Access Group Inc., a nonprofit organization that provides student loans for graduate and professional students, has entered into a follow-on contract with Enterprise Messaging Services for interactive voice response technology, the companies said yesterday.
Enterprise, West Chester, PA, will provide a test and development environment for Access' IVR call center system. Access began doing business with Enterprise in March when it installed Enterprise's IVR software SpeechACCESS.
The IVR system improves Access' customer-service capabilities by providing the organization's student clients with 24-hour access to their loan information. The system's main job is to provide loan-status information to free call center agents from having to respond to routine information requests.
In addition, the system uses speech-recognition technology and can recognize the names of about 1,400 universities and 800 cities. This capability is used for providing interest rate information for specific schools.
Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.
Access Group, Wilmington, DE, manages loan accounts for about 50,000 borrowers a year.
