Independent Audit of Telelogue's Voice Business Finder Service

ISELIN, NJ - Telelogue Inc., a provider of directory assistance automation, announced the results of an audit of its Voice Business Finder service, conducted by The Paisley Group Ltd (PGL). Meg McCrae of the Paisley Group acknowledged that, "PGL's auditors, who more often measure the operator-based DA experience, were skeptical about how successfully DA business and government listing requests could be automated using speech recognition...." Her conclusion was unequivocal: "With operator back-up, the Telelogue application of speech recognition as measured is a completely viable option for handling DA calls." She further adds, "This has the potential of changing the whole DA industry." The Paisley Group auditors made about 400 phone calls to the Massachusetts version of Telelogue's Voice Business Finder that automated every one of the 400,000+ businesses and government locations listed in Massachusetts. The Paisley Group determined that, "Localities were recognized 99.5% of the time and, despite the fact that requests contained an accurate representation of real-life DA idiosyncrasies like near-bys, aliases, ambiguous listings and unique pronunciations, Telelogue recognized the requests 86% of the time when the number was available in the database." Telelogue achieved 78% accuracy for listings actually in a town near the one submitted with the request, an important measure of successful automation. And when the auditor asked for a listing using incomplete information or partially incorrect information (for example asking for "Bubble and Suds" when the correct listing is "Suds and Bubbles Laundromat") Telelogue achieved 87% listing recognition accuracy. Telelogue's Chief Executive Officer, Robert W. Burke, noted, "Telelogue's stellar performance on each of these metrics is especially meaningful, as many directory assistance requests identify an incorrect locality, and more than 60% ask for a listing in a way that is different from how it appears in the database. Our unique approach allows us to succeed where others are limited." Notably, the Voice Business Finder service includes every business and government listing in the telephone directory white pages from across the U.S., in stark contrast to the most frequently requested listing approach adopted by others.