Automated Speech Recognition: Getting More Important Every Day

Summary

Automated speech recognition (ASR) is growing in both popularity and capability every year. Among travelers, it has become a preferred method for interacting with computing devices and a strategic technology for customer experience management (CEM). ASR is particularly important in travel because travelers do not always have the luxury of a keyboard that is readily usable. ASR gives them the ability for hands-free operation to make queries and to make or change reservations. For customer contact centers (CCCs), ASR provides better call routing and quality CEM than can be obtained with traditional phone touchtone systems.

It is important to understand, however, that ASR alone does not provide travelers with command actions and query responses. Borrowing a concept from a 2012 article, “The Siri Effect: What it Means to Travel Shopping,” it is helpful to view ASR applications through a three-component taxonomy: dialogs, models and data sources.