Speech technology vendors often claim that their systems perform significantly better than competitors. How can a prospective buyer verify such claims? For most, the answer is to run a benchmark or bake-off. Word Error Rate (WER) scoring can be very misleading. We introduce some lesser known alternatives. We also describe metrics for scoring speaker identification / diarization and keyword search. We illustrate with real-world examples comparing both commercial vendors and research systems.

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is the go-to measurement tool for many businesses, but the NPS has many limitations. Operational Customer Experience (OCX) measurement can be used as an alternative. By automating the measurement of customer experience (CX) across channels, businesses can avoid having to involve customers in the feedback process while still receiving objective, accurate, real-time insights into their CX at an operational level.

Emerging channels of customer interaction continue to influence and reshape the IVR landscape. Callers have different expectations and reasons for using the IVR channel today than they did a decade ago. Optimizing your IVR for these trends is critical to staying ahead of competition. Competitive analysis offers insight into how well your IVR compares. This session presents a simple methodology for assessing and scoring IVRs as a basis for comparison.