Jack Nicklaus Tees Up the Virtual Agents

LONDON - TV advertisements selling properties in Spain and fronted by legendary golfer Jack Nicklaus are leading the way in the use of speech recognition technology.

Viewers calling Polaris, the company behind the commercials, for a brochure will talk to a virtual agent allowing multiple customer calls to be taken with no queuing or engaged tones.

The new technology allows companies to answer all calls made to advertised numbers, regardless of the call volume.

The Polaris virtual agent software, ContactCapture, is available from Fluency and has been used to handle calls to many companies including car manufacturers such as Volkswagen Group and the BBC's Freeview. 

The number of calls that can be answered is unlimited, with over 2 million calls taken by virtual agents for the Freeview digital terrestrial television (DTT) service that brings viewers up to 30 television channels and interactive services, through their rooftop aerial. Freeview used advertisements on prime time BBC before EastEnders to promote its services with a customer service phone number, which handled over 20,000 calls a day as the public flocked to obtain information on the free-to-view digital terrestrial television service.