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Thanks to advancements in speech recognition technology, today’s interactive voice recognition (IVR) systems have improved to the point where they can accurately carry out “natural dialogs” with callers  thus cementing their role as customer self-service/call routing solutions for the call center.

As speech recognition technology continues to improve, one can expect more organizations to deploy IVR systems for the purpose of reducing labor costs and improving customer service. Needless to say, speech recognition technology has come a long way since then. Today’s IVRs have improved both in terms of functionality and reliability  and, due to the growing number of deployments over the years, consumers have grown more accustomed to using them as well. In fact, industry research shows that many consumers, especially those in the younger generations, actually prefer to use speech-enabled self-serve systems over live assistance when it comes to simple interactions  such as getting one’s bank balance, carrying out an over-the-phone transfer, or requesting a copy of a brochure, etc.  because it is usually faster than waiting on hold to speak with a live agent. Underscoring the growth in IVR deployments is a recent research report from T3i Group predicting that the global IVR market will grow to $514 million by 2013, up from an estimated $431 million this year, due in part to the growth in voice XML technology.

The firm’s “InfoTrack for Converged Applications 2008 IVR Market Report” forecasts that 95 percent of IVR ports shipped in 2013 will support VXML, compared to less than 75 percent today. VXML enables Web sites to offer the same text-based applications, such as order entry, with speech recognition. The report finds that DTMF-only IVR systems are slowly being phased out  and predicts that speech-enabled (or hybrid DTMF/speech-enabled) systems will outnumber DTMF-only (i.e. touchtone only) by almost 2 to 1 by 2013. IP/SIP port shipments will continue to grow  by 2013, only 10 percent of all IVR ports shipped will be TDM, compared with 42 percent today. At the heart of every IVR solution is the speech engine  this is the software that is used to “interpret” what a caller is saying, which in turn allows the system to render an appropriate response.

One way today’s IVR systems have improved significantly is that the speech engines they incorporate are more adept at “self-tuning”  that is to say, the more the system is used, the more it automatically “learns” all the different words, phrases, utterances and vocal sounds used by the people interacting with it  and tagging meaning to those words, phrases and sounds. In a new white paper, hosted call center solutions provider VoltDelta explains how its CrystalWAVE speech recognition technology takes a different approach from other vendors by running multiple speech technologies in parallel to achieve even higher accuracy. As the white paper explains, VoltDelta’s CrystalWAVE technology goes way beyond simple word or phrase spotting and can actually interpret meaning by analyzing the context in which those words or phrases are used.  In the event the system encounters a word or phrase it is only “marginally certain” of, it automatically triggers the generation of smaller, focused grammars, or WAVE LETS, and in effect takes a “second look” at the utterances and then narrows the recognition task to the words most likely spoken. Through this approach, difficult/complex “problems” are reduced and made simpler. The use of this WAVE-LET technology is seamless and automatically applied when required.

Source: TMCNet.com

You can discuss more about speech recognition and related topics in our Speech Recognition Group.