What is Speech Recognition
Speech recognition, sometimes referred to as ASR, allows you to provide input to an application using your voice. So instead of clicking your mouse, typing on your keyboard, or pressing a key on the phone keypad, speech recognition allows you to provide input simply by talking.

Why use Speech Recognition
Companies are continually searching for better ways to manage their enormous volumes of customer interactions, while striving to provide a more satisfying customer experience. For many companies, speech recognition is transforming the way that they “talk” to their customers.
Because it allows a natural and intuitive interaction, speech has emerged as a critical element of a company’s customer contact strategy. It provides an easily accessible and highly available automated contact method that enables customers to get information, conduct transactions, make phone calls, and more, using ordinary voice commands. What’s more, speech complements a company’s other contact methods such as live support and web access, and provides significant cost savings for companies.

To assess the degree to which speech systems have changed the landscape of customer interactions, Nuance Communications commissioned Harris Interactive a Speech Satisfaction Survey to gauge consumers’ experiences with and attitudes towards speech recognition systems.

The results of this groundbreaking survey confirm that speech systems are now widely used and accepted by the general population, that consumers are highly satisfied with their speech experience, and that speech provides significant advantages over other interaction methods including telephone keypad or touch-tone systems, email and Web.

* Harris Interactive Speech Satisfaction Study