www.getdesign.in - My periodic blog exploring the world of business, experience design and interaction, with a smattering of gadgetry and social media. A world where business, people and technology meet.
Let's Fix Things: For over two decades I've been consulting in Communications Design: Everything from business strategy and processes, through to technology, interaction and customer experience. The thoughts here are my own, not necessarily that of my employer.
I have a penchant for spotting patterns and fixing broken user and customer experiences. Even my Bumblebee project hasn't escaped - I've been using Six Sigma techniques to study and predict their behaviour patterns. ☺
Eckoh, the company that specialises in hosted speech recognition services, has signed a new three-year contract with Ideal Shopping Direct (ISD), one of the UK's largest digital retailers. The deal will see Eckoh provide advanced speech recognition and interactive voice response (IVR) systems for product ordering and customer service. [click heading for more]
Syntellect Limited, a division of Enghouse Systems Limited (TSX: ESL), announced today that it has acquired Fluency Voice Technology Ltd. of London, England.
Founded in 2001, privately held Fluency provides on-premise and hosted packaged speech recognition solutions for call centers to improve customer service and significantly reduce costs. Based in London, England and with a sales office in Boston, Massachusetts, Fluency has approximately 27 employees. [click heading for more]
Speech technology has long languished in the no-man's land between sci-fi fantasy ("Computer, engage warp drive!") and disappointing reality ("For further assistance, please say or press 1 ...").
But that's about to change, as advances in computing power make voice recognition the next big thing in electronic security and user-interface design.
A whole host of highly advanced speech technologies, including emotion and lie detection, are moving from the lab to the marketplace.
"This is not a new technology," says Daniel Hong, an analyst at Datamonitor who specializes in speech technology. "But it took a long time for Moore's Law to make it viable." [click heading for more]
Based on its recent analysis of the interactive voice response (IVR) market, Frost & Sullivan recognizes Voxeo with the exclusive 2008 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Product Innovation for its Prophecy IVR platform, a proven, reliable, and flexible solution for VoiceXML application development and deployment. [click heading for more]
Maybe I’m a late bloomer, but I haven’t used PC or Mac speech recognition since 1998. I remember strapping on a headset and telling Microsoft Word 98 to write “I like corn.” The result was something like “I lake crone,” which was close enough given the power of my PC but still fairly useless in terms of getting any real work done. I know I’m not alone in saying that I shelved the entire concept.
Fast forward to about two years ago. One of the guys I used to work with was amazingly fast writer. He could churn out page after page of text in a few hours, writing thousands of words a week. I asked him how he did it and he said “speech recognition.” Holy crap, right? Where were his typos? Where was the “I lake crone?” [click heading for more]
Voxeo Corporation today announced the availability of its proven IVR and SIP hosting infrastructure as a completely re-brandable, Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering. Vendors can OEM the Voxeo solution to quickly and easily launch their own branded, standards-based IVR hosting services. [click heading for more]
This week sees a switch over to speech-based call steering for Nationwide Building Society, using open-question style prompting - "how may I help you?" (0800 30 20 10)
The opening prompt - somewhat long-winded - is as follows:
Welcome to nationwide. Calls may be recorded to help us improve our service to members. Briefly tell me in your own words what it is you are calling about and I'll direct your call to the right member of our team. You're free to interrupt at any time. For a list of available options, say" what are my choices"; so how can I help you?
I'm not sure I would have designed such a laborious prompt, even though there is clearly a lot of information to get across. Here's my suggestion (here comes the free consultancy).
Welcome to Nationwide. Calls may be recorded to help improve our service. At any time, just tell me in your own words what you are calling about; so, how can I help?
[then if there is silence]
For a list of available options, say "what are my choices?"; now, how can I help?
The original prompt is over-wordy and overly-formal - e.g. why specifically mention "members"? What's more, breaking the prompt in two like this obeys the principle of giving information just in time. In the original prompt, it is assumed the caller needs to know what choices are available, even though they've already been told they can use their own words. This clutters the prompt and increases cognitive load. In my version, the caller isn't told about this option until it appears they need it (by staying silent).
2008 is tipped to be the inflection point for Voice-XML-based IVR. According to independent market analyst Datamonitor, the number of Voice-XML based IVR ports shipped will surpass traditional IVR ports for the first time. IVR automated systems save businesses money and employee resources, while making routine services and inquiries available to the public 24 hours a day. In its latest report, “Understanding the Changing Role of IVR in Evolving Infrastructures”, Datamonitor predicts global investment in IVR licenses will increase from $475 million in 2006 to $845 million by 2012 as the business climate warms up for Voice-XML platforms. By 2009 almost 69% of IVR shipments will be Voice-XML-based platforms.
Speech recognition firm vlingo just unveiled the results of a recent consumer study involving almost 5,000 respondents that the firm commissioned regarding their mobile-data usage habits, especially around SMS usage. Vlingo found that 70 percent of non-SMS users said they didn't use the service because it was too difficult and time consuming to type on a small phone screen.
Vlingo, like other speech recognition firms, are advocates of voice-enabled texting and other services minimize the amount of typing a consumer must do on their mobile handset. [click heading for more]
Call Genie Inc. and Vlingo Corp. today announced they have partnered to deliver a comprehensive multi-modal mobile search platform that enables 'on the go' consumers to access information anytime, anywhere. [click heading for more]
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