Expedia Selects Empirix to Test Performance of New Speech-based Customer Service Application

WALTHAM, MA - Empirix Inc. announced that Expedia Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPE) has selected Empirix's Hammer Dynamic Speech capability to test its new Nuance-based Integrated Voice Response (IVR) application. As an added service for its customers, Expedia maintains a 24/7 customer-service hotline (1-800-EXPEDIA) to help people with immediate needs who don't have access to the Internet. Expedia's new Nuance-based IVR is intended to speed service for travelers on the go. To ensure that this critical application performs flawlessly, Expedia is working with Empirix to test it. "At Expedia, we are committed to providing travelers with the best experience during their trip," said Robb Krieg, vice president, agency operations for Expedia. "By using Empirix's Hammer Dynamic Speech capability, we can thoroughly test the functionality and performance of our new IVR system to ensure consistent, high-quality service for our customers." Hammer Dynamic Speech is part of both the Hammer Contact Center Test System and Hammer Intelligent Monitoring System from Empirix, and is also used with Empirix's voice application testing and monitoring services, Hammer On-Call and Voice Watch. Using Empirix's patented Hammer prompt-recognition technology, these systems and services emulate real-world callers by automatically walking through a call just the way a customer would, verifying both response time and prompt correctness at each step in the call flow. In pre-production testing, hundreds of these "virtual callers" can be used to verify performance from a customer perspective under real-world operating conditions. Once the voice application is deployed, the same capability can be used to periodically call into the application just the way a customer would to verify that performance remains first-rate. "Expedia understands what it takes to provide quality customer service," said Brian Miller, Empirix Contact Center product line manager. "By using Empirix's Hammer Dynamic Speech testing capability, Expedia can detect and correct potential problems before they affect the customer experience. The end result is faster, better quality service for customers, and lower costs for Expedia as fewer customers have to zero out to live agents."