The 2011 Speech Luminaries
Bringing Speech to Mobile
Zor Gorelov
Cofounder, Chairman, and CEO at SpeechCycle
Recognizing the growing importance of the smartphone as a consumer tool for contacting customer care, Zor Gorelov, the cofounder, chief executive officer, and chairman of SpeechCycle, launched a Mobile Division in March that will focus exclusively on meeting the growing demand for customer care solutions on the smartphone. His goal for the division was to dedicate significant resources to creating products and solutions that support the operating systems of leading smartphones and other mobile devices.
Mobile devices, he reasoned, offer opportunities for companies to deliver a highly differentiated customer experience that drives customer loyalty, optimizes contact center operations, and increases revenue.
Many believed the launch of the Mobile Division was a natural progression for SpeechCycle, but for Gorelov, it was anything but business as usual. Under his leadership, SpeechCycle has become one of the fastest-growing companies in speech technology. So it’s no surprise that this pioneer in developing robust, phone-based self-service applications processed its one-billionth speech-recognition interaction through its hosted rich phone application (RPA) OnDemand platform earlier this year. SpeechCycle developed the class of customer interaction management solutions known as RPAs.
RPAs—which combine high-definition natural-language understanding with deep integration and customer back-end systems to achieve up to three times the automation rates of traditional phone-based IVR systems—are the foundation on which SpeechCycle has built its business since Gorelov founded the company in 2001 with partners Ruth Brown and Victor Goltsman. The trio previously founded BuzzCompany.com, a developer of enterprise collaboration and messaging solutions that was acquired by Multex (now part of Reuters) in 2000.
Prior to starting Buzz, Gorelov was a senior consultant at Microsoft and held management positions at Computron Software and Information Builders. His interest in speech technology dates to 1992, when he worked at Bell Labs.
However, for SpeechCycle, the key underpinnings of the company’s success revolve around an ability to support customer empowerment—regardless of the channel—which is the foundation of true self-service.
—Leonard Klie
News Editor Leonard Klie can be reached at lklie@infotoday.com.