Article Archive
■
Voice Automation or Outsourcing?
Make the Cost-Cutting Strategy Fit the Call
Supportindustry.com,
June 2004
"Call center managers today are under
enormous pressure to drive down costs. The two main weapons in
their arsenal are outsourcing and voice automation... But choosing between them is
not simply a matter of comparing return-on-investment. It
turns out that the types of calls and transactions that are
best suited for voice automation are not necessarily the same
as those that make sense for outsourcing... So, when making
decisions about automation or outsourcing (or not), it's
instructive to take a look at them from the point of view of
the types of calls you have to handle...“
■ Let’s Get Creative! Speech
Applications Can Do More Than Impersonate Agents
Speech
Technology Magazine, July/August 2003
“The prevailing concept of voice
user-interface design today is to replicate, to the greatest
extent possible, the experience of speaking with a friendly,
helpful human agent. While the intent is fine, it misses a
much greater potential made possible by new speech
technologies: to transform the interactive voice response
(IVR) system into a powerful new customer communications and
branding medium. “
■
Voice XML and SALT. A
three-part series giving real-world assessments of the hot new
voice application standards.
Making Sense of Voice XML and SALT
TMCnet.com,
An
overview of the Voice XML and SALT standards: how their heritage
in Web technology yields big plusses for voice applications and
systems; downsides and pitfalls; what you need to know for
successful design, development, and maintenance.
TMCnet.com,
A
closer look at Voice XML: what it covers, application design and
development issues, what skills are needed, what kinds of
development tools are available.
SALT Sets the Standard for Web-Based Voice
Applications
TMCnet.com,
More
in-depth coverage of SALT: the motives behind its design,
requirements for multimodal applications, where it makes sense
and where it doesn’t, its components and capabilities, design
and development issues.
■ Voice Technologies Offer Higher
Potential for Better Service, Lower Costs
Call Center Management Review,
September 2002
A discussion of
speech recognition, text-to-speech, and speaker authentication
technologies and the best ways to put them to work.
■
Voice Technologies Complement Call Center
Agents, Web Sites
TMCnet.com,
A
look at which kinds of applications benefit the most from speech
recognition and text-to-speech technologies, and how they can be
integrated most effectively with live agents and web contact
methods.