to send personalized and interactive outbound voice “broadcast” messages at the touch of a button. This platform supports functionalities like Voice broadcasts, IVR based voice broadcasts, SMS based IVR Voice broadcast, Call Latching, Click to Call etc.

 

mobile value added service

In the exponentially growing Indian telecom sector, Value Added Services (VAS) contributes over 7% of the total revenue for operators. SMS is the highest contributor to VAS in India. Easy to use, instantaneous and reliable, SMS is widely used by individuals all across the country to communicate. Hence, it comes as no surprise that enterprises have also started incorporating SMS gateway based services to suit varied communication needs.

Enterprises have realized that improving efficiency within the organization requires improving efficiency in their communication systems. Mobile messaging services are enabling enterprises to send emergency alerts and notifications to support various aspects of their business. Be it customer service, marketing, IT or SCM, these solutions have found invaluable applications in the various departments of an enterprise. Organizations are continuously experimenting with how these SMS gateway based services can help improve workflows within their enterprise and also enhance customer experience. The most common use of mobile messaging services is believed to be for promotions.

Share trading on mobile phones to be allowed

The quickest way of making — or losing — money on the stock market will open up when the Securities & Exchange Board of India (Sebi) permits investors to trade using their handsets. The regulator has just taken the first step.

On Thursday Sebi announced on its website that it would see if its trading framework on the internet could be extended to wireless technology. Such trading will, of course, be subject to several safeguards and rules. Sebi invited comments from market players on the rules by June 15.

The tentative rules will allow only registered stockbrokers, with internet- based trading services, to extend the facility to handsets. “A broker/ member who desires to provide trading through the wireless medium will be required to take approval from the stock exchanges,” Sebi said.

All requirements applicable to internet- based trades will also apply to trade on handsets.

Anup Bagchi, executive director of ICICI Securities, described it as a “path- breaking” policy that, riding on the telecom boom, would aid “democratisation of access to the equity market.”

For safeguards, Sebi prescribed secure access, end-to-end encryption and security of handset- to- server communication. User identification, authentication and access control could be ensured with user ID, passwords, smart cards and biometric devices to prevent misuse.

Sebi said network security protocols must be as per prevalent industry standards and sound audit trails must be available for all transactions through handsets.

Information sent to handsets should be timely and not put the users at a disadvantage vis-à-vis other means of communication. Order confirmation, modification or cancellation must be provided to the investor, who must also get trade confirmation, along with history of trades.

In case the network fails, alternative means of communication such as telephone or internet should be available, Sebi said.

When Sebi finally allows stock trades on handsets, it will add substantially to mobile commerce, which is still in its nascent stage in India. Though payments through handsets are picking up, mobile commerce is nowhere near that of some smaller Asian countries. India has nearly 300 million mobile subscribers and the growth has been between 10 and 13 million every month.
Manoranjan Mohapatra, Comviva Technologies (earlier Bharti Telesoft) CEO, said, “The Sebi move is encouraging to the mobile industry. The contribution M-commerce to value- added services (VAS) is still low.”
Industry estimates put the VAS market at Rs 5,780 crore, which is projected to grow to Rs 16,520 crore by 2010.
M-commerce includes monetary transactions like payment of bills, movie tickets, shopping and sending gifts.
Gagan Chadha, CFO of ValueFirst Messaging, welcoming the Sebi step, said, “M-commerce is a great tool. We are already talking to mutual funds and brokerages to to facilitate payments through handsets.”

value first acquires mobile VAS firm cellnext

Mobile data and SMS services company Valuefirst has acquired Delhi-based Cellnext Solutions, a subsidiary of the Escorts Group for an unnamed sum. Equirus Capital was the advisor for the deal.

Cellnext was established in 2000 as part of Escorts Group owned telco Escotel Mobile Communications; Escotel was divested and sold to Idea Cellular in 2004 when the group decided to focus on its engineering businesses and disposed of all non-core businesses. Cellnext has clients including Tata Sky, LIC,  Citi Financial, American Express, ICICI Bank,  as well as operators such as BSNL, Airtel, Idea, Vodafone, MTNL, Reliance, Spice, BPL. It offers an m-commerce platform called cellPAY.

Escorts group apparently put Cellnext on the block last year, but no sale took place because of the prevailing market conditions and low valuations. There were rumours over the last two months that Mobile VAS companies were in talks with Cellnext, according to sources.

Separate Brand Identities: Why?

Valuefirst plans to maintain Cellnext as a separate entity and the brands will not be merged. This is usually done when the buyer does not want to alienate valuable clients of the other company, or because the brands are almost equally powerful. However, in this case the enterprise customer base for the two firms overlap, so will this move to retain separate brands really help in the long term?

Cellnext’s focus has been primarily B2B, with products such as cellPUSH, Cellexpress shortcode platform, cellDIAL, MMS platform cellPAPER, cellTRUST and Cellmonitor. It also has a m-payment platform cellPAY and pre-paid voucher system cellMONEY.

Valuefirst offers SMS services for enterprises, a direct-to-consumer push SMS service called Alertrix and the shortcode 56070 (Cellnext owns the shortcode 56677). Will it now shift its product focus entirely to B2C?

Bulk Mobile Messaging as a prerequisite marketing tool for enterprises

Continuous technological updations have changed not only our lifestyle but also our work style. Transformation of mobile and cellular technology has lead to the use of Bulk sms as a preferred choice by enterprises, especially for marketing purpose. Large target audience and mass campaigning have become a necessity for business these days, hence a new concept has emerged called the Bulk Messaging. Bulk SMS gateway is a system with which organizations/ institutions enable themselves by way of sending or receiving large volumes of SMS with the help of bulk mobile messaging solutions. An important thing to be focused is the number of characters used in a SMS needs to be restricted to 160. The Bulk messaging service follows a specific channel with particular bandwidth limitation. The service also facilitates in receiving delivery reports for the sent SMS. The most useful feature of this service is that a single SMS can be forwarded to a large volume of database instantaneously. The bulk messaging tool also empowers the sender to have a unique sender Id that user desires to use for their brand promotion.

Bulk text messaging basically refers to an advertising medium where the organizations send single promotional information to many individuals at the same point of time.  Many reputed companies are making use of enterprise mobile messaging for promoting their products because of its low cost nature. The advantages of Bulk messaging services are cost effectiveness, time saving, instant delivery of messages and instant measurable response for the sent SMS from the recipients. Thus SMS marketing provides a sure shot method for reaching a wide base of clients; more and more companies are using this method to reach out to their client base as it can be delivered without any geographical boundaries with guaranteed delivery to the recipients. Another advantage of using SMS as a medium of marketing is that chances of remembering a SMS is higher than remembering an email and also that the reach of short messaging service (SMS) is very wide spread.  By using a bulk sms gateway, users can deliver bulk sms’s worldwide quickly and reliably for running competitions, marketing campaigns, sending notifications to employees, notifying customers of deals, promotions and events etc.

The potential in the mobile messaging service is huge and therefore there shall be continued growth of text messaging. No organization or brand can afford to be left behind in the rapidly evolving market place. The use of bulk sms is the best and the quickest way to reach out to your customers.

ValueFirst Messaging Private Limited provides bulk SMS service solutions for large, medium and small enterprises. ValueFirst provides a unique, end-to-end, global carrier-grade mobile data service. The mobile data service offering includes “plug and play” application licensing and hosting. ValueFirst employs a sound partnership with mobile operators and a clear focus on mobile messaging. ValueFirst’s Mobile Messaging Platform is capable of delivering SMS services to virtually any CDMA/GSM mobile handset.

SMS ME ON provides your new address on 56070

SMSMEON provides you the opportunity to acquire your own “FREE” unique Identity (commonly known as keyword on a short code) on the mobile. This Keyword could be a reflection of your personality or name. It is the first platform in India which allows you to choose and block a “Keyword” of your choice completely free of cost on your mobile.

SMSMEON- as the names says it all “You can SMS ME ON my Keyword which is my own personal address on the mobile to know more about me & be privy to the latest happenings in my life”. You can use SMSMEON either through the web or through your mobile.

Example: – if your name is Aakash then you now have the opportunity to block AAKASH as a keyword on the short code 56070. When someone SMSs the keyword AAKASH to 56070 then he will get the status message that has been set by AAKASH against his keyword. SMSMEON is simple to use and best way to reach out to your people even when you are on the move. Well now you don’t need to post messages in each of your friends’ pages or send a SMS to each one of them. Just update your status message through web or from your mobile, and all your friends seeking you out can get updates on you through mobile by just texting your keyword to 56070.

Priyaa Gupta CEO – SMSMEON.COM says “Just like email is a users identity on the web, SMSMEON.COM is a unique initiative which will for the first time allow both individuals and enterprises to get mobile identities of their choice on the mobile and will allow everyone the flexibility to use this identity for personal or business communication. Potentially this can be very disruptive as it will allow millions of users and thousands of enterprises to use the power of mobility in a personalized manner like they have never experienced before” SMSMEON has been launched by SpotOn Media Pvt. Ltd. (SpotOn), an initiative incubated by ValueFirst Messaging Private Ltd .

About ValueFirst Messaging:

ValueFirst empowers its customers to communicate between varied IT back-end systems and mobile phones using SMS Services. ValueFirst provides a unique, end-to-end, global carrier-grade mobile data service. Its mobile data service offering includes “plug and play” application
licensing and hosting. Employing a partnership with Mobile operators and a clear focus on SMS mobile messaging.

Vish Bajaj,CEO of ValueFirst applauded and expressed his confidence in the innovative initiative of SpotOn. According to him, SMSMEON will become an integral part of people’s business card. Apart from the fun element,consumers and businesses will be able to conduct meaningful information exchange with their target audience.

SpotOn Media is a digital media company aggregating opted in SMS inventory and is one of India’s first SMS Ad Network SpotOn via its platform & device independent approach aims to establish itself as a “platform agnostic”digital solutions company specializing in communities and new media advertising.

To know more, simply log onto www.smsmeon.com

GMail gets SMS text messaging for chat… almost

GMail users will be able to chat with their buddies via SMS within two weeks. As a matter of fact, the feature was unveiled two days ago through Google Labs, but due some glitches the search giant decided to pull it off for “probably 2 weeks.”

Here’s how it should work:

Once the option is turned on from the Labs, start typing a phone number into Chat’s search box and you’ll see the option to send an SMS. If you already have a phone number stored in your Google contacts, select a friend with whom you want to chat, and you’ll see an option to send them an SMS. Alternatively, you can hover over or click on anyone in your Chat buddy list to send them an SMS.

Sounds perfect! Now Google folks if you could hurry up with the glitch fixing process we’ll love you even more.

Value Added Services (VAS) contributes more in the exponentially growing Indian telecom sector

In the exponentially growing Indian telecom sector, Value Added Services (VAS) contributes over 7% of the total revenue for operators. SMS is the highest contributor to VAS in India. Easy to use, instantaneous and reliable, SMS is widely used by individuals all across the country to communicate. Hence, it comes as no surprise that enterprises have also started incorporating SMS gateway based services to suit varied communication needs.

Enterprises have realized that improving efficiency within the organization requires improving efficiency in their communication systems. Mobile messaging services are enabling enterprises to send emergency alerts and notifications to support various aspects of their business. Be it customer service, marketing, IT or SCM, these solutions have found invaluable applications in the various departments of an enterprise. Organizations are continuously experimenting with how these SMS gateway based services can help improve workflows within their enterprise and also enhance customer experience. The most common use of mobile messaging services is believed to be for promotions.

Distance education program starting mEducation by using SMS Gateway-Bulk sms service

A system and a process that connects learners to distributed learning resources other than attending courses in person, students may communicate at times of their own choosing by exchanging printed or electronic media, or through technology that allows them to communicate in real time. Distance education courses that require a physical on-site presence for any reason including the taking of examinations is considered to be a hybrid or blended course or program.

India has a large number of Distance education program in Undergraduate and Post-Graduate levels. The trend was started originally by private institutions that offered distance education at certificate and diploma level. By 1985 many of the larger Universities recognized the need and potential of distance education in a populous country like India and launched degree level programs through distance education. The trend caught up, and today many prestigious Indian Universities offer distance programs. Two such universities are;

Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, centered in Bangalore, India, is a unitary university set up in 1996 by the government of Karnataka, for the regulation and promotion of higher education in health sciences throughout the state of Karnataka. About 276 colleges throughout the state are placed under the Rajiv Gandhi University in order to establish uniform standards in academics and administration.

MGR Medical University, Chennai, India deals with all medical and paramedical degrees. Both of these and many private and public, non-profit and for-profit institutions offering courses and degree programs through distance education.

Solution:

After a thorough examination & analysis of the requirements, ValueFirst (a global leader in “Enterprise Mobile Messaging Services”) in collaboration with a technology partner proposed its best-in-class application ValueFirst Velocity. ValueFirst Velocity is an enterprise class SMS suite designed to create, process and transmit SMS in a complex database environment. It provides highly reliable automated mobile messaging platform.
ValueFirst application enabled the universities to send their critical messages on a Just-In-Time (JIT) basis onto the mobile phones of invigilators.
The mobile messaging suite in addition, offers complete automation of various communication processes such as College to Student communication, College to Parent communication etc at these universities.

About ValueFirst:

ValueFirst empowers its customers to communicate between varied IT back-end systems and mobile phones using SMS Services. ValueFirst provides a unique, end-to-end, global carrier-grade mobile data service. Its mobile data service offering includes “plug and play” application licensing and hosting. Employing a partnership with Mobile operators and a clear focus on SMS mobile messaging. ValueFirst’s Mobile Messaging Platform is capable of delivering SMS services to virtually any CDMA/GSM mobile handset. ValueFirst combines signalling information from the mobile world with innovative applications running concurrently on its own IT applications platform and thereby pave the way for mission-critical international messaging services.

ValueFirst has launched a nation-wide survey on Enterprise Mobile Messaging – Current Scenario and Future Trends

ValueFirst has launched a nation-wide survey on Enterprise Mobile Messaging – Current Scenario and Future Trends in July 2008. Respondents included senior management from over 120 large & medium enterprise customers of ValueFirst: Below are the Executive Summary and Key Findings of the report.

Enterprise mobile messaging has grown exponentially in India. The current stage of enterprise mobile messaging is nascent and a large number of enterprises that are using mobile messaging services are in a nascent stage in terms of its utilization. There is a critical need for the awareness on mobile messaging to grow. Also, tracking performance metrics and wide scale adoption beyond customer services will help the enterprises take benefit in a more effective manner.

Specifically,
1. Features such as cost effectiveness, ease of use, wide reach, easy implementation and real-time messaging capabilities have driven enterprises to adopt mobile messaging services to improve their internal and external communication systems;

2. Mobile data services have found critical applications in various areas of functioning of an enterprise, be it marketing, customer services, supply chain management or IT;

The usage of mobile messaging services spans a wide arena of verticals such as banking and financial service institutions, stock broking, automotive, IT, marketing services, manufacturing and retail.

KEY FINDINGS – CURRENT SCENARIO AND FUTURE TRENDS

1. Lack of awareness – 41% of the respondents admit that their knowledge about the mobile messaging market is either “average” or “poor”, implying a general lack of knowledge about the industry;

2. RoI calculations not done - 89% of the enterprises are yet to implement any performance measures to assess the value proposition of the mobile messaging services. This means that the enterprise mobile messaging is yet to reach significant spend for the enterprises to keenly monitor the return on investment.

3. Customer services uses the most - 56% of the enterprises are using mobile messaging solutions to provide better service to their customers;

4. Competitive advantage – 84% of the enterprises feel that using mobile messaging services provides them with a competitive advantage over enterprises not using these services;

5. Positive outlook - 87% of the enterprises say that their use of mobile messaging services will increase significantly over the next one year.

CLICK HERE To watch out detailed report.