SpeechCycle Unveils ‘Caller Experience Index’ to Maximize Customer Adoption of Speech Solutions

NEW YORK--SpeechCycle Inc., the award-winning connected SaaS innovator for the enterprise, introduced its Caller Experience Index (CEI) – a measurement tool that enables executives to optimize ongoing investments in speech-enabled customer self-service initiatives. CEI is an industry first for assessing the overall effectiveness of voice recognition systems by combining both quantitative and qualitative analysis. This comprehensive metric was developed and validated by SpeechCycle based on the millions of calls processed and terabytes of speech and performance data captured to date through the Speechcycle SaaS-based offering.

“We initially developed the Caller Experience Index by leveraging our unique industry expertise, tools and processes, to drive improvements in the caller experience of our applications. This led to the creation of what we call Rich Phone Applications that provides an Immersive Caller Experience,” said Roberto Pieraccini, SpeechCycle CTO. “We are now offering the CEI measurement tool as a service to help other companies evaluate their speech self-service initiatives and increase overall caller adoption.”

“Without an accurate metric to measure caller experience, how do executives make data-driven decisions about speech systems to improve the overall caller experience? Until now, they’ve had to rely on incomplete data and subjective feedback from various sources and then hope for the best,” continued Pieraccini.

Caller Experience Index

The Caller Experience Index provides a comprehensive view of how speech systems are performing through a combination of quantitative and qualitative analytics to measure a vast array of indicators. Statistical process and algorithms are applied to score a speech system’s overall caller experience. The resulting CEI ranking along with the supporting data and recommendations are presented to customer care managers and executives to provide deeper insight into the solution. The CEI analysis helps them to understand system performance, then drill down on key areas for improvements and develop a plan for continuously enhancing the caller experience.

Subsequent efforts to improve the speech systems can be measured in terms of the CEI for each new system update. The analysis can also be used to monitor enterprise events, such as a shift in call drivers due to marketing campaigns or product launches, which may cause the CEI ranking to go down and allows managers to take corrective actions.

“CEI sets the bar for dialog systems going forward and will accelerate the development and adoption of speech technology in general, as businesses will finally have accurate data to help them constantly improve on performance. Reliably measuring spoken dialog systems is a non-trivial task. SpeechCycle’s CEI is an important advance as it tries to capture not just the objective measures but also subjective measures about the caller experience itself. CEI is critical to evaluating the effectiveness of current systems and in developing new and better spoken dialog systems,” said Alan W Black, Associate Research Professor at the Language Technologies Institute of the Carnegie Mellon University and one of the leaders of Let’Go Lab, an NSF funded initiative to help push the envelope on spoken dialog technology.

Offered as an on-going service, the CEI offering combines Speechcycle’s advanced analytical tools and processes to accurately benchmark current speech system performance and enable organizations to continuously evaluate and improve upon the caller experience. To learn more about the Caller Experience Index, contact SpeechCycle at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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

SpeechCycle, the leading provider of Rich Phone Applications (RPAs). powers 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.