Faster, easier, cheaper: the future belongs to speech portals

They save money, instil confidence in customers, and are quickly profitable: speech portals are the user-friendly version of customer services – and a real trend. Long standing partners abaXX Technology AG and EXCELSIS announce that they will also work together closely on the seminal speech market.

Stuttgart, 9.9.2005. EXCELSIS, guiding with its know-how of speech portals, together with abaXX's own process portals, form a solid software base. In combining their respective technologies, both enterprises committed themselves to a market of the future – the German business journal "Wirtschaftswoche" estimates worldwide sales of voice portals at over four billion dollars for the year 2007. With more than 36 percent of banks and insurances utilising speech portals today, only 17 percent of trade companies use speech – a huge potential exists here.

What makes speech portals so appealing? The main advantage: they increase customer satisfaction. The customer has access to information and services through a convenient and user-friendly interface. No annoying typing: the customer just communicates as if talking to a real person. Speech portals thereby save money: standard questions like "account balance" or obtaining information and disclosure can be automated, fast and served in high quality. These standard questions amount to around 80 percent of calls and are suited for voice portals.

Speech is already the fundamental element in corporate communications. Speech portals, for the first time, connect it to the remaining business processes inside of an enterprise. Thanks to the cooperation of abaXX and EXCELSIS, state-of-the-art speech technologies, in conjunction with channel spanning process management and the Internet, have become an integrated solution. That means enterprises can offer high-quality service around-the-clock, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. The old areas of fracture between customer and corporate processes are resolved – information gathered in the automated customer contact process can be seemlessly integrated into existing systems.

Speech portals are not just used in standard requests to finance companies such as the query of the account balance or the stock price. Medium-sized businesses can benefit from speech portals, too – e.g. an enterprise has only one service phone number which connects the caller unerringly to the relevant person. Using a speech solution, services can be delivered without assistance from the employee, freeing him or her up. Modern speech technology can also be used for security related services: EXCELSIS' Automated Password Management System is just one example.

In view of these advantages and features, the market for speech portals is a future market. In light of this fact, abaXX and EXCELSIS have decided on an intensive cooperation. abaXX CEO Thorsten Schäfer: "Customers do not exclusively use one channel anymore, but want to exhaust all possibilities of communication with enterprises. The thereby arising needs for channel spanning processes, integration of speech, Internet and expert advisors can be covered completely and flexibly at the same time with the common solution by abaXX and EXCELSIS." EXCELSIS CEO Christian Sauter says: "abaXX and EXCELSIS are connected by a long and efficient partnership, which is reflected in the joint solution from the two companies: connecting the best of both worlds of speech and Internet technology. Enterprises can not just rely on professional competence, but profit from the experience of both partners, experience which can be seen in a multitude of successful projects."

About EXCELSIS

EXCELSIS Business Technology AG is one of the leading solution providers for speech portals and voice solutions worldwide. These solutions are deployed in television and radio media, finance and telecommunications, health care, transport and traffic, trade, utilities and public institutions. The speech solutions by EXCELSIS are built on a development platform based on the worldwide standard VoiceXML. In addition, EXCELSIS offers standard solutions for banking, brokerage, distribution, trade, information systems, customer management and helpdesk automation. Different requirements get different solutions, from the completely managed service to pay-per-use.

More than 100 institutions worldwide belong to the circle of customers of the EXCELSIS Group: 9Live, American Express, Cablecom, Debitel, dit, EnBW, HVB, LBBW, Orange, Rothschild, SAP, T-Com, Telecash, UBS and the United Overseas Insurance in Singapore. EXCELSIS was founded in 1998 in Stuttgart, engages more than 120 employees and has offices in Berlin, Bern, Luxembourg, Singapore, Stuttgart, Sydney and Zurich. The company, which is privately owned, has been profitable since its foundation.

About abaXX

abaXX Technology AG associates the broad competence in portal solutions with the specific knowledge in business process management, and thus offers standard software solutions which enhance customer loyalty and increase the efficiency of the business. By combining portal, business process management, personalization and collaboration functions, abaXX products create a modular and adaptable product family. This allows the simplification and acceleration of both internal and external processes within a business unit. In addition to that, abaXX supports the specific business processes of financial service providers, public authorities and medium-sized business units by tailoring its specific solutions to the needs of the respective industries, thus improving the added business value. With more than 100 installations and over 50 satisfied customers throughout Europe, abaXX belongs to the most firmly established providers in this segment today.

www.abaXX.com

Contact

EXCELSIS Business Technology AG
Daniela Burger - Head of Marketing
Sophienstr. 41
70178 Stuttgart - Germany

Phone +49 711 6 20 30 113
daniela.burger@excelsisnet.com

abaXX Technology AG
Sebastian Grimm - Head of Marketing & Communications
Forststr. 7
70174 Stuttgart - Germany

Phone +49 711 614 16 1603
sebastian.grimm@abaxx.de