August 1998

GeoTel Communications
900 Chelmsford St.
Tower II, Floor 12
Lowell, MA 01851
Ph: 978-275-5100;
Fx: 978-275-5399
Web site: www.geotel.com

Today’s successful call center managers know they need to respond to customers in whatever medium the customer desires — hence the growth of the multimedia-enabled call center. GeoTel already had a call center winner with their Intelligent CallRouter (ICR), which creates a virtual call center network by providing call-by-call routing to geographically dispersed agents, independently of the manufacturer of the attached ACD, PBX, or IVR, or the carrier network. With the addition of a Web server interface to its ICR, called Enterprise Web, GeoTel broadens the customer-contact options managed by the ICR to include interactive, Web-initiated transactions.

The open, industry-standard interface provided by GeoTel Enterprise Web enables any Web server to communicate directly with the Intelligent CallRouter, integrating the Web into the call center enterprise. Calls originating from the Internet are distributed by the ICR in the same manner as those arriving from a carrier network. The product is designed to foster the implementation of Web-based applications such as "call me back" and "talk to an agent" buttons. Multimedia queuing and Web screen synchronization for collaborative browsing are also enabled. Enterprise Web isn’t choosy about whom it helps, either — the product extends its capabilities to customers with a single line for voice and Internet connections or to customers with a dedicated line for each.

Part of the allure of Enterprise Web lies in its ability to provide consistency and preserve a unified image across a call center, even if the call center’s agents are scattered across the country. It is a single, tightly integrated customer-interaction platform dealing with standard business requirements in a uniform way — and it delivers consistent messages and service quality to customers regardless of the method they use to contact the company. Enterprise Web also adds the ability to deliver a rich set of data entered by customers on a Web page to an agent’s desktop, via screen pops and other CTI applications, when voice contact with an agent is required. Cradle-to-grave reporting, which includes Web-based transactions as well as data from networks, ACDs, IVRs, desktop applications, and other resources, is also standard on Enteprise Web.

GeoTel’s Enterprise Web is an optional product for the Intelligent CallRouter and operates on a standard peripheral gateway platform. The application is available now and priced starting at $30,000.

Vista

Syntellect, Inc.
1000 Holcomb Woods Parkway
Building 410A
Roswell, GA 30076-2585
Ph: 770-587-0700
Fx: 770-587-0589
Web site: www.syntellect.com

Syntellect was looking for a call center solution to handle complex transactions and high-volume traffic, without decreasing overall processing performance. They came up with Vista, an open standards-based Interactive Communications Management (ICM) software platform for enterprise customer call centers. The Vista family integrates all call center technologies, including third-generation interactive voice response (IVR), integrated Web response (IWR), predictive dialing, computer- telephony integration (CTI), fax-on-demand, speech recognition, and agent desktop productivity tools.

Vista combines critical call center technologies with a distributed client/server architecture, powerful open standards components, Web-based management system, and graphical application development tool providing customers with the ability to scale the system, as well as higher degrees of redundancy and high processing performance.

Vista
The core of the Vista family handles the advanced processing capabilities required for complex customer transactions encountered by call centers. Companies with large or multiple call centers can configure the software to reside on multiple or networked servers, while small companies can run the system on one computer.

VistaGen
VistaGen is a graphical, object-oriented application generator based on "wizards" rather than on flowcharts or spreadsheets. The GUI makes it as easy as possible for nonprogrammers to create and manage applications for multiple call center technologies from a single tool. And, VistaGen’s use of Java lets a programmer quickly develop robust feature sets for more complex call center applications.

VistaView
VistaView is the administration component of the Vista platform, and it allows companies to manage and control their call center implementations from a single location using an Internet Web browser, regardless of whether the Vista servers are deployed at a single site or scattered in multiple geographic locations.

The roll-out of the Vista line coincides with other developments at Syntellect. For example, the company is focusing their direct sales force on Vista sales to larger call centers, while they implement a third-party distribution strategy for Vista sales to smaller call centers. And, Syntellect is offering customers alternatives in implementing Vista — customers can buy just the Vista software servers from Syntellect and install them on their existing hardware, or they can purchase a complete hardware and software solution directly from the company. Syntellect is offering migration assistance and promotional incentives for customers using its existing VocalPoint and Premier family of products. They are currently taking orders for third-quarter delivery.

FreeSpeech 98

Philips Speech Processing
A Subsidiary Of Philips Electronics
64 Perimeter Center East
Atlanta, GA 03046
Ph: 770-821-2400
Web site: www.freespeech98.com

Philips Speech Processing, already on the map as a developer of high-end natural continuous speech recognition technology, is bringing its advanced technology to the masses — namely, anyone with a PC. The new speech-to-text product, dubbed FreeSpeech 98, has a low enough price point to help make speech recognition capability a standard interface for home or small office PC users rather than just a nifty frill.

FreeSpeech 98 uses natural continuous speech recognition for dictation and voice commands for application control. PC users will appreciate the ability to create, edit, and format documents and manipulate their Window’s environment by speaking directly to the computer, via a microphone, as freely as they would speak to a colleague. To assist in the process of dictation, Philips includes its patented "Easy Edit" synchronous playback feature that audibly plays back words and sentences, while simultaneously highlighting the selection on the screen, enabling the user to proof text and make changes quickly and easily. As editors, we love this function, but it’s critical to anyone who does a lot of word processing — whether it’s letter writing or filling in a spreadsheet. Users can replace words by choosing from an alternative word list and speaking a command into the application, similarly to the way a traditional spell check functions.

FreeSpeech 98 comes loaded with over 270,000 words, based on the Oxford University Press dictionary. A comprehensive, customizable vocabulary and language model designed to facilitate the creation of documents such as business letters, personal letters, memos, short notes, and e-mail is also included. The vocabulary encompasses most common terms, phrases, and names and can be augmented to a maximum size of 64,000 words, including those specific to industry or daily tasks.

The software learns during use, which means faster, more accurate recognition. FreeSpeech 98 will adapt to the user’s voice, dialect, and natural dictation style. Additionally, a built-in tuner makes it possible to analyze existing documents on the PC for words to add to the vocabulary.

FreeSpeech 98 supports standard microphones for voice input and recommends using one with noise canceling functionality. The company is pitching their own microphone, SpeechMike, in conjunction with the software release. You can find more information on the all-in-one trackball, microphone, and speaker at www.speechmike.philips.com

If you’ve got an ISDN or faster Internet connection, download a demo of the software from Philips’ Web site at www.freespeech98.com. Alternatively, Philips will ship the software on CD-ROM to you for a nominal fee, and you can try it for seven days. If you’re as impressed as our editors were, go back to the Web site for a key code that will permanently unlock the software. At $39, FreeSpeech 98 is a productivity tool you can’t do without.