Allen interactions launches DialogCoach. (New Products).

Allen Interactions Inc. has debuted DialogCoach, its multimedia software designed to combine artificial intelligence and voice recognition technology to simulate live customer calls and provide trainees with immediate evaluation and feedback. Training managers have the flexibility to plug their own content into DialogCoach's scenario-based templates, or can hire Allen Interactions to develop content.

Applications range from customer service or help desk scenarios to sales or soft skills training scenarios. DialogCoach uses the scenarios to dialog one-on-one with each trainee. The software listens to the trainee's phone interactions, observes software entries and responds with corrective evaluations. The voice recognition software used by DialogCoach boasts 80 percent accuracy. The product does not require users to train the system to recognize their voices and inflections and it encourages accuracy by teaching agents to speak clearly and slowly. The software includes "training camp," "warm-up," "practice," "scrimmage," "game" and "play-off" modules. In early modules, DialogCoach provides verbal and visual assistance to teach agents how to handle a wide variety of calls and to record customer data. In later modules, the aids gradually disappear until, in the final "play-offs," the agent demonstrates mastery of the entire call process without assistance.