3R spoke to Desmond, Sales Executive with Edify Corporation. Edify is a leading provider of voice and speech solutions for the enterprise. For more than 14 years, Edify has helped more than 2,000 companies automate their customer service, improving customer satisfaction and enabling new revenue generating opportunities while reducing operational costs. Voice and speech applications built with Edify are scalable, multilingual and flexible, allowing companies to easily integrate multiple backend systems with a variety of contact interfaces

Desmond, tell me, what about Edify made you want to work for them?

Meta Group and other leading industry analysts had come to realize that speech is a channel whose time has finally come due to huge advances, both in speech and underlying technology. I wanted to be a part of that wave with a leading and agile company. The acknowledgment by Gartner Gartner, Frost & Sullivan and other analysts of Edify as a leader and the success our customers are reporting, in reduced costs and increases in customer satisfaction, shows that I made the right choice.

Tell me about your customers, what problems do speech enabled solutions solve

Most people today, when trying to contact a business find themselves immersed in call centre hell. This can either be due to having to key multiple choices, which never seem to respond to what they want, or spending ages on hold. Partial automation of this process, can lead to much higher levels of customer service, due to less dropped calls, quicker resolution of customer queries and more efficient sales transactions.

What distinguishes Edify from your competition?

Analyst Frost and Sullivan say Edify has the best developed strategy for Speech Automation solutions. I agree. But Edify also has a very strong record of looking after its existing customers, something which helps me in winning new ones! When it comes to open standards, Edify really leads the field. Not only is Edify on the Speech standards committees, but we are always among the first to implement the new standards that help our customers the most. In addition, all our solutions are fully backward compatible, meaning our customers have both peace of mind and a very competitive Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

How do you calculate ROI on your solutions?

This varies by client; let’s take someone looking to partially automate their call centre would have two tangible benefits; Cost savings due to a reduction in operators combined with an increase in sales volume, due to swift routing of non-routine sales calls to better trained agents who can cross sell additional products. When you factor intangible, or difficult to calculate benefits, such as increased customer satisfaction, less dropped calls and reduced customer frustration, our clients find the business case maths easy to perform.

What piece of sales advice that you have learnt at the coal face has helped you most in your career?

Learn to pick your battles.

What has Edify done for you that have helped you the most?

Since S1 took over Edify, it has brought with it an extensive network of channels and routes to market that enables me to use contacts, which tremendously simplify my job.

Finally, this newsletter is called Success, what is your definition of success with Edify?

I feel that I am living it, since I really enjoy my job and customers and I have a great life balance to enable me to spend quality time with my family.

This article was written by Peter Lawless, founder of 3R Sales and Marketing - www.3r.ie. For previous articles or interviews like this, visit 3R's Resources. Alternatively, subscribe to Success our free monthly Information Bulletin with sales and marketing articles.

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