United Airlines Japan and SpeechWorks Deploy Japan's First Bilingual Speech-Enabled Flight Information Service.Business Editors/High-Tech Writers TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 20, 2002 Cutting-Edge Speech Recognition Solution Offers Japan-Based Customers Fast Access to United Airlines Flight Information United Airlines and SpeechWorks Japan K.K. today announced the deployment of a new speech-enabled service that offers United Airlines customers fast and friendly access to valuable flight information through a toll-free number. The system is based on SpeechWorks(R) speech recognition technology with both Japanese and US English language English language, member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). Spoken by about 470 million people throughout the world, English is the official language of about 45 nations. capabilities, and has been developed by SpeechWorks Japan's local professional services (job) professional services - A department of a supplier providing consultancy and programming manpower for the supplier's products. team. The application is the first bilingual flight information service available in Japan. United Airlines customers can now call 0120-226688 (toll-free) 24 hours a day and speak naturally into the phone in the language of their choice to check the real time status of any of United's nearly 1,800 daily flights. "With this new flight information service, United Airlines demonstrates its commitment to delivering superior service to customers around the world," said Kiyo Weiss manager of reservations & ticket sales at United Airlines. "The application builds on the success of our suite of SpeechWorks-powered telephone services launched in the US since 1997. Our flight information service for the US market has successfully handled over 50 million calls in the past 30 months. That's the equivalent of more than one call every other second. Our speech recognition services have saved United over $25 million in total. We credit our speech partner, SpeechWorks, for having the vision and the technology expertise to assist us in managing these call volumes and extending our service offering to our customers in Japan." After choosing the language in which they want to communicate -- Japanese or English -- callers can obtain flight information even if they don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. the flight number. They simply say the departure and destination cities along with the approximate departure or arrival time to obtain the status of the flight. The speech recognition system understands the spoken request and instantly responds with the most up-to-date information, including information on delayed departures and arrivals. The service is easy to use and delivers fast service by eliminating on-hold times. "SpeechWorks has enjoyed a very successful relationship with United Airlines in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. and we are pleased to expand that relationship here in Japan," said Hiroshi Sakurai, General Manager, SpeechWorks Japan K.K. "United's speech strategy proves that speech recognition technology is a very powerful component of a company's customer service offering. This new flight information service will redefine Verb 1. redefine - give a new or different definition to; "She redefined his duties" define, delimit, delimitate, delineate, specify - determine the essential quality of 2. customer expectations for friendly and efficient customer service in the Japanese travel industry." SpeechWorks has successfully deployed several speech-enabled systems in the US for United Airlines including flight information, employee ticket reservations, Mileage Plus and baggage information. These systems have consistently achieved high overall satisfaction levels from United Airlines customers and employees. SpeechWorks delivered the new speech system on an Intel Dialogic di·a·log·ic also di·a·log·i·cal adj. Of, relating to, or written in dialogue. di  a·log platform. About SpeechWorks Japan K.K. Organizations around the world trust SpeechWorks to manage their customer conversations. As the leading provider of speech technologies and services, SpeechWorks helps companies create and implement unique Speech Strategies that ensure maximum financial return and the highest levels of caller satisfaction. The Company provides speech recognition, text-to-speech (TTS (1) See text-to-speech. (2) (Transaction Tracking System) Software that monitors a transaction until completion. In the event of a hardware or software failure, it ensures that the database is brought back to its former state before the attempt to ) and speaker verification for network and embedded Inserted into. See embedded system. environments, including new multimodal Two or more modes of operation. The term is used to refer to a myriad of functions and conditions in which two or more different methods, processes or forms of delivery are used. On the Web, it refers to asking for something one way and receiving the answer another; for example requesting devices with both an audio interface and visual display. SpeechWorks' customers include carriers, corporations and government organizations, such as America Online See AOL. , Citibank Europe, IRS An abbreviation for the Internal Revenue Service, a federal agency charged with the responsibility of administering and enforcing internal revenue laws. , Kukdong City Gas, Microsoft, Shinsei Bank Shinsei Bank, Ltd. (株式会社新生銀行 and United Airlines. For more information, please call +81-3-5521 6011 or visit www.speechworks.com. SpeechWorks is a registered trademark of SpeechWorks International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. About United Airlines United Airlines offers nearly, 1,800 flights a day on a route network that spans the globe. News releases and other information about United Airlines can be found at the company's website, www.united.com. |
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