Boston, MA—May 20, 2003—SpeechWorks International, Inc. (Nasdaq: SPWX), a global leader in speech technologies and services, today announced that eleven of the speech deployments recognized by Speech Technology Magazine as the year’s “Most Innovative Solutions” are powered by SpeechWorks technology. Demonstrating the range and versatility of speech, the awards highlight innovative uses of SpeechWorks products across multiple vertical industries and application environments including telephony, embedded and enterprise systems.

“It's an honor to have so many customer deployments recognized by Speech Technology Magazine as the year’s most innovative solutions,” said Steve Chambers, chief marketing officer at SpeechWorks. “These solutions demonstrate the wide range of applications that can be successfully implemented to reduce costs and improve service. The success of these innovative applications validates our strategy of offering state-of-the-art technology along with reusable application components and tools, and proven professional services, in close collaboration with our partners.”

Speech Technology Magazine’s editors and select columnists reviewed award applications from customers and vendors around the world and selected the winners based on creativity, ease of deployment and overall effectiveness of the speech solution. The following customer deployments use SpeechWorks technology and were recognized as the most innovative solutions of the year:

ABN AMRO
To handle the large volume of calls pouring into its call center and focus attention on its best prospects, ABN AMRO called upon SpeechWorks’ partner NetByTel to implement a configurable loan capture application that allows callers to skip the menu and ask questions directly, as if talking to a person. As a result, loan agents have more time to focus on providing quality service, and potential customers spend less time on hold. The application uses Vocalocity’s VoiceXML Gateway and SpeechWorks’ OpenSpeech Recognizer™ speech recognition technology, an open, standards-based engine that accelerates application development and can scale to meet ABN AMRO’s growing call volumes. Experience the ABN AMRO Mortgage Group loan capture application at 1.800.244.0119.

CIBC (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce)
CIBC introduced customers to Audio Access Automated Banking Machines (ABMs) featuring SpeechWorks’ Speechify Solo™ embedded TTS software as part of a plan to expand barrier-free access and upgrade ABM service across Canada. The Audio Access ABMs allow customers with visual impairments and the elderly to plug personal headphones into an audio jack and follow natural sounding voice instructions using Speechify Solo in English or French for completing any ABM transaction using the number keypad.

Davey Tree
Davey Tree is a $350 million per year services company with 1,800 field crews throughout the US and Canada. The company updated its paper and faxed-based expense and reporting system with a VoiceXML-based solution that uses Vocalocity’s Voice Gateway and SpeechWorks’ OpenSpeech Recognizer software. Now, Davey’s field service crews use cell phones to call into a speech-automated system that walks them though a series of steps to record their daily activities. The application interacts directly with the company’s SAP system and automatically updates data, giving executives immediate access to field information and allowing them to reallocate resources where appropriate. The VoiceXML-based system has significantly shortened Davey Tree’s customer billing cycle, reduced data entry costs and increased productivity through daily analysis of field data.

Domino’s Pizza
Developed by Jacent Technologies, OrderStream for Domino’s Pizza is a packaged, voice-ordering system for automating takeout and delivery operations. Jacent designed PIKA Technologies’ voice cards and SpeechWorks® speech engine into the OrderStream system, allowing Domino’s Pizza customers to place takeout and delivery orders over the telephone without the need of a human customer service representative. Orders are then seamlessly and automatically sent into the restaurant’s point-of-sale system.

DYMO
A leading manufacturer of electronic and PC-based label makers, DYMO selected Tell-Eureka’s LevelOne Virtual CSR self-service solution to enhance its technical customer service operation. This solution provides callers with an easy way to resolve problems using step-by-step troubleshooting instructions from the automated LevelOne system. LevelOne’s speech capabilities leverage the OpenSpeech product line from SpeechWorks. With LevelOne, DYMO has reduced overall costs while maintaining its high level of customer service.

Ford Motor Company
SpeechWorks and Ford Research Labs designed and implemented a multimodal interface for the Model U concept SUV, which features conversational speech technologies that enable car occupants to speak naturally to operate on-board systems including entertainment, navigation, cellular telephone and climate control. The Model U concept SUV relies on SpeechWorks’ Speech2Go™ embedded speech recognizer and Speechify Solo embedded text-to-speech (TTS) software.

Singapore Post
In a first for the postal industry in Asia, Singapore Post deployed a speech-enabled “Postal Code Helpline,” an automated system that offers the public easy and user-friendly access to over 122,000 postal codes island-wide in Singapore. After the introduction of SpeechWorks speech recognition software, automation rates rose to more than 70 percent, up from 30 percent under the touch-tone system, illustrating the high level of customer satisfaction and allowing customer service representatives to concentrate on more complex inquiries.

Thrifty Car Rental
In order to offload “rate shopper” calls from agents and in turn reduce call center costs, Thrifty installed a speech-activated reservation line for rate-check with the ability to transfer reservation callers to live agents with intelligent screen pop. The system has not only increased customer satisfaction by offering callers an easy and effective self-service alternative, but also differentiated Thrifty with superior customer care. The SpeechWorks’ powered system runs on a platform from Dallas-based Intervoice (Nasdaq: INTV), a world leader in converged voice and data solutions. Experience Thrifty Car Rental’s speech-enabled system at 1.800.THRIFTY.

Ticketmaster
Edify Corporation helped Ticketmaster upgrade and automate its worldwide consumer self-service operations with its award-winning Edify platform and Edify Voice™ self-service applications in conjunction with OpenSpeech Recognizer from SpeechWorks. Ticketmaster call centers receive between 80,000 to 100,000 calls per day regarding artist schedules, performance dates, venues, ticket pricing and availability as well as directions. The new speech-enabled self-service applications automate the company’s front-end call directory process, thus increasing call treatment accuracy and accommodating higher call transaction volume for Ticketmaster. Locate the number for a local Ticketmaster Charge-by-Phone center at http://www.ticketmaster.com/h/customer_serve.html.

Time Customer Service (TCS)
The magazine fulfillment center for the Time Inc. family of magazines turned to NetByTel to help reduce overall costs in its call centers while maintaining the high standards of quality that is expected by customers when dealing with one of the world’s largest and most prominent publishers. NetByTel developed an automated speech application that allows callers to change their name and address, a process that was previously not available through touch-tone service. NetByTel’s Name and Address module uses SpeechWorks OpenSpeech Recognizer engine and OpenSpeech DialogModules™ software, patented VoiceXML building blocks that ensure a consistent user interface for high levels of caller satisfaction.

University of Texas Southwest Medical Center
The University of Texas Southwest Medical Center successfully implemented a customized SpeechWorks SpeechSite™ auto-attendant solution, which assists university operators in handling routine requests and allows them more time to address callers with more complex needs. Unlike the typical auto attendant application deployed in “corporate America,” this custom application had to deal with the peculiarities associated with a large multifaceted academic medical center. While initial projections indicated that call volumes to the university operators could be reduced by 40%, actual volumes have been reduced by 70%. Experience the University of Texas Southwest Medical Center system at 1.214.648.3111.

“ SpeechWorks is a pioneer in developing sophisticated user interface designs that maximize the power of its speech technologies, as demonstrated by the large and diverse number of customer deployments honored in this year’s Innovative Solutions Award competition,” said John Kelly, publisher and editor-in-chief of Speech Technology Magazine. “The telephony-based applications from SpeechWorks and its partners stand out for their innovation, effectiveness and overall achievement of improving customer self-service for so many organizations. In addition, SpeechWorks’ relatively new entrance in the embedded market has resulted in remarkable advancements in user interface design for automobiles, handsets and other devices.”

The award-winning SpeechWorks-powered solutions will be reviewed in the July/August issue of Speech Technology Magazine.

 

About Speech Technology Magazine
As the only publication devoted to exclusively to speech, Speech Technology Magazine is the primary source of information for readers wanting to gain insight into the world of speech technology. Speech Technology Magazine, the STM NewsBlast and SpeechSource are international recognized as leaders in providing information, news, and analysis on issues related to the speech technology industry. Readership consists of executives and managers in speech technology, corporate and governmental executives, integrators, developers, investors, end users and representatives of industries such as telecommunications; health care and pharmaceuticals; finance, banking and insurance; automotive; travel and transportation; utilities; retail; device manufacturers; call centers; value-added reseller; carriers; service providers and more. Speech Technology Magazine is published bi-monthly. The STM NewsBlast and SpeechSource are electronic newsletters.

About SpeechWorks
Organizations around the world trust SpeechWorks to manage their customer conversations. As a leading provider of speech technologies and services, SpeechWorks helps companies create and implement unique Speech Strategies that ensure maximum financial return and the highest levels of caller satisfaction. The Company provides speech recognition, text-to-speech (TTS) and speaker verification for network and embedded environments, including new multimodal devices with both an audio interface and visual display. SpeechWorks’ customers include carriers, corporations and government organizations such as AOL, CIBC Bank, Microsoft and Union Pacific Railroad. For more information, please call 617.428.4444 or visit www.speechworks.com.

 

SpeechWorks, OpenSpeech Recognizer, Speechify Solo, Speech2Go, SpeechSite are trademarks of SpeechWorks International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.