Interesting info presented on another thread. Anyone on this thread know any background?
Subject: Anyone know about this deal?
Date: Wed, Feb 11, 1998 19:41 EST
From: JosephL940
Message-id: <19980212004101.TAA14436@ladder02.news.aol.com>
If you look towards the end of this press release, Periphonics is involved! Did anyone else know that Peri had a UPS deal? Is this new news?
-Joe
UPS Introduces Voice Recognition Technology to Package Tracking; System Outperforms Expectations By Nearly 100 Percent
MAHWAH, N.J., Feb. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- An industry-first package tracking innovation recently introduced by UPS is outperforming the company's expectations by nearly 100 percent. The UPS Automated Tracking System (ATS), a sophisticated voice response phone system, is handling up to 195,000 customer calls in one day, nearly double initial projections of 100,000 calls.
UPS ATS enables customers to track packages through the nationwide 1-800-PICK-UPS number by simply stating a tracking number to learn the status of a package. The new system, which interfaces with the company's massive database, responds with package status information in less than two seconds and reduces a complete tracking call to about 90 seconds -- less than half the length of an average representative-aided call.
Customer service representatives still are available to callers who press "0" or stay on the line at the beginning of the call, or who press "0" at any time while connected to ATS. The system is designed to free representatives for more complex inquiries.
Activated just before the 1997 holiday season, ATS was developed using the latest natural language voice recognition technology so that UPS's alphanumeric tracking numbers could be processed quickly.
"UPS has been expanding all of its shipping and information service options to provide the speed, means of access and information that each of our customers wants," said Douglas Fields, UPS vice president of business development applications and telecommunications.
"We have powered the new UPS Automated Tracking System with voice recognition technology to expand the options of our phone services, just as we have increased our shipping and Internet-based services to provide several fast, easy ways for customers to access UPS package information."
UPS ATS replies to customer inquiries with a wide variety of responses, relayed in a computer-generated voice, including:
-- The date and time of package delivery and the spelled-out name of the person who signed for it
-- The location where a package was left, e.g., back door, manager's
office
-- Reasons why a package wasn't delivered, e.g., no one home, business closed
-- Disposition of package based on last scan, e.g., en route, scheduled for delivery today
Any exceptions to these options, such as more than two attempted deliveries or an excess lapse of time between package scans, will cause the call to be immediately switched to a customer service representative.
UPS ATS is built on a suite of hardware and software products, provided by Periphonics (Nasdaq: PERI) (www.peri.com) and Nuance Communications (www.nuance.com), that employs the most advanced speech recognition software and interactive voice response systems. UPS ATS can handle more than 550 calls simultaneously and up to 27,000 calls an hour; it is available nationwide 24 hours every day, except Sunday, when the database undergoes maintenance.
In addition to 1-800-PICK-UPS, UPS package tracking also can be performed through UPS OnLine Tracking software, the UPS Web site (www.ups.com), Internet search engines Infoseek, Lycos and Alta Vista-powered searches of Yahoo!, and any customer site that has installed UPS tracking through UPS Internet Tools software. Both UPS OnLine Tracking and UPS Internet Tools software can be downloaded from www.ups.com.
UPS, the world's largest package distribution company and a partner of the 1998 and 2000 Olympic Games, employs more than 338,000 people worldwide and provides services to more than 200 countries and territories. The company received a 1997 Computerworld Smithsonian award for its global telecommunications network, and has invested more than $9 billion in its information technology infrastructure and systems. UPS revenues for 1996 were $22.4 billion
on a volume of 3.15 billion packages.
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