Companies Solve Call Steering with Voice Automation from Nuance and Partners.

MENLO PARK, Calif. -- Nuance (Nasdaq:NUAN)

Advanced Solutions Organizations Worldwide Address Multi-Million Dollar Business Challenge

Today's world of confusing touchtone systems, multi-layer menu complexity and misrouted calls often results in customer frustration, millions of dollars in operational costs, and lost revenue. All that is changing, however, thanks to new advances in natural language call steering -- speech recognition-based technology that connects callers to the appropriate destination after allowing them to speak their request naturally. Natural language call steering applications are helping more and more companies develop customer loyalty and satisfaction by allowing them to establish one single point of contact for callers and routing them to the right destination the first time, based on their particular need.

According to Nuance (Nasdaq:NUAN), the voice automation expert, companies, such as Bell Canada, MCI, Suncorp in Australia and TELUS, are implementing large-scale, natural language call steering applications that currently handle more than 300 million calls per year. Through the deployment of call steering solutions, these customers are reporting numerous benefits, for example: overall automation rate improvements by 15-20%, a 30-40% reduction in misrouted calls, a 60% decrease in caller abandon rates and annual cost savings of $6 million and higher (for larger call volumes).

These solutions use speech recognition software from Nuance and are delivered directly and by Nuance partners including Intervoice, Syntellect and VeCommerce.

"The entire purpose of call steering is to simplify the customer experience, eliminating notorious touchtone mazes, multiple 800 numbers and frustrating misroutes," said Chuck Berger, president and CEO, Nuance. "Speech-powered call steering presents the caller with a natural and easy way to access information 24/7. Not only does customer satisfaction rise as a result, but companies save valuable time and money."

In addition to simplifying and enhancing the customer experience, speech-based call steering benefits the company's bottom line, reducing application deployment time, lowering the cost of customer care, and leveraging existing voice automation investments. For example, Nuance Call Steering 1.0, encompassing Say Anything(TM) and AccuRoute(TM), Nuance's natural language understanding technology, is a flexible, packaged application offering all the aforementioned attributes, as well as application management tools, reporting, technical support and an upgrade path for ongoing application improvements.

"Call steering is quickly catching on as a new and innovative approach to getting callers to the information they need without lengthy on-hold times or misroutes," said Steve Cramoysan, analyst for Gartner Group. "The technology is another example of how companies can directly impact the bottom line while offering customers better, more reliable service through speech recognition and automation."

About Nuance

In markets around the world, leading enterprises and telecommunications carriers -- including Avon, British Airways, Expedia, Nomura Securities, OnStar, Sprint PCS, United Parcel Service, Vodafone and Wells Fargo -- have worked with Nuance to ensure the best possible results from their investment in voice. Nuance is a global leader in voice automation, providing software and solutions to more than 1,000 companies worldwide. Nuance (Nasdaq:NUAN) is headquartered in Menlo Park, Calif., and has offices around the world. For more information, visit www.nuance.com or call 888-NUANCE-8.

This press release contains forward-looking statements with respect to Nuance, including, for example, those relating to the business and customer benefits attainable by using Nuance speech products. There is no assurance that the results contemplated by any forward-looking statements will be realized. The following factors, risks and uncertainties, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements: the risk that any of these products will not achieve anticipated or projected customer adoption, revenue production, performance levels, simplification of use, customer satisfaction, cost savings, deployment and customization ease and speed or other benefits in some or all circumstances; and other factors described in Nuance's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to Nuance's last-filed Form 10-Q. Nuance does not undertake to update any oral or written forward-looking statements that may be made by or on behalf of Nuance.

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