Genesys Unveils Plans for Speech Platform
NEW YORK - Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc., an Alcatel company (NYSE: ALA, Paris: CGEP), today unveiled its plans for the next generation speech platform, extending voice self-service beyond the contact center to include network services, multimedia, and mobile devices. The company, recognized as the dominant VXML platform provider with its Genesys Voice Platform technology, acquired VoiceGenie earlier this year and now has more than twice the market share of its nearest competitor.
In laying out its vision for the future of speech self-service over the next few years, Genesys is driving the technology beyond the contact center and into broader customer service settings to provide a consistent customer experience at every touch point.
Speech self-service will be the new front door to the enterprise, creating a common voice brand and streamlining access to people and functions.
Software services will proactively contact customers to inform them of critical events and solicit action.
Speech platforms will listen to the voice of the customer in surveys that ensure follow-up and satisfaction.
Key self-service capabilities will speech-enable web interactions and seamlessly support escalation to assistance or experts with multimedia collaboration.
Finally, the managed service providers that use Genesys technology are creating new applications that support enhanced mobile services such as voice-based operator assistance, mapping and directions.
"Speech and self-service technology has become one of the strongest growth markets we have seen in years," said Wes Hayden, President and CEO of Genesys. "And many seemingly futuristic applications are already in production at Genesys customers."
The largest credit card processor in Italy is implementing a video agent over 3G phones that uses an avatar to answer customer questions.
One of the largest utilities in North America is using speech technology to automatically, proactively contact customers during power shortages to let them know of system disruptions and resolutions.
A major airline is using voice branding to create a voice self-service "persona" shattering the stereotypes about bland "canned" operators.
A variety of service providers are adding audio e-mail and enhanced mobile services.
Next generation speech services are part of a larger trend toward dynamic customer interaction, which blends self-service and assisted-service across multiple touchpoints including the web and multimedia devices. Under business rules control, callers can be proactively moved from self- to assisted-service to take advantage of opportunities or expertise. As customer expectations and needs increase, a growing number of enterprises are moving to create dynamic contact centers that improve the customer experience.
Through open standards and flexible deployment, Genesys is enabling managed service providers and IT departments to leverage common assets and applications that that can be deployed for many departments or multiple enterprises. To support this growing range of new applications and demanding environments, Genesys has aligned its GVP and VoiceGenie self-service platform into a single platform tuned for three unique sets of needs:
Genesys self-service for contact centers serves traditional call center and voice self-service needs, including next-generation call center applications such as voice-based customer recognition and voice/video self-service over 3G phones.
Genesys enterprise speech portals support emerging applications such as speech-enabled automated receptionists, voice-enabled web sites, automated voice payments, and voicebranding.
And Genesys enhanced network services enables service providers, such as carriers and wireless providers, to create value-added services including speech enabled voice mail, enhanced directory assistance and video portals.
As a result, self-service is becoming an asset for consumers to interact in new ways that are customer-centric, and is enabling enterprises to proactively build their brand and generate value.
Genesys and its partners will demonstrate many of these new applications at its booth #317at SpeechTEK, the leading conference and exhibition for speech technologies, which takes place August 7-10 in New York at the Marriott Marquis Hotel.
About Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc.
Genesys, an Alcatel company, is 100 percent focused on software for contact centers. Leading companies in the Global 2000 and Fortune 1000 use Genesys to deliver interactions that drive better business. With 3,300 customers in 80 countries, Genesys directs more than 100 million customer interactions every day. Genesys allows enterprises to achieve key business objectives by tying together customer interactions, people, and customer information in both traditional telephony and IP environments. Sophisticated routing and reporting across voice, e-mail, documents and Web interactions, coupled with integrated self service, ensure that customers are quickly connected to the right resource - the first time. Genesys solutions stop customer frustration and allow enterprises to deliver superior customer satisfaction and improved business results. For more information, visit us at www.genesyslab.com.
About Alcatel
Alcatel provides communications solutions to telecommunication carriers, Internet service providers and enterprises for delivery of voice, data and video applications to their customers or employees. Alcatel brings its leading position in fixed and mobile broadband networks, applications and services, to help its partners and customers build a user-centric broadband world. With sales of EURO 13.1 billion and 58,000 employees in 2005, Alcatel operates in more than 130 countries. For more information, visit Alcatel on the Internet: http://www.alcatel.com
Media Contact: David Radoff, Genesys, 650.466.1078, dradoff@genesyslab.com