Speech Recognition Versus Touchtone Functionality

Speech recognition helps companies overcome the limitations of touchtone systems, which are often difficult to use for anything other than the most rudimentary applications. Nearly all of us have had at least one experience of being trapped in touchtone menu hell ”unable to accomplish tasks or escape, except by hanging up. The frustration caused by these experiences often leads to customer disenchantment and ill will. As a result, many companies have found themselves needing to support unsuccessful touchtone systems by hiring additional ”and costly ”call center representatives, negating one of the motivations for purchasing a touchtone system in the first place.

Unlike impersonal touchtone systems, speech-recognition systems give companies a greater power to bond with their customers. Not only does the nature of conversational interaction enable a more natural experience for the caller than a touchtone system, but speech-recognition systems can also make some complex tasks easier to automate, thereby reducing the cost of handling routine matters. Imagine what it would be like if the customer service representatives at United Airlines had to personally answer thousands of calls each day from people seeking basic flight departure and arrival information. It is unrealistic to expect even the best customer representative to treat a caller with the same high level of courtesy and respect that he showed the previous 1,000 callers that day. But with a well-designed speech-recognition system, a company can treat every one of its customers as if the very best representative was serving them ”promptly, efficiently , helpfully, and unobtrusively.

Is there anything touchtone can do that speech recognition cannot? The short answer is no, but there are occasions when many people will prefer to use touchtone. People rather like that touchtone allows them to enter a Personal Identification Number (PIN) in relative secrecy (rather than saying it out loud, possibly in front of strangers). However, if they're in a private setting where no one can hear them, they may very well choose to speak.

It is often a good idea to combine speech and touchtone to give callers a choice, as when a system says, "Enter or say your phone number." Some people prefer to use touchtone systems to enter numerical data because it's a kinesthetic process they've grown accustomed to after years of using touchtone telephones and automated teller machines. Many people have a better kinesthetic memory for phone numbers; we need to run our hands over a touchtone keypad to recall the correct sequence of numbers .

But speech-recognition is a better modality for many other tasks, including ones that have traditionally been viewed as numeric. For example, I recently used a touchtone system to get credit for an incorrect long-distance charge. The touchtone system gave me the following directions in a rather slow and laborious manner:

"To request credit using this system, I will ask you to use your telephone to enter the amount to be credited to your bill in dollars and cents. You must enter numbers for the cents, even if they are zeros, but you do not have to enter a decimal point. For example, for a credit of two dollars and thirty-five cents , you would enter two, three, five . For a credit of three dollars, you would enter three, zero, zero . Or for a credit of nine cents, you would enter zero, nine . "

A speech-recognition system would handle the same task by simply asking, "How much was the charge?" The caller could very naturally reply, "Twenty-six cents" or "Three dollars and fifteen cents" without any further instructions needed.

Given the functional and business attractions of using speech technology, you would expect that it would be widely deployed. While many more touchtone systems exist, there are a significant number of speech-recognition applications on the market today. The top providers of telephone-based speech-recognition solutions boast over hundreds of deployments they've done themselves, and over thousands of deployments of their technology by their various partners in the years between 1997 and 2002. [2]

[2] Data from marketing material by Nuance Communications, Inc. and SpeechWorks International, Inc.



The Art and Business of Speech Recognition(c) Creating the Noble Voice
The Art and Business of Speech Recognition: Creating the Noble Voice
ISBN: 0321154924
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 105
Authors: Blade Kotelly

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