Architectural Execution: High
Market Value: High
Ecosystem Implications: Medium to High

Overview
Vodafone Spain has introduced a groundbreaking, multimodal customer service portal called “Vodafone Interactive Care.” This service provides a real-life glimpse into the new generation of customer care platforms that combine voice, textmessaging (SMS), multimedia messaging (MMS), games and streaming media (including video messaging) to better respond to emerging customer needs in realtime. The service is hosted by Ydilo, which made its bones by hosting Vodafone’s speech recognition-based customer care portal over the past few years. Based on Nuance’s ASR and TTS, the Ydilo platform was handling something on the order of 8 million calls per month.

Architecture Execution: High
Vodafone Interactive Care is a true showcase of the power of a platform based on the IP-Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). Communicating over a high-speed packet data access (HSPDA), 3G wireless network, customers utilize full-featured 3G handsets or portable computers with a Vodafone HSPDA interface card. Ydilo’s interaction platform receives calls or requests from Vodafone customers over Vodafone’s wireless network. On the front-end, it allows subscribers to ‘talk, tap or type’ in commands using traditional speech-enabled IVR or through a wireless Web interface. To support multimodal interaction, Intel’s CT-Connect technology (now part of Envox’s product line) has been baked into the Vodafone Live solution since its inception in 2004.

Speech-enabled applications are scripted through a combination of VoiceXML to support simple dialogs. SpeechObjects—reusable Java Applets developed by Nuance prior to the merger with ScanSoft—support rapid deployment of more complicated or transactional services. This is especially important in the context of service delivery options, since Vodafone changes its offerings and pricing quite frequently.

Market Value: High
Combining customer care with service management is critical in helping full-featured wireless phones fulfill their role as the entry point into portals of rich local and personalized content and services. Operating a platform that responds to spoken commands, keystrokes or screen taps in the proper context greatly enhances usability and will spark demand for new devices and new services. This, in turn, broadens demand for new devices and expands the ‘footprint’ of 3G wireless carriers.

Ecosystem Implications: Medium to High
The launch of Vodafone Interactive Care in Spain barely nudged the PR needle in the rest of the world. With its broad geographic scope and the relative autonomy afforded to its regional affiliates, Vodafone has been known to encourage its affiliates to try multiple approaches to delivering enhanced services, including Vodafone Live, which built a groundswell of popularity. The use of high-capacity, hosted facilities from Ydilo leverages existing ASR/IVR resources and enables Vodafone’s best customers to use new, multimedia services in non-disruptive, cost-effective ways.

© 2006 Opus Research, Inc.

Categories: Advisories