 benefits include cheaper user support and data access. DuPont says his system paid for itself in less than one year, lopping about 45 cents off the cost of each incoming call for Thrifty. Bank of New York's Kuhn estimates that his system handles the work of five full-time employees. Still, despite the potential benefits, enterprises shouldn't view speech integration as a panacea to their rising call center costs. The tech- nology itself requires constant attention, which adds to its base cost and detracts from potential savings. "It's labor intensive," says Meta Group's Ussher. "It's not like a washing machine that runs on its own. It's a technol- ogy that requires constant tweaking, pushing and updating." DuPont warns potential users not to consider speech integration as solely an IT issue. Because the technology affects a wide range of business processes, he believes that it's vital to garner enterprise-wide support. "I would certainly recommend getting all the stakeholders involved," he says. "When we put our system TELEMEDICINE together, we involved people from many disciplines, including IT, HR, finance and telecom, as well as the reservations group." Although speech integration will certainly become more capable and self- sufficient in the years ahead, few observers believe the technology will ever fully replace living, breathing call center agents. In-Stat/MDR's Strachman says that speech integration will primarily be used to eliminate call center grunt work, such as the recitation of fares and schedules, and to give end users a new way to access critical data. The handling of complex issues, such as tech- nical support, will probably always require access to a live expert. "For call center agents to stay employed, they're going to have to be more highly skilled and trained than they are now," says Strachman. 1.11 TELEMEDICINE New telecom service, hardware, and software options are opening the door to advanced video and data monitoring capabilities. The health care industry is leading the way in using the