Workforce Productivity Feature Article

Aspect Communications Corporation wants its users, as well as everyone else in the industry, to know that, even though the company has merged with Concerto, it is business as usual for the enterprise customer contact solutions provider possibly more so. Following are three announcements regarding Aspect, all made this week.
www.aspect.com

Aspect Week In News, Pt. I: CITEC, Loquendo Integrate Aspect IVR Platform
Announced today, Italy-based global speech technology company Loquendo and systems integrator CITEC have integrated Loquendos multilingual Text to Speech and Automatic Speech Recognition engines with Aspect Communications Customer Self-Service (CSS) IVR application (see Pt. II for more about Aspect CSS).

This integration will enable CITEC to design and implement Aspect CSS-based solutions, providing the full potential of Loquendo TTS text-to-speech technology and its advanced features: emotional expressivity; mixed language support; and audio mixer, supporting natural language applications for automatic interaction services.

CITEC is a platinum member for the Italian market of Aspect Communications alliance program, and its controlled company, Citec Voice, is master distributor of Loquendo speech technologies for the Italian telephony market.

Loquendo provides a comprehensive range of engines for the development of efficient self-service applications. Loquendo TTS text-to-speech software and Loquendo ASR automatic speech recognition software are currently available in 16 languages and in male and female voices.
www.loquendo.com
www.citecvoice.it/eng/eng.index

Aspect Week In News, Pt. II: Aspect Customer Self-Service v7.1
Aspect yesterday launched Aspect Customer Self-Service (CSS) v7.1, which offers a platform prepackaged with contact center speech self-service and enterprisewide VoiceXML-based auto attendant functionality.

Aspect CSS supports ScanSoft OpenSpeech Attendant to enable businesses provision of convenient, professional, flexible speech-driven access to people and information via phone virtually anywhere, anytime, according to the company announcement.

The companys CSS uses PSTN and VoIP connectivity to automate many transactions, ranging from simple information requests to more complex processes (e.g., order placement and address capture). Significantly scalable, Aspect CSS interoperates with many of the industrys leading databases and legacy corporate data sources; this, so callers have a wide range of simple to complex self-service capabilities delivered to them.

Businesses that provide callers with strong self-service applications can provide privacy and around-the-clock convenience to callers, therefore benefiting from reduced costs and increased productivity.

Aspect CSS allows callers to speak in complete sentences or phrases, rather than one-word responses, in CSS business interaction automation. The self-service platform uses speech recognition, text-to-speech and VoiceXML technology to enable and deliver advanced self-service experiences.

Aspect Customer Self-Service v7.1 is VoiceXML 2.0 compliant and supports applications developed using third-party tools from TuVox and Voxify. It is now generally available.

Aspect Week In News, Pt. III: Aspect, TuVox Quicken Speech Deployment
Aspect and speech applications provider TuVox on Monday announced that the latters technology validation on Aspects open standards-based IVR platform, Customer Self-Service (CSS), brings with it the ability of contact center deployment of sophisticated, fully customized speech applications 50 percent to 75 percent faster than traditional voice self-service solutions, according to the announcement.

Deployed on Aspects CSS platform for large contact centers with high call volumes, TuVox speech applications can be used to increase both the number and the type of transactions that can be automated with voice self-service.

The solution supports VoiceXML and enhanced natural language processing technology. User-friendly, voice self-service automation can lower costs, improve productivity and reduce caller frustration.

Our combined technologies should raise the bar for both ease of deployment and callers experiences with voice self-service, said TuVox President and CEO Larry Miller in a company statement.
www.tuvox.com