Abbey National has a powerful voice in the marketplace

Part of Abbey National's continuing success is its willingness to embrace new technologies that lead to distinct business advantages. Especially when it leads to differentiation in the eyes of its customers.

During the mid 90s, the company introduced automated telebanking which had to fulfil several requirements:

First, was the need to automate call reception with a system that would manage standard enquiries and services such as fund transfers, payments and requests for statements.

Second, the telebanking operation would need to integrate with the company's automated teller network and existing interactive voice response (IVR) systems.

Other considerations included the need for automated services to be available to all customers - not just those with touch-tone phones.

It was clear to Abbey National that the solution would need to be robust and have proven voice-response capabilities. Given that the service had to be available to all its customers, the design would have to be simple, easy and scalable.

The Vocalis voice driven solution offers voice or tone driven input with human voice support wherever necessary.

The development has grown to such an extent that there is a continuous programme of expansion using the Vocalis solution platforms, to become the largest Vocalis installation in the UK.

This is just one example of the dependency organisations can place in the power of Vocalis voice solutions. It operates 24/7 taking calls from anywhere in the UK and handles any of the routine enquiries.

There was extensive initial testing of the original system including a programme involving 5,000 native speakers all over the UK.

No one could anticipate how readily customers would adopt the service. From an estimated 40,000 calls a month, the system was managing over 1.5m calls every month within 12 months.

Continuous refinements have taken place over the years to manage customers' needs more quickly and effectively as well as introduce new services that keep Abbey National ahead when it comes to talking to its customers.