What is Speaker Verification
Speaker verification, also known as speaker recognition, can be defined as process of authenticating ones claimed identity by comparing their voice and previously recorded or computed speech characteristics (voiceprint, which is as unique as finger print ). While speech recognition is widely used in IVR, speaker verification or recognition is different than speech recognition and is relatively recent addition to numerous usage of IVR systems.

Speaker verification is one of the recent and advanced IVR feature which is increasingly being used some IVR applications where personal identification is very important, for example, Banking, attendance registration etc.

How it can be used in IVR ?

As the name suggests, speaker verification is essentially used for authentication a IVR caller to manage his account. Since now, IVR systems have been authenticating its caller with ‘password’ or PIN ( Personal Identification Number) by pressing telephone keys or DTMF or even speech recognition.

Normally, while using speaker recognition for user authentication, IVR caller is asked to speak a random phrase which is compared with caller’s existing voice print. This is a quicker process for user authentication.

Advantages of Speaker Verification

The age-old IVR user authentication method of asking caller to enter a 4 digit ( or 5 digit) PIN is slow as well as it needs to changed periodically. But with usage of speaker recognition, authentication process is faster and IVR may ask a caller to speak any phrase randomly without user having to remember PIN or keep changing it periodically.

Another method of caller verification was using ANI (Automatic Number Identification) or Caller ID. But though detection of caller ID is fool proof, but this kind of user authentication may not be fool proof as anybody could dial from user’s phone number. But speaker recognition with voice print does not suffer from these drawbacks. Speaker recognition along with speech recognition may provide almost fool prof user authentication.

How it helps usability of IVR

With speaker recognition, customer details could be retrieved quickly from CRM ( Customer Resource Management) and many routine questions to a caller could be avoided. Caller would be happier not having to repeat his information each time he calls to the IVR.

Since it authenticates a caller much faster, it can provider any service quicker to the caller and usability of the IVR increases.

Many people may feel frustrated having to enter PIN or change it periodically for security reasons. But with speaker recognition, a caller just has to speak a given phrase and can authenticate herself. Many people. specially the one, who use call center or IVR rarely, may forget PIN. With speaker recognition, user does not need to remember any PIN or change the PIN periodically.

What is a Voice Mail System (VMS) and a Answering Machine ?

Voice mail system can be thought as a message box for phone user to store voice messages and retrieve it through telephone. User can divert all his calls to his voice mail system when he wishes so.
Main difference between answer machine and voice mail system is that voice mail system is a centralized system where voice mail boxes are managed for many users, while answering machine is an independent individual system connected to a telephone line. Many telephone instrument comes with built-in answering machine.

Typicl picture of Answering Machine

Answering machine is usually suitable for home use for single line, while voice mail system is more suitable for office use where there are multiple telephone connections as well as extensions through EPABX.

A typical voice mail system operation:
A traditional voice mail system operates in the following way :
1. A dials B.
2. B is unable to attend the call. So call from A gets diverted to voice mail box of B.
3. Caller A hears a greetings from B welcoming him to mailbox of B and asks A to leave/record his voice message after a beep.
4. Once caller A speaks to record his voice message for B, he gets option to hear what he has recorded or hang up.
5. Next time whenever B lifts his phone, he gets to hear a message that he has an unheard voice message that can be heard by pressing some key.
6. If B is out of town, B can dial his voice mail box number ( a predefined number connected to voice mail system) to check if new voice mail has arrived. Then he can browse through his voice mails, listens them, delete them.

A Typical Answering Machine Operation:
1. A dials B.
2. After certain number of rings ( programmable or configurable), answering machine attached to the telephone of B gets activated and answers the call of A.
3. Answering machine greets A and asks to leave a message for B after beep.
4. A records his message and hangs up.
5. B can see a alert text message on his answering machine that a message is stored.
6. B presses a key on the answering machine and listens to it, can delete.

Normally, voice mail system is like an IVR system, invisible to the real user and resides somewhere else, normally at Telecom operator office. While answering machine is a small device attached to the telephone line lying nearby to the telephone instrument or inbuilt into the telephone instrument itself.

Many voice mail systems offer option to reply the voice mail sender through voice again, which is not possible in answering machine! Answering machine is being replaced by voice mail system as voice mail systems offer more features, accessibility.

Recently voice mail systems has developed into a powerful unified messaging solutions integrated with many other communication media line Email, SMS, FAX etc. thanks to smart implementation of IVR systems. I will be updating about it more in my next post about building smart voice mail system using a low cost 4 port analog CTI board.

Without doubt, interactive voice response (IVR) has become the ubiquitous technology in telecommunications applications. IVR solutions have a myriad of uses that are mostly taken for granted, however, the essence of an IVR system is its ability to offer ‘self-service’ for the user, thus it can help to reduce cost and improve the customer experience.

Since introducing the world’s first ‘all-in-one’ voice board in 1998, Aculab has been setting the standard of enabling technology components – e.g., CTI cards – for IVR applications. Whatever your needs for advanced IVR functionality, Aculab has the media processing technology and APIs – voice, fax, call progress, etc. – to drive your success.

Beneficially, Aculab is able to offer a choice; from its range of IP-centric, DSP-based Prosody X boards to its host-based (SoftDSP or HMP) option, Prosody S. And you can use Prosody X for converged or mixed IP/TDM environments, where you still need E1 or T1 PSTN connectivity.

Additionally, Aculab\’s VoiceXML/CCXML interpreter set offers a powerful and scalable design option for platform vendors and service providers alike. It is the fastest, most cost-effective, high performance solution available today, which is an effective combination in any language.

IVR system features and capacities vary depending on the market segments they target. Small to medium enterprises (SMEs) may look to enhance their IP-PBX with an IVR-based auto-attendant using Prosody S, while larger companies will require a Prosody X board-based solution for a hybrid contact centre or voice portal, perhaps also using automatic speech recognition (ASR) and text-to-speech (TTS). Carriers and service providers need IVR to provide a wide range of subscriber messaging and large scale, hosted or VAS and mobile VAS service offerings. And, undoubtedly, TEMs (of all descriptions; Tier 1, Tier 2, etc.) and platform vendors supplying these user communities will also benefit from Aculab’s board and software options.

Check out Aculab at http://www.aculab.com/solutions/IVR-solutions.asp

I have been thinking about building list of IVRS companies for long time now. There must be thousands of IVR Companies in the world! But if you type IVR Company or IVRS Companies, or IVRS Comapny in any search engines like Google, Yahoo. Live, check how many results they produce! Their listing of IVRS Companies will be really, really bad! I am just wondering, how come I could not search list of IVRS companies ?

Here is a list I have made after searching google for last one month! I would like to request all, please comment on this article if I have missed out your IVR Company, in this List of IVRS Companies! ( I am quite sure I must have missed out many IVRS Companies here)

1. Niche Tech Services (P) Ltd.
2. MicroStrategy, Inc.
3. IV Telecom

4. Database Systems Corp. (DSC)
5. C-Zentrix
6. Parwan Electronics Corporation (PEC)
7. Ventures Unlimited.co.in
8. Aria Telecom Solutions
9. Veltronics India Pvt Ltd.
10. phonon.in
11. iTG Software Engineering India (P) Ltd
[ad#image-large]
12. LB Infotech
13. Softway Consultancy Pvt. Ltd.
14. Drishti Software
15. Cyber Futuristics (India) Pvt. Ltd.
16. IVRS Development
17. Kukars Infotech
18. Mobilhub Technologies
19. ALLIANCE INFOTECH private limited
20. AMDALE SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGIES limited
21. Cube Software Pvt Ltd.
22. Dial Connection
23. PARSEC Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
24. TechTree IT Systems (P) Ltd.
25. DevIndia Infoway
26. S.A.N. Softwares
27. Cyber Infrastructure (p) Ltd.
28. Global telecom
29. IVR-Solutions

To see your IVRS company name and link here, please comment!

How IVR System is used as voice portal? Here is a simple guideline how to plan a IVR Software to use as voice portal and start earning revenue from the day one of launching the service.

1. Tie up with a Telephone Service Provider.
Normal revenue sharing is heavily tilted in favour of telephone operator in India. Tilted in favour of Voice Portal Operator in China and some European countries. If you could get 40% revenue for you from Telephone Operator, you have made a good bargain in India.

2. Select Services to be made available on the voice portal
Find out some exclusive and innovative ideas! If you have some really, really innovative idea, even Telephone Service Provider will help you! Few ever green services are
1. Jokes
2. Contest
3. Music
4. Astrology
5. Voting/Poll

3. Choose a easy number to remember
Choice of Voice Portal Number is tricky. Here are some thumb rule
1. Easy to remember
2. Availability in all operators in the target region
3. Logical Number

4. Choose CTI Card and PC Hardware
Since it will be a service available for all subscribers of the telephone company, start with at least 30 channels. So you have to buy a Digital CTI board with Digital Connectivity. You will need to use at least two Server class PCs. One for the CTI Server and the other for Database Server.

5. Choose IVR Software / Content Management Software
1. You will not get off-the-shelf IVR software for your Voice portal. So stop looking for one!
2. Lot of customization will be required. And constant upgrading of IVR software will be required.
So either hire full time IVR Engineers or hire a IVR Consultant company. Niche Tech Services (P) Ltd. is a good option for that who has proven track record in Voice Portal in India. It has both IVR Software on highly customizable and robust C++ platform as well as robust and highly customizable Content Management Software.

[ad#image-large]

6. Content
Content is very important. You need minimum one male voice artist, one female voice artist and a studio! Studio can be a simple sound proof room with PC and Sound recording Software! You also need one script writer and a content editor. You also need a audio editor. For music and other contents, you will have to tie up with music production houses as well as content aggregator.

7. Manpower
Man power requirement as follows
a. IVR Engineer : 2
b. Network Engineer : 2
c. Content Developer : 3
d. Audio Editor : 2
e. Scriptwriter : 2
f. Marketing : As many as you wish!

8. Marketing And Promotion
Marketing and promotion of the services of the Voice Portal is a must! Some sort pf tie up with any media house is a big plus. And it must be a constant ongoing process!

Developing an IVRS for fun and developing an IVR Application for enterprise use are quite different! There are many tools ( I listed a few in my previous post TOOLS FOR DEVELOPING IVRS ( CTI CARDS & SOFTWARE )), using which you might be able to develop an IVR Application in few minute. But the question is can they be customized enough to meet requirement of a customer? How much flexibility you have in terms of using any CTI card available in the market on which your Application will run ?

Here are few points one must consider for choosing the right development for right kind of application:-

1. TIME TO DEVELOPMENT
For fast development, use a RAD(Rapid Application Development). You might be constrained in customizing the IVRS features, but it will be really fast to develop a working IVR application. Some RAD tools like Voice Guide, EuroVoice, widely used and seem quite stable.

2. CUSTOMIZATION
One must use the native SDK supplied by the hardware vendor. Normally hardware vendors provide SDK for C++ on both Windows and Linux. Since one uses C++, many features can be implemented like database connectivity, OOP, .Net remoting etc.

3. APPLICATION DOMAIN
Many IVRS do not need much customization. For example, a typical complaint booking IVRS is quite simple. It records customer complaint and provide the customer a randomly generated complaint ticket. This complaint ticket is then stored in text file which is used by the complaint management software. RAD should be used for this kind of application. IVR applications to be used in Call Center or Voice Portal, one has to use the native SDK and develop the software only in C++ in Windows or Linux.
[ad#ad-horizlink-5]
4. Windows or Linux
I personally prefer Linux as it is free! But then main drawback with Linux is, you do not find trained manpower easily. IVR industry itself is quite small, and then manpower trained in Linux IVRS will be a tiny population.! Windows systems are prone to failure intermittently and without any reason! Also I have observed that many IVR applications need to be restarted periodically say once I 2 days or so. Wide variety of tools are available for Windows. Most people are comfortable using Windows.

5. Latest Technologies
Many recent technologies have developed for exploiting various telecom protocols. Voice XML is such tool which has gained wide use recently for IP Based exchanges. I will write more about in future.

So, the bottom line is, for a serious and customized IVR application, you will have to develop using the native SDK supplied by the CTI vendor. For smaller and simple IVRS, it is better to use RAD tools. Using SDK has one more advantage over RAD tools. That is, the vast resources of the well documented C++ language can be used to customize the application to any extent. IVRS become flexible to be integrated with almost any existing applications which might need IVR facility too!

The menus that IVRS can provide are either voice enabled or DTMF enabled. Now what does that mean?

• In a voice enabled IVRS, caller will have to choose his required menu option by speaking out a word or a phrase as if he is talking to a human! IVR is supposed to recognize his speech and provide him required information as per his choice!
• In a DTMF enabled IVRS, caller has to press a button on the keypad of his telephone instrument or mobile phone( Dude, where is my button on my iPhone 3G phone ?). DTMF stands Dual Tone Multiple Frequencies! It is in-band signaling ( meaning it’s a signaling that works in voice band, 300Hz to 3400Hz). So when you press a button or a key on your telephone instrument, you produce a DTMF, remember you get to hear a sound whenever you press a key? You are producing a DTMF corresponding to the number of the key. This number is detected by IVRS and provides you with your desired information.

Well, you can definitely have a hybrid menu using both the methods!

Now that you know availability of two kinds of menus, are you in fix to decide which one to choose for your IVRS ? Here I am, I am listing out the advantage and disadvantage of both the menu system. And I will also give you thumbs rule for choosing menu.

Here are the advantages of having voice or speech enabled menu

• Big advantage for Mobile users. Its much easier just to speak out the menu since mobile phones are small to press buttons! You need to listen the menu, bring it in front to look the screen, press the button, then again put the phone in your ear!
• Unlimited and user-friendly menu options.
• Easy menu browsing. One can jump from one menu to the other easily.
• Simple speech, no jargon of learning tone dialing, pulse dialing or DTMF key.

Here are disadvantages

• ASR ( Automatic Speech recognition) does not work successfully in every condition. It may not work in noisy conditions, weak signal, disturbance on lines.
• It might irritate many people for making them to talk to a machine. And then its not easy to talk some phrases or words like a conversation.

Advantages of DTMF based menu

• Ease of use in case of landline and while people using a hands-free for mobile.
• Widely known and trained standard. Almost everyone now a days know about tone dialing or using IVRS by pressing keys.
• Very reliable as the DTMF signals does not get distorted even while speaking simultaneously.
• Easy to develop and commission. Faster response by IVRS.

Disadvantage

• Finding keys may be difficult as per menu prompts, specially for new mobile phones with touch pad only keys.
• Many people does not understand pulse dialing, tone dialing, hash buttons, star button etc.

[ad#image-large]

So, over all, having DTMF is better where your target user of the IVRS is more and come from diverse background. If you are expecting educated, tech-savvy clients to dial your IVRS, give the ‘xing’ thing, Voice based menu!

Over all its recommended that DTMF be used and Voice based menu should be used as alternative of DTMF based menu. So, hybrid menu options can be chosen. For IVRS using as VAS(Value Added Service) or Voice Portal, having Hybrid Menu has become essential.

IVRS can be directly compared with a website! So many people aptly say IVRS to be a Voice Portal. It does not compete with website, rather it complements the website. The way any organization has an website, it must have one IVRS too.

Some of the important reasons to have IVRS are:
1. Providing information about the company 24 hours a day. And customer does not have to come to the office of the company, rather he can just use his phone and make a call. Just like visiting a website.
2. Executive of a company has to provide same information again and again to different and new customers again and again. It can be made fully automated using an IVRS. It will not only reduce cost, it will also decrease the hold time for the customer.
3. IVR is used widely many enquiry and complaint logging systems. So in a service industry, having a IVRS is a must.
4. For customer support, with IVRS, many customer problems can be sorted out without any human intervention. Also, it helps gather the support engineer required mundane and routine information much faster helping both the customer and the company.

Some Industrial sectors that use IVRS or must use widely are:

1. Transport industry – Enquiry, Reservation and status.
2. Medical Industry – Reporting, Appointment, and immediate alert.
3. Banking – Account Information, Transaction Information, Tele-banking
4. Telecom – Subscriber Information, Service Activation-deactivation, Billing Information, many more.
5. Service Industry – Customer Support and scheduling of service
6. Manufacturing – Stock Update, Enquiry
7. BPO – IVRS is integral part of a call center

Any company that has a customer support division and complaint registration must have IVRS. It will greatly improve efficiency, lower cost, improve brand image. And much more!