Sam, VGZ's successful chatbot, has broadened its field of activity. In addition to text (web chat), he can now also handle speech. And in order to properly understand customer demand, VGZ has switched from IVR to routing based on speech recognition: speech routing.

 

At the customer contact organization of Coöperatie VGZ (hereinafter: VGZ, see also box below), chatbot Sam has grown into a fully-fledged team member. For a few years now, Sam has been helping policyholders with relatively simple customer questions that can be asked on the website: such as reporting a change of address, submitting a claim or requesting your deductible.

Because this form of automated handling of customer questions is well received, the VGZ innovation team started developing a voicebot in 2020. Both chatbot and voicebot use the same system that recognizes the text-based question including customer intent and comes up with a solution. But the input that both bots had to work with was fundamentally different. Where the chatbot responds to questions entered by an insured person, the first pilots of the voicebot chose to behind the IVR. In other words: not a verbal statement, but a keyed-in choice option determined what the voicebot had to do next.

IVR: super(un)handy tool

The IVR is regularly discussed in customer contact countries. The routing tool is not always customer friendly. An IVR forces the caller to hear and remember the proposed choices and then to make a forced choice for one of the options that does not always meet customer demand. Sometimes there are also too many levels and choices. And listening takes time.

VGZ also encountered the limitations of the IVR, according to this Misha van Wijmeren, mission leader at VGZ for channel routing. “The various circles (see box) all had their own wishes in terms of routing. As a result, the test-controlled IVR threatened to become rather cluttered. It also increased the chance that circles had to transfer customers to other circles in order to end up with the right team.”

Coöperatie VGZ has a clear vision on customer contact. The company mainly wants to invest in interactions that add value for the organisation, employee and insured. In doing so, the insurer strives to help customers as much as possible in one channel during a contact. Another part of the vision is working in multidisciplinary circles: teams in which all competencies are brought together to help a customer from start to finish. Circles can have a specific audience, such as "new customers in the first 10 months." Customers who are recognized and fall within this target group based on intent are routed to this circle.

Implementation of speech routing

To solve the problem of an increasingly complex IVR, VGZ started using speech recognition for routing. The caller is asked to record the question, so that the conversation can then be offered to the correct circle.

Michel Boedeltje, product owner speech & dialogues at Telecats, explains: “Speech Routing provides information that allows you to determine what the customer is calling much more accurately than with an IVR. Where necessary, you can ask a follow-up question to further specify the customer request. So you can route very finely with it.”

Voicebot works based on the knowledge of the chatbot

Telecats has developed an interface for linking speech routing to the voicebot. The interface converts what the customer has said to the voicebot into text. With that input, the chatbot is asked for a response in text. This is then converted back to speech and offered to the voicebot. That can be an answer, but also a new question.

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In this process, the timing factor in particular determines the structure of the technology. Not only does it have to be recognized and converted in near real time what the caller is saying, but the chatbot's response also has to be returned to the voicebot quickly via text to speech. In addition, voicebot Sam needs to know how long he has to wait to a spoken response before speaking again.

“The voicebot waits just under two seconds for the customer to speak,” says Boedeltje. “In addition, the voicebot listens for a maximum of fifteen seconds to what is being said. In practice, this length of time appears to be sufficient for the caller to answer the question. Moreover, input for longer than fifteen seconds provides more information than can be properly processed.”

Routing: to employee or to bot?

At VGZ, fine-grained routing also means: choosing between handling by an employee from the most suitable circle, or handling by the voicebot. An SMS including a (dynamic) link or an SMS and routing to an employee are also options. If it is the employee, in addition to the conversation, he will also be presented with the customer's details and the recorded question on the screen. If it is the voicebot, a conversation between customer and bot will arise.

Van Wijmeren: “In April 2022, we tested and evaluated a text message as a response after voice routing for the first time with 100 members. This concerned provision of care for a loved one – arranging care for someone else. The reactions were positive and that led to the first text message with a dynamic link for changing the account number online in combination with a 'hang up' a month later.”

The voicebot also has various options to help a customer. This can be in a dialogue or by sending a link to a web page where the solution can be found. For example, an answer to the question or a link to a self-service page in the VGZ app to consult personal information or make changes there. Members who do not yet have the VGZ app on a smartphone will be sent to the app store with the same link.

Classification is an ongoing exercise

The biggest battle that has been made in this respect is the classification of all kinds of customer questions into the right intents. These must not only be recognized by the speech recognizer, but also fit in well with the target groups of the different circles. The teams have therefore been closely involved in this phase and will continue to play a role afterwards, he said Mark Jansen, chapter lead customer dialogue at VGZ. “When a subject has not yet been included in the open-ended speech recognition, but starts to generate a lot of traffic, it is primarily the employees who signal this. If a good answer is not yet available, the question will be forwarded to our knowledge management specialists. They also look at how such a question can best be handled.”

Zoom in to conversation level

In the autumn of 2021 – just before the moment when new premiums are announced and policyholders can switch – VGZ switched off the IVR and made all calls via speech routing. VGZ monitors the various data flows around the speech routing in near real time and analyzes this in Power BI. Using near real-time insight based on NLP, for example in the form of a word cloud, the team can zoom in to the level of actual spoken questions from the customer. This enables VGZ to respond more quickly to developments.

Make category 'other' as small as possible

Subjects that cannot be classified properly end up in an 'other' category. Trying to classify everything that ends up in this category is an ongoing process. Nadine Glass, as head of Speech Lab Telecats responsible for the realization of speech models and classifications, explains: “A new intent must be useful for the organization and be assignable to a circle. To be able to make a clear distinction with other intents, sufficient different examples must be available.”

Van Wijmeren: “In the beginning we manually added these types of conversations to the algorithm. Now that process is more automated in the form of an export from the 'other' category and the application of NLP to find logical word combinations.”

Continuous improvement

The further perfecting of speech routing will be largely completed in January 2022. Janssen states that 90% of calls are now classified correctly. “What is currently being worked on is measuring and analyzing the results: less forwarding is expected, and a shorter average call duration. The first measurements show that we are on the right track when it comes to customer satisfaction. In addition, the WFM team, which monitors customer interaction numerically and substantively, can keep a finger on the pulse much better.”

Rollout to other brands

What was done at the beginning of 2022 for the 'main brand' VGZ can of course also be applied to the other brands of VGZ, such as Univé Zorg, Zekur, UMC Zorgverzekering, IZA, IZZ Zorgverzekering and Zorgzaam. Last summer, almost all labels switched from IVR to speech routing one by one: one label every month on average.

The choice to start with the largest label and, if successful, to roll out to the smaller brands was made deliberately. VGZ's innovation team focuses on the largest brand, because this is where the greatest diversity of policyholders and questions can be found Dave Bird, product owner team digital assistance VGZ. “If you were to start with a more digital brand, you would encounter a less broad and representative target group. We initially deployed a load balancer to start with small call volumes and thus collect experiences from all target groups.”

Van Wijmeren adds: “When rolling out to other labels, it mainly concerns brand-specific jargon, such as names of insurance packages. The name of the brand itself must of course also be included. It also takes time to involve all stakeholders in a go-live: management, employees, customers.”

The results

VGZ has now handled 1 million calls via speech routing. Next year, it is expected, all calls – about 4 million conversations – will be voice routed for all brands. Or a smaller volume, of course, because the new approach should ultimately lead to fewer telephone calls and more use of (digital) self-service. Other results that VGZ sees are the better use of the qualities of employees. Janssen: “They receive more and more substantive questions from customers, which makes their work more challenging.”

Janssen is also clear about the follow-up process. “Among other things, we want the content of the chatbot to be linked to the knowledge management system, so that employees are even better facilitated. In other words: with this profile of the customer and with this question, this is the most suitable answer to arrive at guaranteed solutions. That is something that Telecats has already included in one of the first PoCs in the beginning. I also think that there are still the necessary new intents to be found.”

 

About VGZ – Coöperatie VGZ carries out health insurance for various brands. The main brand is VGZ. In addition, there are nine other brands and labels: VGZ Bewuzt, IZA, IZZ, UMC, Univé, Zekur and Zorgzaam. In total, the cooperative insures approximately 4,2 million customers. VGZ has more than 1.800 employees.

(Ziptone/Erik Bouwer)

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