Unisys and Voice Processing Plus Reach Agreement to Offer Natural Language in Interactive Voice Response, IVR, Systems

Business Wire, August 26, 1997

BLUE BELL, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 26, 1997--Voice Processing Plus and Unisys Computer Systems Group Tuesday announced the formation of an alliance to provide speech-enabled solutions to companies looking for state-of-the-art self-service applications.

The alliance establishes Voice Processing Plus as a Unisys Natural Language (NL) Elite Software Reseller, allowing Voice Processing Plus to embed the NL Assistant capabilities into its Transactions-Made-Easy solutions to sell the technology to third parties or end users.

NL Assistant will speech enable Transactions-Made-Easy, a system designed to automate repetitive tasks such as pharmacy refills. This will provide speedier, more conversational call handling and eliminate the frustration of touch-tone interaction.

"The demand for more creative uses for information collected over time has never been greater," said Terry Stuck, vice president of Sales and Marketing, Voice Processing Plus. "The spoken interface provided by the Unisys NL Assistant is a perfect complement to our Computer/Telephony solutions and will allow users to access information in a natural manner, significantly increasing customer satisfaction."

"Voice Processing Plus is an innovative company bringing state-of- the-art solutions to their customers," said Lou Ciavarella, Channel Marketing manager, Unisys Natural Language Understanding Group. "Now, Natural Language Understanding will allow Voice Processing Plus to deliver the recognition and understanding of complete sentences to keep Voice Processing Plus solutions at the top of the industry."

What Is Natural Language Understanding?

Natural Language Understanding goes beyond speech recognition, providing rules-based, context-sensitive technology that enables an application to engage in an intelligent dialogue with a user. Speech applications can now be built to understand a verbal conversation over the telephone.

With this technology, the NL Assistant takes everyday speech and translates it into meaning, making interaction with complex computer applications possible. The result is increased customer satisfaction through a more natural user interface, as well as shorter calls that deliver cost savings to clients implementing these systems.

How It Works

This solution uses a combination of speech recognition and Natural Language Understanding. For example, if you call your bank today for information about your account, an automated attendant will prompt you to press No. 1 for checking, No. 2 for savings, and No. 3 to transfer funds.

With a natural speech interface, you can tell the system "I would like to check my savings account balance," or "checking account please," or "savings account balance." The speech recognizer takes what is said, digitizes it and turns it into a sentence.

Unisys NL Assistant interprets the sentence through semantic parsing and selects out the nouns, pronouns and verbs to apply meaning. The intelligence of the Natural Language Engine can detect the difference between "What's my checking account balance?" and "I want to check my savings balance." Either question receives the correct response.

About Voice Processing Plus

Voice Processing Plus is a West Bloomfield, Michigan-based Computer Telephony (CT) software integrator that uses advanced technology to give client's data a "voice." As one of the premiere sources for interactive voice processing software, Voice Processing Plus offers solutions across a wide segment of industries.

Voice Processing Plus excels in the area of integrating mainframe environments with telephone-based accessibility, enabling clients to gain better use of their existing technology and information without the cost of replacing existing environments. Voice Processing Plus' anchor clients include the US Department of Justice, Pharmacia & Upjohn, and Ameritech Corp..

For more information on Voice Processing Plus or its products, call 810/737-9550, or access the World Wide Web -- http://www.vpplus.com

The Unisys Computer Systems Group

The Computer Systems Group (CSG) is the Unisys technology business. Unisys CSG has extensive experience in designing and developing technology for high-volume transaction processing and in integrating diverse technologies into heterogeneous enterprise environments.

CSG works with its customers, Unisys services groups, and independent marketing and sales channels to help them better serve their clients. Access the CSG home page on the World Wide Web -- http://www.unisys.com/marketplace -- for further information.

For more information on Unisys NL Assistant: send email to NLAssistant@tr.unisys.com, call 800/874-8647 extension 610, or access the World Wide Web -- http://www.unisys.com/marketplace/nlu .

Unisys -- The Information Management Company

Unisys is one of a select group of companies with the portfolio of services, technologies and third party alliances needed to deliver the benefits of information management -- helping clients use their information asset to enhance their competitiveness and responsiveness to customers.