Telisma and EXCELSIS develop a multilingual automatic switchboard

Speech systems always inspire a friendly welcome at the switchboard and a correct far connection to the desired person or department.

Stuttgart/Paris, 11.7.2006 - The automatic switchboard of EXCELSIS receives internal as well as external calls, callers are welcomed by a pleasant voice co-ordinated with the enterprise, which understands the callers' natural speech which could be in numerous European languages. Instead of the receptionist manually searching for a telephone number in the enterprise listing, the language-based switchboard takes over and switches the call to the correct interlocutor. The caller simply needs to say the name of the person or the department, with which he would like to be connected to and the correct connection is automatically established. In addition to this, the speech system is available around the clock, offering the callers the maximum amount of flexibility and the limited service times of the switchboard are no longer a restriction.

"The system is an inspiration, because it understands sentences that are spoken very naturally, for example "I would like to speak to Mr. Baumann". If there are similar names in the directory, the system asks the caller for further details, such as the first name or department, until a clear transfer is possible" explained Christian Sauter, CEO of EXCELSIS. "This kind of call switching is very efficient and a lot more flexibility can be gained than from a person-occupied reception. In addition the line is never engaged and the customer reaches the company, whenever he likes."

The automatic recognition of the desired interlocutor and the following forwarding are possible due to the innovative technologies of numerous partners of EXCELSIS. The most common European languages are available and even when desired a multiplicity of dialects can be implemented. At the end of June EXCELSIS and telisma, the European leader in Speech recognition software presented for the first time a joint product, an automatic switchboard which not only welcomes the callers in German, French and English but also in Lëtzebuergesch, one of the three national languages of Luxembourg.

"telisma’s technology has many multilingual capabilities; in practice with teliSpeech, you can implement acoustic and phonetic variation between the multiple languages needed within the source of the grammar and/or the dictionaries themselves. The voice application therefore makes allowance for both the international as well as for the country-specific requirements for one of the smallest countries in the heart of Europe" explained Laurent Balaine, telisma CEO.

About telisma

Telisma is a software developer, a worldwide leader dedicated to speech recognition for telephony market. Our speech product line, teliSpeech, is the only truly scalable carrier grade ASR solution available to voice service providers who require superior performance, robustness and scalability. It is embedded in enterprise and mass-market services such as voice portals, call centres or messaging. More than 3 billion calls use our technology every year!

A few of our main references and customers are: Orange Voice Activated Dialling; Orange voice command voice mail, the largest speech application in the world; TF1 or SNCF voice portals; Macif, Darty and France Telecom's call centre applications.

Created in 2000, telisma is a private company with the headquarters in France. Within its sphere of activity, telisma is the only independent player in the world to originate from a major telecommunications operator.

www.telisma.com

About EXCELSIS

Across the globe, EXCELSIS is one of the leading suppliers of standard application software for speech systems. By using this software, companies from all sorts of sectors can automate their call centers. Furthermore, EXCELSIS offers software especially for the sectors of banking, digital TV, transport, suppliers, and trade as well as intersectoral software for information systems, customer management and helpdesk automation.

Companies from all sectors use EXCELSIS's software, thus lowering their costs and improving their service. 9Live, the town of Augsburg, Cablecom, Deutsche Telekom, EnBW, Jamba!, Medion, Orange, Swisscom, UBS and Vattenfall, to name but a few examples, are all customers.

EXCELSIS has partnerships with globally important technology suppliers such as Telisma, Alcatel/Genesys, Aspect, Avaya, IBM, Microsoft, Nuance and Intervoice and employs over 100 staff in Berlin, Berne, Luxembourg, Singapore, Stuttgart, Sydney and Zurich.

Contact

EXCELSIS Business Technology AG
Daniela Burger – Head of Marketing
Wilhelmsplatz 8
70182 Stuttgart - Germany

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