NEW YORK — SpeechCycle Inc., the award-winning connected SaaS innovator for the enterprise, today announced that its Rich Phone Applications (RPAs) yield a three-fold increase in overall call automation rates as compared to conventional IVR and stand-alone dialog system approaches. Based on an internal assessment of the more than 50 million calls processed through its SaaS offering to date, SpeechCycle definitively showed dramatic gains from the seamless fusion of natural language user interfaces with enterprise applications for a truly immersive caller experience.

"Our internal assessment of speech application performance across hundreds of millions of minutes of caller interaction revealed an important new trend in user adoption of enterprise speech technology," said Zor Gorelov, SpeechCycle CEO. "By connecting business-critical applications to our SaaS-based call processing environment, an innovation we describe as Rich Phone Applications, we have been able to effectively triple the rate of fully-automated calls which require zero intervention or handling by human call center agents."

The SpeechCycle call processing assessment also identified three underlying technology drivers that are facilitating the adoption of a new generation of Rich Phone Applications by users, while dramatically improving automation rates. These drivers are:

-- Asynchronous Application Execution: As with Rich Internet Applications, Rich Phone Applications call enterprise application functionality in the background, while the dialog system's VUI (voice user interface) is interacting with a user. This asynchronous execution facilitates rapid and comprehensive resolution and completion of the user's transaction while creating an immersive caller experience.

-- Multi-Application Integration: Rich Phone Applications that are linked to multiple enterprise systems optimize the opportunity to engage the user in a fully automated call. SpeechCycle's SaaS environment currently leverages the Microsoft .NET Framework to enable multi-application integration. SpeechCycle's SaaS environment is supporting live customer deployments integrating between five and 10 discrete enterprise applications and business processes.

-- Intelligent Mixed Initiative (IMI) Interaction Model: The fusion of natural language speech technology with enterprise applications and business processes is best optimized using an Intelligent Mixed Initiative Interaction model, a core innovation of the SpeechCycle SaaS environment relative to both stand-alone IVRs and dialog systems.



To arrange for an assessment and/or benchmarking of your IVR and speech initiatives, and to learn how SpeechCycle's Rich Phone Applications (RPAs) can help improve caller adoption through the creation of immersive caller experiences, please contact SpeechCycle at RPAs@SpeechCycle.com.

About SpeechCycle's SaaS-Based Rich Phone Applications
SpeechCycle Rich Phone Applications (RPAs) integrate customizable voice user interfaces with enterprise applications and web services to deliver an immersive caller experience that is a generation beyond traditional natural language dialog systems. RPAs represent the future of enterprise and mass consumer speech applications, connecting web, ERP, CRM, contact center, commerce and other transactional systems with a highly scalable, on-demand SaaS environment that enables rapid time-to-value for phone-based initiatives.

About SpeechCycle
Founded in 2001 and venture-funded, SpeechCycle services power innovative voice-based applications for more than 50 enterprise deployments across more than 35 contact centers in North America and around the world. With hundreds of millions of minutes of phone-based user interactions processed through the SpeechCycle service to date, SpeechCycle is in the vanguard of a new generation of on-demand speech innovators, delivering strategic customer value that speaks for itself. For more information go to www.speechcycle.com.