Have you ever experienced this? You receive a phone call from your car dealer to let you know that the part you ordered has arrived and ask you about scheduling a service time to have it installed. Or your favorite retailer calls you on your birthday to wish you a happy birthday and invite to visit the store and pick up your free gift.

These are two examples of how companies can implement creative ways to enhance customer relationship and build customer loyalty. Using proactive outbound dialing is becoming a new cost effective source of revenue collection for multiple enterprises.

In a recent Speech Technology magazine article, Bob King, Fixed Operation Director of Clarkston Chrysler Jeep in Clarkston, Michigan, said that, “… after implementing an automated system with speech recognition that initiates outbound calls to remind customers that it is the time for the car first oil change the company has seen a 15 percent increase in the number of oil changes, subsequently reinforcing customer loyalty.”

A recent Gartner study revealed that companies are able to eliminate hundreds of inbound calls arriving at the busiest peak hours, which make the customer wait from two to five minutes, by replacing these calls with outbound calls of about 30 seconds in length to inform you that your auto part has arrived or to remind you to pick up your birthday gift or any other application. The result may reach a $4 to $5 cost saving per call and the ability to enable companies to transform their business and become more agile, more efficient and more competitive.

However, with all the advantages of speech recognition and outbound calls, speech providers should not pitch the customer from the perspective that it is all about cost reduction and revenue generation – speech automation shouldn’t be designed to replace live agents. A good speech application should be set up to handle proactive calls and to be as interactive as a live agent, while always keeping the option of being transferred to a live agent if needed.