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City Cabs talks technology to beat telephone queue blues

April 2004

Edinburgh Taxi firm City Cabs (Edinburgh) Limited has found a high-tech way to ensure that customers can book taxis quickly however busy the phone lines. City Cabs managers had noticed that it was next to impossible to predict when the phone lines were going to be at their busiest and arrange extra staff cover for those peaks, resulting in frustration for callers eager to book a taxi but unable to get through and loss of business for the company.

They called in voice solutions experts Gold Europe, who set up an automated system to handle overflow calls at busy periods using technology from VoiceGenie and Edinburgh Text-to-Speech specialists Rhetorical. At times where all agents are busy answering calls, incoming calls are diverted into the overflow system and greeted by an automated message. The system identifies the number and address from which the caller is dialling, and offers the caller the opportunity to book a cab to that address. If they accept this option, the booking is taken and the cab dispatched immediately. If they require another service, they are returned to the telephone queue. From the go live date of 12th February 2004, the number of bookings taken has been impressive.

Careful consideration has gone into making the automated system easy and pleasant for callers to use. Two Scottish voices were selected from Rhetorical's range, and the male and female voices answer alternate calls. Callers are welcomed by a simple 'good morning/afternoon/evening . . .welcome to City Cabs fully automated booking service, please wait while I check your address records' The voices sound local, clear and natural, and lead the caller through the few simple steps to book a cab or wait for help from a human agent. The care taken over voices and structure of calls has paid off with remarkably positive comments from customers encountering the system.

Peter Campbell, City Cabs (Edinburgh) Limited, Company Secretary, 'Callers to a taxi office are looking for a quick response in both the answer of the telephone and a taxi to the door, the introduction of text to speech will enhance our ability to do this.'

W. O. Smith, Chairman of City Cabs (Edinburgh) Limited picked up a copy of the business pages of a morning newspaper last summer which included an article on Rhetorical Systems text to voice technology, made contact with Rhetorical, who are customers of City Cabs, and the rest, as they say, is history. He said, 'City Cabs employ just under 50 staff to take calls, often through no fault of their own it is impossible to get the type of response the customer expects, text to voice technology is just what we at City Cabs have been looking for. Stage one has now been implemented and we look forward with interest to discover what text to speech technology can do to improve our customer service.'

'Today's customers want a speedy response to simple tasks and that, combined with the design of the application dialogues is what makes this a great system for customers of City Cabs to use,' said Ron Griffiths MD of Gold Europe, he added 'Over time we expect to enhance the functionality for them, providing their customers with an ever-improving service.'

Marc Moens, CEO of Rhetorical, said, 'City Cabs is something of an Edinburgh institution. As an Edinburgh-based company and City Cabs customer we are delighted they are leading the way in using speech technology and also that Rhetorical has provided the voices to which City Cabs' callers are responding so well. It's an excellent example of how a text-to-speech solution can show immediate benefits for customers, call centre agents and the overall business of a company. We look forward to ordering many more taxis in future with the help of both City Cabs' agents and our rVoice™ voices.'

For full press release:
www.rhetorical.com/tts-en/company/press/pressrelease040406.html

For further information:

Ruth Smith
Rhetorical Systems
Tel: +00 131 525 6845
Email: ruth@rhetorical.com

Pentech Ventures
David Armour
Tel: +44 (0)141 572 7303
Email: david@pentechvc.com