Uses of automatic speech recognition system: I

By now, we are familiar with the automatic speech recognition technology. We have already discussed about its basics, working and benefits. Now, let’s take a look at its uses. Automatic call recognition can be used for the following purposes:

1. Handle high volumes of customer service enquiries:

Automatic speech recognition system is highly beneficial for businesses that have very high volumes of calls from repeat customers. It is useful in cases where calls occur in irregular peaks. The problem of high volumes of customer service queries can be solved by diverting the calls depending simply on their nature.

High call volumes
High call volumes

2. Identity authentication:

ASR technology proves to be highly useful where you need to authenticate someone’s identity on the phone without using personal data. Some advanced speech recognition systems provide an answer to this problem in the form of voice biometrics. The system allows you to create a voiceprint based on specific text such as ‘Name’ and ‘Account Number’. This information is then stored against the individual’s record, so that whenever they call again, they can simply say their name and if the voiceprint matches what they have stored, then the person is put straight through to a customer service representative. The benefit of this technique is that it takes less than 30 seconds and also bypasses the need for the individual to have to run through a series of tedious ID checks such as passwords, address details and more.

Voiceprints
Voice prints

3. Put caller’s through the right department:

By applying speech recognition, you can allow callers to choose a ‘self-service’ route or alternatively ‘say’ what they want and be directed to the correct department or individual. This technique helps in in three ways:

i) It ascertains what the call is about

ii) It takes the customer through security checks or other parameters if required

iii) Lastly, it transfers the customer to the appropriate member of staff.

The details that the customer has already provided appear on the screen so that they do not have to repeat the information. In other words, it helps the customers to voice their needs in the most appropriate manner.

Directing the callers to the right department
Directing the callers to the right department

 

 

All you need to know about automatic speech recognition

Automatic speech recognition, also known as speech recognition is the inter-disciplinary sub-field of computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enables the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers. This technology is known by various names such as computer speech recognition or speech to text (STT). Automatic speech recognition can further be defined as the independent, computer‐driven transcription of spoken language into readable text in real time.  In other words, ASR is a technology that allows a computer to identify the words that a person speaks into a microphone or telephone and converts it to written text.

Automatic speech recognition
Automatic speech recognition

The ultimate goal of ASR research is to allow a computer to recognize all words that are intelligibly spoken by any person, with 100% accuracy, in real time. Moreover, this recognition is independent of vocabulary size, noise, speaker characteristics or accent.  Commercially available ASR systems usually require only a short period of speaker training and may successfully capture continuous speech with a large vocabulary at normal pace with a very high accuracy.

Speech recognition
Speech recognition

The entire process that takes place in an automatic speech recognition is described below:

i) The process begins when a speaker actually speaks a sentence.

ii) The software then produces a speech wave form, which embodies the words of the sentence along with all the extraneous sounds and pauses in the spoken input.

iii) Next, the software converts the speech signal into a sequence of vectors which are measured throughout the duration of the speech signal.

v) Lastly, using a syntactic decoder it generates a valid sequence of representations.

Working of ASR technology
Working of ASR technology

Being an amazing and highly efficacious technology, automatic speech recognition offers various benefits. Some of those benefits include:

i) Accessibility for the deaf and hard of hearing

ii) Cost reduction through automation

iii) Searchable text capability