Telecommunications

September 1, 2006
Speaking To Machine? That’s Nuance!

INTRO -- Who would have thought in the mid of 20th Century that we would be speaking to a device by the beginning of 21st Century? Though the World is still waiting for humans flying without any external aid, the era of speaking to devices has arrived, courtesy Nuance Communications! The software, Dragon NaturallySpeaking, brings significant enhancements to the voice-recognition market. According to Giga, a leading industry analyst firm, the use of voice increases customer use of interactive voice response (IVR) system from 20 percent to 60 percent over touchtone. Convergence Plus traces the product's roadmap to success as well the company's plans ahead for the global market.

NEW DELHI -- Telecom carriers are increasingly looking to advanced speech solutions as a means of differentiating their services, driving new revenue, and improving customer loyalty. Nuance Communications, a leading provider of speech and imaging solutions, powers applications such as voice activated dialing (VAD), unified messaging, enhanced directory assistance, voice-enabled e-mail and voice mail that enhance caller convenience and help carriers add value to their market offerings.

Nuance recently introduced Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 9, a new release of the world’s best selling speech recognition solution for Microsoft Windows. The new version promises to transform the way people use their PCs, moving accuracy levels up to 99 percent and becoming the first desktop speech recognition software that truly eliminates the need to train the software to a user’s voice.

Nuance's voice activated dialing (VAD) enables customers tp speak the name of the person they wish to contact in their personal address book, rather than looking up and dialing a phone number. For example, callers can say call 'My home' or call "My office' to dial a phone number.

The software, unlike its predecessors, eliminates the need for "training" either the software or the device. Earlier softwares required the users to read through sample documents to train and program the voice-recognition engine, which was very tedious and time-consuming process. However, despite such vigorous efforts, the software required further tweaking to improve accuracy.

Intelligent Software!

Available on 45 million handsets worldwide, Nuance claims that the software can actually eliminate the need for initial training, as the product constantly learns and adapts as users dictate. Simply put, if the software misinterprets a word, the user just types the correct word and the software will automatically associate the recognised speech with the new, corrected word. So the product becomes more accurate with each use. The product also allows the users to activate menu selections, make choices and execute programs by verbal commands. This makes the handset use easier and brings high-level system functionality.

Commenting on whether the product would require additional training if a new user is introduced, Sameer Dania, country manager, India, Sri Lanka and Middle East, said: "If the software is installed on a mobile handset, the software is 'speaker independent', and hence elimates the need for any training. However, if the software is installed on a PC, the software is 'speaker independent', and needs to be trained. Thanks to the latest version (version 9), the training time has been reduced to just a couple of minutes."

Citing a global data, Dania said that nearly 30 to 35 percent of the calls in a call center are misdirected due to lack of understanding on the personnel or customer end. "This software, he claimed, can reduce costs by automating the processes and reducing the number of agents required to do a particular job. This software has demonstrated higher levels of customer satisfaction along with better quality of service. The software has also been able to reduce the customer hold time drastically," he added.

According to the analysts at Cahners In-Stat and Giga, the average cost per call handled by agents ranges anywhere from just over US $2.00 to more than US $15.00. With voice automation, that cost can typically be reduced to 20 cents or less per call.

Feather in the Crown

Dania informed that the company's search engines take nearly 20 million calls everyday, which come out to be over seven billion calls every year, globally. From the Indian perspective, the data is close to 25 million calls every month. He also added that nearly 95 percent of the calls reaching the US directory services are handled by Nuance. In India, so far, two languages -- Hindi and English, have been incorporated in devices. The company is working on other regional languages as well.

Another feather in the crown is the recent announcement made by ford that the manufacturer would be incorporarting this technology in all the cars hitting the road from next year. The technology would help the driver know exactly where he is and where is he heading. The Car Navigation System operates by GPS (Global Positioning System), and a CD-ROM with a digital road map holds all the information the system needs to show you the way. Nuance search engines would make life easier for drivers by automatically selecting the right route and guiding the vehicle reliably to the desired destination.

According to Paul Ricci, chairman and CEO of Nuance Communications, industry leaders have always forecasted the day when speech recognition would become as valuable as the keyboard and mouse in the PC, even becoming a primary way for creating documents and controlling applications. Going by the users' experiences and market feedbacks, v 80. of Dragon NaturallySpeaking delivered, to a great extent, the accuracy levels needed to move speech recognition into the mainstream.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking supports almost all Windows applications and instantly turns the natural voice into text or commands at speeds up to 160 words per minute with accuracy levels that can reach 99 percent, which is faster and more precise than typing. The software delivers significant improvements for existing users, as well as new features designed to expand the use of speech recognition beyond the millions of users who already use the software.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 also includes support for Bluetooth headsets and microphones, as well as Tablet PCs and a number of new mobile devices, giving people the freedom to dictate wirelessly or on-the-go with a PDA or digital recorder.

"Dragon NaturallySpeaking supports 50 languages around the world, out of which two are Indian languages," informed Dania.

British Airways: A Global success Story

Dania cited a global example of the software's success in reducing call rate and enhancing customer experience. British Airways operates international and domestic scheduled and charter air services for the carriage of passengers, freight, and mail. The company has over US $13 billion in annual revenue while serving 163 cities in 77 countries. The company was experiencing nearly 49 million customer contacts per year, which included nearly five million flight information customer service calls per year in the US and UK. According to estimates, cost per call ranged from US $3 to US 4.50, and the call volume was increasing at the rate of 10 percent per year. The airline was suffering unsatisfactory automation rate with touchtone.

The goal was to deliver better customer service by increasing customer self-service capability; simplify product offering by providing the customer with faster access to information; and achieve RoI over next six months.

After deploying the Nuance's speech recognition system, the company achieved nearly 87 percent automated transaction completion rate, shorter hold times and call durations, the cost per call got reduced by 95 percent and the required ROI was achieved in less than six months

Bundle of choices

The voice-response industry generated US $564.8 million in 2005, and is expected to reach US $1.49 billion by 2012, according to a recent report by Frost & Sullivan, with the majority of growth coming in 2007 and 2008.

Nuance also has expertise in text-to-speech, which is the opposite of speech recognition. The company has a tie-up with Tele Atlas for offering location-based technology (LBS). The Tele Atlas database provides street, address, and navigation information that powers applications for consumers around the world.

Nuance now supports Hindi for automating more calls in fast-growing market. Nuance has deployed speech solutions for India’s leading telecom service providers, including Airtel, BSNL, Hutch, MTNL, Spice, Reliance and Tata Indicom. In addition, the region’s largest content provider, India Times, selected speech technologies from Nuance to expand the access and reach of its Internet portal.

You may not have observed, but you may have talked to a machine when you last visited the Indian Railway Inquiry. Nuance has made automated railway inquiry possible in India, that too in our national language -- hindi. Automating the railway inquiry system in hindi is a major step ahead.

Road Ahead…..

Nuance is customising its solutions to meet the demands of growth of telephony services by offering OpenSpeech Recognizer (OSR), the industry’s leading speech recognition engine for telephony applications, with full support for the Hindi language.

The company plans to add SMS dictation to its product portfolio. It has concrete plans to add some Indian languages in the speech recognition system. Nuance intends to help telcos automate calls, reduce cost per call and enhance customer satisfaction.