You can't read five press releases or two different market research reports without reading about speech rec. Well, it seems like many speech rec manufacturers are pairing up with telephony folks to create some cool applications, most notably auto attendants, IVRs, and personal assistants. For one, customers like the simple way of interfacing with a system via speech.
End users find it less intimidating when using speech to drive an application.
And an increase in the number of large call centers and e-commerce businesses means customers are priority one. If they demand better and easier customer service, companies have to be able to give it to them, explains Howland. Typically, it takes several months to train agents to their full potential, but turnaround usually happens so quickly that there's always a short supply of experienced agents available. Adding speech rec to an enterprise's or call center's IVR or auto attendant serves to reduce or eliminate operator and customer service staff, reduce incoming call traffic, and deliver after-hours services easily. Speech-driven systems also provide more support during increased call center volumes since some systems can automatically gather important info from callers and pass it along to agents, or use it to route callers to the most appropriate agents.