Definition Du Jour

Customer Inter@ction Solutions, May 2005

Barge-In

A feature, common to some speech technologies, that allows the user to "interrupt" the system, eliminating the need to wait until the system's "voice" finishes explaining information or offering options the caller m does not need.

Confidence Threshold

A pre-determined figure that gauges the likelihood that the system correctly interpreted the language spoken by a user. For example, a system may determine that the likelihood the user uttered her name as "Mary Jones" is 90 percent, an acceptable confidence score that allows the system to proceed under the assumption; that the caller's name is indeed Mary Jones. A confidence score below 80 percent, for example, might cause the system to try to reconfirm the input. (For example, "I think you said your name was 'Mary Jones.' Is this correct?")