Launch of Voice XML Hosting Service Heralds Affordable, Intelligent Telephone Call Handling in the UK

Intelligent Voice Ltd announces the launch of VoiceXML Hosting Service. Uptake of VoiceXML applications set to explode in the UK

COVENTRY, ENGLAND (PRWEB) September 15, 2005 -- Intelligent Voice Limited, the pioneer in intelligent voice processing applications, today announced the launch of its Voice XML Hosting Service. The service is built on a VXML 2.0 compliant platform from Plum Voice Portals and features leading edge text to speech and advanced speech recognition software.

Voice XML is set to revolutionise automatic call handling in the UK”, says Keith Longmire, Operations Director of Intelligent Voice, but at the moment companies in the UK lag far behind the US in developing and deploying intelligent voice systems. With the launch of our Voice XML hosting service end-user companies will be able to deploy feature rich, near natural language systems in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost currently required”.

VoiceXML or VXML is an open standard for building and controlling intelligent voice applications that incorporate speech recognition and text to speech technologies. Most existing automatic call handling systems lack intelligence being built on inflexible menu structures that are, at best, functional and, at worst, hugely frustrating for end users. Speech recognition makes it practical to do things with the telephone that would be impractical using the telephone keypad. Callers no longer are limited to working their way through complex hierarchies of menus. Although not yet at the point where systems can understand anything a caller may say, voice recognition is opening up new vistas in emerging applications.

Building, managing, and growing IVR infrastructure is complex and costly. Upfront requirements regularly exceed €2,000 per line. IT staff may spend over 160 hours on installation, configuration, and integration. These challenges do not end. Requirements for additional capacity, reliability, and redundancy scale continuously as IVR applications grow.

Intelligent Voices VoiceXML hosting services cost-effectively overcome these challenges quickly with low upfront and ongoing costs. The VoiceXML hosting is a pre-deployed, managed solution designed to get your VoiceXML applications up and running with little upfront cost, low IT overhead, and the capacity to grow to service tens of thousands of calls each month.

Intelligent Voice is the sister company to ShopCall Ltd – the UKs leading provider of VoiceXML based, automatic telephone inbound sales order processing. Intelligent Voice enables small businesses, large enterprises, telecom carriers, and service providers to derive new value through computer telephony automation. The deployment of next generation telephony solutions utilizing advanced speech technologies and/or traditional touch tone interfaces and VoiceXML technologies opens new markets and expands existing ones.

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