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INTERVIEW:
SAP
INTEGRATION AT VATTENFALL |
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Our managing director Dr. Nils Herda spoke to Marina Beyer
[Head of Service Center], Stefan Hopf [Head
of IT-Coordination] and Armin Gericke [IT-Coordination] from Vattenfall Europe
Berlin.
Dr. Nils Herda, EXCELSIS: From the customer’s point of view, in what
kind of way has the utilities industry changed over the last years?
Marina Beyer, Vattenfall : Customers have become much more critical and
quality-conscious. They expect a professional and reliable service from
public utilities.
Dr. N. Herda, EXCELSIS: Did these changes drive the decision to
introduce speech technology?
Stefan Hopf, Vattenfall: Exactly. To us, a speech dialogue system is a
new instrument that is suitable to meet the challenges in customer service
in an appropriate manner: Meet the increased expectations of the customers
regarding quantity and quality in case of high call volumes.
Dr. N. Herda, EXCELSIS: You are responsible for the deployment of
speech technology in the area of private customers. Which requirements did
you define for speech technology from Vattenfall’s point of view?
A. Gericke, Vattenfall: Right from the beginning it was very important
to us that the customer would not get the feeling of being less valuable
to us because he is routed to a speech dialogue system. That is why we
have intensely worked on the dialogue flow and contents together with
EXCELSIS, so customers can speak to the speech computer in an intuitive
manner and are understood. |
Dr. N. Herda, EXCELSIS: Did our product "EXCELSIS Meter Reading" meet
your expectations subsequent to the pilot project?
M. Beyer, Vattenfall: It definitely did. A couple of results make this very
clear: On the one hand the rate of successfully collected meter readings clearly
exceeds our forecasts and on the other hand there were no complaints about the
technology by our customers.
Dr. N. Herda, EXCELSIS: What is your evaluation of the acceptance by private
customers?
M. Beyer, Vattenfall: There is no simple answer to this question. Due to the
fact that our customers do not have any difficulties with the collection of the
meter readings and that there were no complaints whatsoever, we conclude that
the acceptance of the system by our customers is high.
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Dr. N. Herda, EXCELSIS: The speech-based collection of meter readings
was integrated into SAP’s industry solution "SAP IS-U" which is used by
Vattenfall. Has this integration proved its worth?
S. Hopf, Vattenfall: Yes. The integration has proven itself and could
be implemented very quickly either. Through this the process is
self-contained and entirely automated to us. We would have to point out
that meter readings are collected at month-end. Therefore a lot of calls
take place at this time. By completely collecting meter readings the
system is a great relief to our staff and also makes for a high level of
employee satisfaction.
Dr. N. Herda, EXCELSIS:
What are your recommendations to interested parties from other industries that are
engaged in speech technology?
M. Beyer, Vattenfall: Starting with a small,
self-contained process has proven sensible to us. By applying the
principle of "think big, start small" we were able to gain experience
before implementing further processes.
Dr. N. Herda, EXCELSIS: With respect to the changes in the utilities
industry we have addressed so far - are there any other possible fields of
application for speech technology in your
opinion? |
S. Hopf, Vattenfall: There will be further fields of application for speech
computers in the utilities industry. Various aspects can be accounted for: the
recent amendments to the Energiewirtschaftsgesetz [EnWG], the ongoing
liberalisation of the market and future technical trends. Coming from the legal
amendments by the Bundesnetzagentur [BNetzA BK6-06-009] we also expect an
increase in customers’ willingness to change supplier. Deploying voice portals
may be a way to compensate for these extra efforts.
Dr. N. Herda, EXCELSIS: Taking a look into the future: How is Vattenfall
going to communicate with its customers in the year 2020?
A. Gericke, Vattenfall: Processes will be automated a lot more than today.
Furthermore communicating to our clients via the internet will be far more
important. Moreover the automated voice dialogue will change also: Communication
in customer service will almost entirely be on the basis of natural language
understanding and interaction with the customer will be perfect.
M. Beyer, Vattenfall: However, despite of the part automation’s relevance, I am
convinced that contact to our employees will be still relevant to our customers in
the future.
Dr. N. Herda, EXCELSIS: Ms. Beyer, Mr. Hopf and Mr. Gericke, thank you very
much for this interview.
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