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| Next-Generation Applications |
- Natural Language Shortcuts
These enable developers to improve their levels of customer service without increasing application complexity. They increase application flexibility in a very natural way, e.g. allowing callers to ask relevant questions that haven't been offered in the menu of options before making their menu choices. As a real world example, consider a banking application where a customer wants to check her balance before selecting the "Funds Transfer" option from the menu. With traditional applications she can't do this, but OSD's support for natural language shortcuts makes it possible.
- Information-Based Dialogs
State-of-the-art speech applications are typically called directed-dialogs, in which the system directs the caller through a transaction by offering him menus of options at various points, and responding according to what the caller chooses. Information-driven dialogs are dialogs in which the system converses far more naturally with the caller, and - because it is dealing with each individual one-to-one - it adapts on the fly to the information that the caller has provided so far, and intelligently prompts the caller for just the information that still needs to be retrieved by the application. This sounds complex, but it simply mirrors how we communicate with each other every day - continuously modifying our own questions and answers to fit the information provided by the people we're speaking with. Information-based dialogs are able to carry out everything directed-dialogs can handle, just more efficiently, which increases ROI. In addition, they can significantly extend problem coverage by handling conversations that are too complex for the traditional directed-dialog approach.
- One-Step Correction
This is the support for callers to let the system know it's misrecognized a response, and correct that response in the same sentence, thereby reducing the time of the call, and improving the service-level of the application (e.g. "I want a ticket to Austin, not Boston"). OSD's intelligent dialog technology enables this optimization.
- Implicit Verification
Through its Dialog Manager, OSD is able to dynamically generate prompts to include information that has already been provided by the caller. This enables OSD-based applications to verify caller-provided information in a single turn, rather than requiring the two or three turns needed by conventional dialogs. For example, compare the traditional approach:
System |
Caller |
| Where would you like to travel from? |
Boston |
| Boston, Massachusetts - is that correct? |
Yes |
| Where would you like to travel to? |
Chicago |
...with implicit verification:
System |
Caller |
| Where would you like to travel from? |
Boston |
| Where would you like to fly to from Boston? |
Chicago |
By removing two turns from this short part of a conversation, OSD decreases the duration of the call, and increases customer satisfaction by handling the conversation more naturally and efficiently. Considering that many applications handle millions of calls each year, this type of efficiency gain makes a real difference to the bottom line.
- Skip Lists
These enable applications to not make the same misrecognition twice. Once a caller has told the system that it misrecognized, OSD ensures the application will not repeat the error.
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