Nuance Names Winners of Achievement Awards for Speech Best Practices

BURLINGTON, Mass. -- Nuance Communications announced the winners of its 2007 Achievement Awards, recognizing best practices in speech technology deployment.

The categories and winners of the 2007 Nuance Achievement Awards are:

• The Best Customer Experience Award was won by Vodafone Spain for delivering vastly improved customer satisfaction. Vodafone IVR takes more than 250,000 calls a day on average, with 62 percent of the calls fully automated. Customer satisfaction increased with speech vs. DTMF by 14 percent, while satisfaction with speech versus agent increased by 8 percent.
• The Best Repeat Performance and Commitment to Customer Experience Award was won by Vodafone Australia , which implemented five speech applications, including an auto attendant application and prepaid customer registration named Lara.
• The Achievement Award Americas was won by payment services provider Certegy for its implementation for three new speech applications: Check Pay By Phone, Authorizations, and Check Customer Care. The Check Customer Care application alone resulted in estimated savings of $245,000 in five months.
• The Achievement Award Asia Pacific was won by The Australian Taxation Office for the implementation of a self-help system using speech recognition. Telephone clients are now using normal conversational language to order from a range of more than 400 paper-based publications, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, enjoying an enhanced client experience and a reduced level of client dissatisfaction at times of high call demand.
• The Achievement Award Africa and the Middle East was won by Standard Bank for demonstrating improvements in both customer care and agent efficiency. The Bank's unique personalization feature has improved customer care by providing a personal profile for each caller. Speaker verification allows callers to identify and verify themselves, saving significant agent time. More than 15 percent of the customers adopted the speech application within the first month of deployment, with speech subscription overtaking mobile subscription within the first three weeks of deployment. The Nuance application provided Standard Bank with a transaction completion rate of more than 90 percent.
• The Achievement Award Europe was won by Telia Sonera (Sweden) for demonstrating a 15 percent increase in customer identification using speech vs. DTMF, which has led to more efficient customer service. In the testing phase, more than 80 percent of customers expressed a preference for speech over DTMF.
• The Best Use of Technology Award was awarded to AUSTAR, Australia's regional subscription television provider. AUSTAR's innovative use of speech technology that incorporates all of Nuance's core technologies - speech recognition, text to speech, voice verification, and call steering - has enabled the organization to offer a range of speech services, including taking movie orders without requiring agent or Internet backup. The introduction of the "Box Office" application, combined with the subsequent deployment of Nuance Call Steering, resulted in a 50 percent reduction of incorrect call traffic to sales staff within the first month of deployment, with initial return on investment being achieved in less than 12 months.

  "More than ever, companies are required to satisfy the expectations of the increasingly savvy, mobile consumer who feels entitled to great service," says Steve Chambers, president of speech solutions at Nuance. "Meeting this expectation is also an opportunity for differentiation. These award-winners have set themselves apart by creating a care experience that the consumer prefers. Consumers are expecting greater access to and response from organizations they interact with. If expectations aren't met, the customer's voice is greatly amplified through social networks and consumer-generated media. This new environment elevates the role care plays in not only in servicing customers, but in creating brand impressions."