ASC, D+S solutions, European Media Laboratory and Xtramind Technologies are jointly promoting the development and use of new speech technologies

May 30, 2007 – The companies ASC telecom AG, D+S solutions GmbH, European Media Laboratory GmbH (EML) and Xtramind Technologies GmbH are combining their competences in the field of speech technologies in order to develop new approaches for the automatic filtering and classifying of telephone calls in call centre environments and to facilitate the target-oriented analysis of spoken content. These developments will make automated content analysis in call centres and help desk scenarios available in the German language for the first time. The group will present prototypes of their research and development work in the fall of 2007.

The contact via the phone remains the most important communication channel within customer service. While analysis technologies for spoken language have already entered the US market successfully in the fields of quality assessment and employee coaching they were, up to now, not available for the German language and thus not offered in Germany where the market for call centres and helpdesks is still steadily growing. The companies ASC telecom AG, D+S Solutions GmbH, European Media Laboratory GmbH (EML) and Xtramind Technologies GmbH have formed a cooperation to provide automated content analysis solutions for phone calls. The cooperation was formed in late 2006 and aims at positioning initial prototyped applications and demos in the fall of 2007.

Each individual partner contributes to the project with its specific competences.

The European Media Laboratory GmbH (EML) researches key technologies in order to transfer spoken language effectively and topic-independent into machine-analysable format – the transcription for the German language.

An innovative method from Xtramind Technologies GmbH analyses the transliterated calls using Artificial Intelligence and modern language technologies, which have proven themselves in use with e-mails and other documents for years now. The information in the calls is automatically identified and made usable for company objectives, such as for example, business intelligence.

ASC provides comprehensive quality management software on the basis of voice and screen recordings. The results of the analyses are made available to users in an intuitive user interface. The efficiency of evaluation processes and employee training is increased by the integration of these language technologies into INSPIRATIONpro. A further advantage for companies: the automatic pre-selection and categorisation of the calls according to company-specific quality specifications saves time for trainers and supervisors. 

To provide this leading edge technology scenario efficiently and cost effectively to the call centre industry as a target market, the D+S solutions GmbH contributes its ASP know-how and hosting infrastructure. Positioning quality monitoring and speech analytics as an ASP service is expected to increase customer interest in these applications tremendously – by offering them on a “pay per use” basis. The applications will be continuously enhanced by learning from customer needs and experiences.

The prototypes will be the prelude to further developments in automated language technologies.