Customer service, personal customer relation management and other voice based services are labour intensive and expensive. On the other hand it is especially this personal contact with clients which is a strength and characteristic of small and medium-sized entities (SMEs). Voice systems based on special software could provide a solution at least for those cases in which standardized dialogues are sufficient. However, until recently high-quality voice systems were quite expensive too. But according to forecasts made by experts on the occasion of the “Voice Days” conference this is going to change soon.
Says professor Wolfgang Wahlster, director of the German Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and organizer of the conference: “Today companies are able to introduce voice-based process automization without investing much money, follow-up costs are low and the new technologies are very reliable as well. Furthermore, it is possible to use voice systems on a rental basis which also makes them affordable to small and medium-sized entities”. Voice-based technology of the new generation is already being used by many companies. Around the clock they provide support in many fields: providing precise information on rail links, cinema programmes, taking orders, giving advice to clients on the installation of technical equipment, recording data in counters, booking tickets, allocating secure passwords, reminding debtors of their due liabilities and carrying out numerous more tasks.
From October 18th to 19th 2006 the latest trends, the best voice applications and expert discussions will be presented at the Voice Days conference, which is the most important event in this field, in the former building of the lower house of German parliament in Bonn. 