Bell Canada Launches Voice Select

TORONTO, CANADA - Bell Canada announced it has launched Voice Select, a hosted contact center service for enterprise customers. This end-to-end outsourced solution is expected to allow businesses to improve call center customer service, reduce operations costs and potentially increase revenues. According to Bell Canada, the advanced speech technology that Voice Select employs reduces the need for callers to work their way through a comprehensive touch-tone menu or speak to a live agent for routine requests. As a result, Voice Select should give live agents the time to handle more complex transactions. Voice Select could also reduce the amount of time that callers are placed on hold during peak periods and ensures that callers have access to consistent, comprehensive information over the phone. Additionally, cross-sell and up-sell opportunities within a contact centre can be automated with Voice Select to cost-effectively increase revenues. "Research has shown that people prefer to use speech over touch-tone services because speech is more natural and human than pushing buttons," said Charles Salameh, vice president of Enterprise Client Solutions, Bell Canada. "Bell's Voice Select solution allows enterprises to implement a simple high-tech, cost-effective contact center solution which meets customer service needs and is fully managed by Bell Canada." In addition to speech recognition, functionality on the Voice Select platform includes text-to-speech (TTS) technology and voice verification. Bell leverages VoiceXML to minimize costs while also enabling customers to leverage existing Web content and services over the telephone. Voice Select utilizes enabling technology from leading providers such as Nuance and others to enable a truly "carrier grade" service for customers.