Finally, customer satisfaction may suffer as callers may get different answers to their questions or varying levels of service depending on agent training and skill level. As a result, companies still must maintain large call centers. Moreover, the range and types of services that can be automated is limited. As a result, many companies are setting systems to enable their customers to purchase products over the Web, yet these companies are finding that the Web alone cannot address all their customers' needs. Additionally, many consumers are concerned about security and are hesitant to transmit passwords or credit card information across the Internet.
Speech recognition is an inexpensive way to augment traditional agent-only call centers.
Speech recognition helps reduce on-hold time, and the shorter wait times help control communication costs. Enterprises can provide their Internet content and services via the telephone and access new customers. There are only hundreds of connected PCs in the world today. By adding a Nuance voice user interface to their Web applications, companies can provide voice access to the more than 1 billion telephone users around the world. With V-Commerce systems, companies can build on their existing website infrastructure including the same application servers, business rules, and databases.