“We projected that 2006 would be the year that speech went mainstream as organisations moved beyond their initial cost cutting goals and seriously started to deploy speech solutions to support their core customer service processes,” commented Sabio’s Managing Director, Sebastian Henkes. “We’ve now established ourselves as one of the UK’s leading providers of specialist speech applications. Recent examples of our work include helping customers for a utility company to provide their meter readings, debtors to pay-off their outstanding debts for a debt collection agency, customers for a major mobile phone company to activate their new mobile phones, as well as providing customer identification and service engineer support applications for Homeserve.
“Each of these projects has required a mix of speech design, business consultancy and technology skills, so we’re now looking to further strengthen our resources in these areas to ensure that we have the skills in place to support the growing demand,” he added. “We believe that 2007 will be another good year for speech. Natural language speech recognition technology is robust and ready, while open standards are helping to drive down costs. We’re also seeing continued pressure from consumers for better service, with businesses appreciating that well designed speech applications that are easy to use and actually do what the customer wants can enhance their customers’ experiences and successfully differentiate them in an increasingly competitive marketplace.”