With the unprecedented adoption of internet-enabled mobile devices, customers can connect with your organization, 24x7, from nearly any location using any connected device. Smartphone and tablet applications provide convenient and intuitive interactions by allowing customers to use different input methods (talk, touch, and type) and see and listen to results. Multimodal applications have raised customer expectations for service across all modalities, and organizations need to understand and deploy self-service technologies wisely to meet the needs of today’s connected customers. That’s why SpeechTEK 2012 is expanding its focus beyond IVR to include smartphones and tablet applications.
Speech-enabled virtual agents, such as SIRI, provide intelligent, personalized services for a richer and more insightful customer experience. When applied to self-service environments, these virtual agents can maintain a high automation rate while improving the quality of service. Tuesday’s keynote panel discusses what speech-enabled agents can do and how they will change our industry. Other sessions explain how IVR and smartphone applications can help your customers select products and services that best fit their needs, and how virtual agents can encourage customer self-service in assembly, installation, troubleshooting, repair, and use of your products, eliminating the need for service manuals and minimizing the burden on call center agents.
New ways of connecting with customers also present new challenges to organizations. SpeechTEK offers clarity and insight into the challenges that go with providing a consistently positive customer experience across channels. A decade ago, a self-service strategy meant providing a website and an IVR system to enable customers to perform a limited range of tasks. Today, customers expect organizations to recognize them, anticipate their needs, and help them solve problems proactively, no matter how they choose to connect with you. To do this, your organization must be ready to facilitate seamless switching between channels without loss of information. SpeechTEK offers expert guidance for organizations seeking to develop coherent, intelligent, cross-channel strategies for customer self-service.
This year’s event is going to be one of our best ever. Attendees can go to tracks devoted to Business Strategies, Voice Interaction Design, Customer Experience, and Technology Advances. Attendees can concentrate on specific topics by going to virtual tracks—sequences of presentations devoted to various topics, such as multimodal applications, cross-channel applications, and speaker identification and verification. Also, attendees can have breakfast and exchange ideas and best practices with peers and industry experts during the informal and interactive Sunrise Discussion sessions. SpeechTEK University offers pre- and postconference half-day courses on the latest speech techniques and technologies.
With so much to offer, you won’t want to miss this year’s SpeechTEK conference. There’s no other event in our industry that offers this much information and this many networking opportunities. Attend SpeechTEK 2012, connect with peers, and help your organization better connect with customers.
