April 7th, 2009 by Emerging Technologies
In business, it is always necessary to try to stay ahead, use new technology and be innovative. Looking for ways to improve service and provide a better experience for your customers comes down to improvements in customer service and more efficiency in operations. You have the ability to make use of new speech to text and voice recognition technology to help you provide top notch service to your clients.
Using Technology
Every industry can benefit from improvements in customer service. New developments in speech to text and voice recognition technology has allowed for businesses to improve their customer service drastically.
Everyone from writers to medical services to call centers can use voice recognition software to provide service that is more fluent. Voice recognition software can also help to reduce costs, increase productivity and reduce stress for both customers and employees.
Benefits to Expect
Voice recognition software allows a business to put employees to better use. Software can handle answering incoming calls and routing calls. It can enable a company to reduce staff and cut training costs. Many tedious job duties related to phone operations can be streamlined and simplified.
Instead of having an employee who answers and routes phone calls, the software can handle the task. This allows that employee to be put to better use elsewhere or the position to be eliminated all together.
For call centers, voice recognition software can free up agents to handle calls that are more complex. Simple calls can be handled through the system where customers can guide themselves to the answers they need.
Speech to text software is perfect for anyone who wants to multitask. It makes it simple to dictate notes or documents verbally to the program that then turns those spoken words into written text. This is perfect for administrators, writers and ideal for those who spend much of the day moving around without time to spend in front of a computer. There are some programs that can be used via a mobile phone, which sends the information back to the computer.
Advances to Appreciate
The advances in voice recognition and text to speech technology have been great. If you have ever used an automated phone system then you can probably agree that these programs are advancing.
In the beginning, voice recognition and text to speech technology had many draw backs. The different accents and ways of saying words could confuse the system. This would lead to frustration on the part of the person using the system. Today’s systems, though, are much more advanced. They are better made to recognize hard to understand accents and alterations in the way people speech. This has reduced frustrations with voice recognition programs and allows them to be more readily used by businesses.
There is no need to be concerned about implementing a voice recognition program in your company. Thee are a range of options and different programs that allow you to find the system that will best suit your needs and allow you to best serve your customers and employees.
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March 29th, 2009 by Emerging Technologies
At one time, the concept of speech recognition software existed almost exclusively in the world of science-fiction films. Remember the classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey? This was probably the film that first popularized the concept of talking to a computer. When people first viewed this film, they look at speech recognition programs as pure fantasy. Today, they are a reality and can be used with your home and office computer.
There are two forms of speech recognition software. The first is text to speech and it involves highlighted text that is then “read” out loud over the computer’s speakers. The second version is speech to text, which is also commonly referred to as dictation software. This type of speech recognition program listens to a person’s dictation and then types it out on a word processing program. Only a few short years ago, these very helpful programs were quite expensive. Today, their prices have come down significantly and they are much more accessible for personal and business use.
There are a number of “unintended” benefits that using speech recognition software provides. One of these benefits is reducing the tension and stress that is commonly placed on the wrist and finger joints when typing for extended hours. Those who suffer from the very painful condition of carpal tunnel syndrome will attest to the discomfort that such pain can cause. In the past, there was no way to reduce such stress because their profession required significant amounts of typing. With the advent of Speech to Text and Text to Speech programs, the ability to perform the same amount of work with less physical exertion is possible.
Actual, the phrase “same amount of work” may not be an accurate one. The use of speech recognition software can lead to a significant increase in productivity. Quickly dictating into a speech to text program can lead prove to be much quicker than typing out lengthy documents or reports by hand. Also, the text to speech program can greatly enhance the ability to multitask. Rather than sitting and reading a webpage or document on a computer, the speech recognition program can read it to you while you are working on something else at the same time. For those who never seem to have enough time in the day, both text to speech and speech to text can help you get more work accomplished.
Some may wonder if these speech recognition programs are user friendly. The answer is yes as long as you properly install the programs and follow the necessary steps to acclimate the program to your voice. The programs offer an option to dictate a pre-written script that the program will use to determine you pattern of speech and pronunciation. Once completed, the speech recognition program will understand the way to talk and this will reduce dictation errors. In terms of the text to speech program, you will have the option of altering the program’s voice. This way, you can make the program clearer and easier to understand.
Yes, speech recognition programs have arrived and they have the potential to forever alter the way you interact with your computer. Yes, the space odyssey has now moved to the earth.
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