Remember when the iPhone first came out? I do. My husband is an Apple geek, so I waited in line with him to pick up his first issue iPhone. Our lives were improved by the bells and whistles, but do you recall the quality of pictures on those first phones?
Back then we tolerated crappy grainy photos. Oh, we had compact cameras, so we didn’t need a phone with a nice camera, but those cameras quickly found a dark drawer to live in while we compromised quality for convenience in our day-to-day lives.
Yet, the world demanded better so we got amazing cameras in those phones. Thanks to advances in smart phone technology, photo apps and filters, the best technology just blends into our lives - to become invisible.
I view Voice Technology the same way. Recent advances in Artificial Speech Technology and Voice Applications are improving and enriching our lives due to consumer demands. Companies like Google, IBM, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, who have created intelligent voices are investing on this fact. We’re tapping into Artificial Neural Networks and Voice Recognition designed much like the human brain to imitate human learning patterns and intelligence.
The voices are getting smarter, but - when you close your eyes and listen - you’ll agree we haven’t quite mastered the natural patterns of the human voice, so technology, in this regard, is just not invisible yet.
There are some Voice Applications with an accepted tolerance to synthetic voices, like your navigation system for instance. I don’t know about you, but I’ll tolerate the jumpiness and syntax errors for the convenience of getting to my destination safely. It’s true I’ve compromised quality for convenience once again, but the threshold of tolerance is a fluid thing. I’ve changed my navigation system voice to Aussie, so it’s not as annoying!
Why does all this matter? Because chances are, you’re a Company reviewing automated outbound solutions - or have in the past - and the quality of voice should never just be tolerated.
When your Brand Voice sounds natural, your customers can concentrate on the message they’re interested in receiving.
SPLICE uses a dedicated team of Voice Talents to record Natural Sounding Voice messages (that are personalized and automated in a cost-effective way). We do not compromise quality, and neither should you.
How do you ensure your customer communications are top notch?