NEW YORK, NY – July 27, 2005 – Tell-Eureka
today named Roberto Pieraccini to its executive
management team as Chief Technology Officer.
A renowned speech technology expert, Pieraccini
will direct future development of Tell-Eureka’s LevelOne Virtual
CSR product suite as well as new offerings.
“Now is the time to realize the benefits of speech technology research through commercial applications that fully exploit intuitive human-to-machine interactions to solve critical business challenges,” said Pieraccini. “Tell-Eureka is one of few companies to provide those applications with highly sophisticated automated agents that intelligently handle complex calls through conversational speech.”
“Roberto Pieraccini is one of the leading innovators in speech technology who, over the past 25 years, has provided invaluable thought leadership to the industry,” said Zor Gorelov, founder and CEO of Tell-Eureka. “With an equally impressive track record in developing commercial speech applications, he will help Tell-Eureka take our LevelOne products to the next level and lead our efforts in creating new product offerings.”
Pieraccini joins Tell-Eureka from the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, where he managed the Conversational Interaction Technology department, which focused on improving the development process and the quality of human-machine spoken communications. Before that, he led the Natural Dialog group at SpeechWorks (now ScanSoft). In 1990, he joined the Speech Research Group at AT&T Bell Labs and later AT&T Labs. He started his career with CSELT (now Telecom Italia Lab) after completing his Dr. Eng. degree from the Universita’ degli Studi di Pisa, Italy. Pieraccini holds several patents and has authored more than 100 publications on the subjects of speech recognition, language modeling, language understanding and dialog. He is a frequent keynote speaker at industry conferences and academic symposia.
“Roberto Pieraccini has the unique combination of skills in both research and the real world and I’m confident of his continued contribution to the advancement and commercial success of speech technology,” said Dr. Larry Rabiner, a pioneer in computer speech and author of four books in the field. “He is a tremendous asset for Tell-Eureka and the company will greatly benefit from the depth of his knowledge and practical experience.” Rabiner, an AT&T Fellow and former VP of Research for AT&T Labs, is currently professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rutgers University and the University of California, Santa Barbara.
LevelOne Automated Agents
LevelOne
provides call centers with automated agents
who interact with callers using conversational
speech to handle customer care problems. The
automated agent provides step-by-step instructions
to solve each caller’s specific issue – all
without live agent assistance. Delivering a customer
experience that closely matches that provided
by a live agent, LevelOne has consistently earned
high marks for usability and effectiveness on
its customer satisfaction surveys. More than
90 percent of customers surveyed over the past
year said that they liked the automated service
and would use it again to resolve an issue.
About Tell-Eureka
Tell-Eureka is a leader in the development
of multi-channel, self-service customer support
applications that combine speech recognition
and Web technologies. Its award-winning LevelOne
Virtual CSR platform cost-effectively automates
first-level customer support, while leveraging
existing investments in online support initiatives.
The company’s intelligent self-service
solution enables callers to resolve common
issues quickly and effectively using natural
conversations over the phone, freeing agents
to focus on more complex issues and revenue-generating
activities. For a demonstration or more information,
call 646.792.2718 or visit www.telleureka.com.
All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
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