If one has any doubts about the growing power, functionality and pervasiveness of speech recognition technologies, they can call directory assistance (DA) and chances are one will find out firsthand.

Hosted call center solutions provider VoltDelta has announced that its DeltaTouch OnDemand platform for DA and customer care answered its 10 billionth call in North America. The majority of these calls engages end users with DA speech recognition dialogues then completes the calls or transfers them to call center agents via VoltDelta’s (News - Alert) VoIP’s enabled call distribution and management infrastructure.

VoltDelta achieved this milestone while providing 99.999 percent reliability. It uses directed dialogue speech recognition which observers say is quick, proven, accurate and is readily deployable and is simple for callers to use, making it suitable for applications such as DA.

The DeltaTouch platform blends call management and distribution, speech recognition technology, call and agent screen recording and SMS messaging to optimize performance with cost effective service. Notable benefits include exceptionally accurate voice self service with reduced tuning, more seamless automation to agent transfers, and the ability to capture the “Voice of the Customer” with call and agent screen recording, all provided in a Software as a Service (SaaS (News - Alert)) model.

VoltDelta says most major carriers and a growing number of customer care organizations use VoltDelta’s hosted network and multichannel platform also to manage calls for distributed call centers, enable home agents and deliver SMS confirmations in addition to speech-enabled applications. VoltDelta currently supports more than 2.4 billion calls and 2 billion SMS text messages per year.

VoltDelta’s foci on automated voice and SMS service and live agent transfers are key to effective service. More interactions are taking place in a mobile environment; callers understandably do not have the willingness to wait in queue or have to repeat themselves. At the same time they want the ready ability to connect to live agents if they need to.

“Directory Assistance services have long been the proving ground for highly reliable, automated handling of high volume of calls for very quality conscious customers,” said Dan Miller (News - Alert), senior analyst and founder of Opus Research, in a release. “Reaching the 10 billion call milestone provides testimony to the quality of VoltDelta’s voice recognition and agent enabling resources for service providers and contact centers to deploy hosted operator services and customer care solutions with confidence to support any call volume.”

“Achieving the 10 billion call milestone in the same year that Volt Information Sciences, Inc. celebrates its 60th anniversary stands as a testament of the ongoing investment in quality and innovation that continues to deliver bottom line value for our customers,”  said Steven Shaw (News - Alert), president and CEO of Volt Information Sciences, Inc. “VoltDelta’s business units remain at the forefront of customer care technology, providing operator services and contact center solutions that improve satisfaction and encourage loyalty with on demand efficiency.”