Spoken Communications (News - Alert), provider of the leading cloud platform for contact center outsourcers, has introduced new Spoken Smart IVR for 411, an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system tailored to the needs of the directory assistance market.

The platform releases an enhanced IVR engine that helps call center agents to improve accuracy and customer experience for directory assistance calls.

The Spoken Smart IVR innovates over traditional speech recognition IVRs by utilizing a unique hybrid model combining automated speech recognition with real-time, invisible human intervention for superior accuracy and the smoothest customer experience.

Officials with Spoken Communications said that the Spoken Smart IVR for 411 solution utilizes pinpointed, real-time human intervention in the form of "Silent Guides" to increase the efficiency of IVR automation.

According to company officials, when the automated speech recognition (ASR) engine doesn't understand a caller utterance, rather than asking the caller to repeat the response, the utterance is flagged for a Silent Guide to correct while the call flow continues for the caller without pause. As a result, directory assistance providers can answer more calls with fewer live agents while simultaneously improving accuracy and customer experience.

“We are pleased to announce this simple, cost-effective solution that increases the efficiency of the directory assistance call flow as well as the accuracy of response,” said Charlie Anderson, president of voice discovery services at Spoken Communications, in a statement.

“We've had several 411 providers using the Spoken Smart IVR for 411, and we are seeing more than a double digit increase in IVR automation efficiency, with more improvements on the horizon. More importantly, the customer experience has improved notably,” said Anderson.

TMCnet in November reported that Spoken Communications has announced that the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT (News - Alert)) had selected Spoken’s cloud-based call center technology to power its Call-Center-as-a-Service (CCaaS) solution in the Philippines.