The Voice Extensible Markup Language (VXML)
improve customer call-in centers and the like.
Members of the VXML Forum, a consortium of 373 companies with a vested
interest in the promotion of the voice specification, didn’t disappoint
this year, with a slew of products sporting VXML 2.0 capabilities.
The latest version, 2.0, was adopted as a proposed recommendation by the
World Wide Web Consortium after a year of testing
the specification. It provides marked improvements over VXML 1.0 —
which was originally proposed in 2000 by AT&T , Lucent
Technologies , IBM
and Motorola
. The new version is more adaptable and portable.
VXML, as well as other speech recognition and “voice browser”
specifications, all deal with improving the customer experience while
reducing operational costs: i.e., customer support representatives.
Instead of talking with a human, the computer language will translate
the caller’s request, find the answer on the company database, and use
text-to-speech technologies to regurgitate the answer.
“Speech applications are rapidly becoming the standard customer
interface for contact centers,” said Elizabeth Herrell, Giga Research
vice president. “Developing a quality speech application requires
expertise in the development of the application, designing an effective
user interface and continuous tuning and testing.”
Three companies came out with products capitalizing on VXML 2.0 — AT&T
, ScanSoft and VoiceGenie. Ma Bell and ScanSoft
focused their announcements on creating customers in the business world,
with packages designed to improve the call centers at work.
ScanSoft’s SpeechWorks features speaker verification (for security), TTS
(for information) in 22 languages and speech recognition in 46 different
languages. The technology is also compatible with a wide variety of
voice browser technologies: SALT, VXML, SOAP and SAPI to name a few.
Steve Chambers, ScanSoft network speech solutions senior vice president
and general manager, points out the company’s $400 million investment in
speech technology and 228 pending patents, as a sign of its commitment
to speech-enabled computing.
“No other company can point to a track record of innovation, on both
technology and professional services fronts, that yield such consistent
customer success,” he said.
Not to be outdone, AT&T launched its VoiceTone service in limited areas
to show off the capabilities of speech recognition. Hosted through its
21 Internet data centers in the U.S., officials say the service gives
customers the feel of talking to a live representative with little to no
actual real-person involvement.
“The service makes it possible for customers to hold natural
conversations with computer-based systems that understand what they say
and mean, and that respond to them to fulfill their request,” said Eric
Shepcaro, AT&T application services vice president. “AT&T VoiceTone
enables businesses to improve customer service interactions, increase
transactions, and enhance productivity by personalizing the customer
experience-all while helping to reduce operations costs.”
The need for customer service improvements has been a long-recognized
goal for many companies. The ability to cut down, if not eliminate, the
need for more telephone operators, has been a key selling point, and
companies like Oracle<
/a> and IBM have
been using the technology for years.
The technology has reached enough of a maturation point, that management
tools are necessary for expanding voice technology upgrades. Enter
VoiceGenie, which announced Tuesday the upgrade of its voice
technologies to version 6, which includes toolsets for managing and
configuring elements on the VoiceGenie platform. A GUI-based
in what officials say is “faster-than-real time.”
“By providing a means for customers to monitor system activities from a
single, centralized location in real-time they are able to respond
quickly to any areas requiring immediate attention,” said Adrian
Lee-Kwen, VoiceGenie vice president of engineering. “Our extended
support for 14 ASR/TTS offerings as well as enhanced development tools
holds true to our vision of delivering the industry’s most advanced
VoiceXML platform for sophisticated speech solutions.”