Customer Self Service using the Virtual Speech Agent (VSA) from Fluency Voice Technology

1. Customer Self Service using the Virtual Speech Agent (VSA) from Fluency Voice Technology Mark Steinweg | General Manager, Carlson Leisure Travel Services August 7, 2006

2. Agenda • Carlson Companies Inc. • Project Objectives • Why Fluency • The Results • Next Steps

3. Carlson Companies Inc. • Industry leading solutions provider in travel, hospitality and marketing services • One of the largest privately held global companies • Operates in 140 countries; over 160,000 employees • System-wide sales from its global, company-owned and franchised operations $21 billion • Sales from Carlson-owned and managed operations total $7 billion

4. Operating Groups Corporate business travel Restaurants, Hotels & Cruise Line Marketing services, Incentive programs & merchandise Retail travel franchises, loyalty program fulfillment Travel award redemptions for credit card companies and financial institutions, leisure travel services (cltsloyalty.com)

5. The Carlson Company Brands

6. Reasons to Deploy a Speech IVR • Service customer calls through more cost effective channels • Initial phases of travel booking calls are common • Could be automated at a lower cost to handle than with live agents • Customer information accumulated can be screen popped to agents • Consistent and quick customer self service access to FAQ’s, avoiding agents entirely for non-sales related calls • Customers can be routed back to our client’s Customer Service department for non-travel related questions and resolution • Maintain technological advantage • Speech IVR capabilities becoming more prevalent • Near term business need • Large system migration expected to introduce agent inefficiencies • Needed to reduce call volumes presented to the agents to achieve service levels

7. Desired Outcomes • Strengthen client loyalty on B2B2C model • Partnered with client on solution design and development • Improved our ability to consistently achieve service levels • Enhanced customer experience • Self service capabilities • Improve quality and reduced variation through consistent work flow and information delivery on program rules, points balances • Easy to use, minimize customer dissatisfaction with a speech IVR • Business case • Lower cost to service customers through speech IVR automation and intelligent call routing • Reduce non-sales calls being presented to agents • Route customers faster to the agent who can help them • Increase sales by qualifying and prescreening customers • Maintain a technical advantage over competitors

8. Why Fluency?The choice between custom-built solutions and speech application products • Faster time to market • Speech application products deployed in weeks, not months • Lowers risk • Pre-built solution is pre-configured, pre-tuned • Speech best practice encapsulated in the product • Predictable flow of enhancements in Fluency product road map • Lower cost of ownership • Fluency’s Management Console provides solution flexibility • Easy to change call flows and prompts with in-house resources

9. Fluency’s VSA Management Console means the speech application can be maintained and enhanced in house

10. What Happened • Fluency’s VSA product configured to meet business needs • Caller qualification, call routing, and self-service for FAQs • Four week deployment accelerates ROI • QA cycle a matter of days before full production roll out • Fluency’s VSA taking 50,000 calls in first month • Great customer experience delivered • Customers routed to right agents or right channel • Minimal customer and agent complaints • Call center agents embrace the technology • Agents have more time to handle revenue-generating calls • Business case proven • Fluency’s VSA reduces call flow to agents by >20% • Sales conversion rates improved >15%

11. Lesson Learned • Speech needs to be part of an end-to-end work flow solution • Requires seamless integration with adjacent systems, processes and agent work flow • Protects customer experience and promotes agent acceptance • “Prove and Move” with targeted solution delivery • Automate discrete processes first to deliver benefit fast • Then extend automation to cover wider range of processes • Minimize “points of failure” or other dependencies • Speech is automating a business process • Automation of an optimized process delivers a bigger benefit • Design is better with knowledge of what your customers want to do

12. Next Steps for VSA • Additional deployments to service more B2B2C partners • Leverage and multiply the value from existing investments in Fluency application products and learnings • Utilize additional Fluency products to automate more process • VSA IDVS for customer identification and points balance • VSA Locator for capturing customer itinerary information • VSA Payment Capture for automated bookings • Global roll out and enterprise footprint • Fluency’s VSA can reduce call center costs even when utilizing outsourced operations in India • Personalization • Integrating speech self service with wider CRM strategies and customer preferencing tactics