Lender latches on to voice technology

Countrywide Home Loans is taking its customer service to a new level with the adoption of voice automation products.

The lender signed a deal to implement voice automation provider Nuance's speech software. Nuance's software enables automated access to things like account balances, flight information, e-mail reading and voice activated dialing.

"For our customer-facing mortgage application, we evaluated a number of speech vendors and Nuance was best able to deliver on our needs–a complete, open VoiceXML-based voice automation solution," Countrywide CIO Richard Jones said.

The software is expected to provide customers with faster access to specific information.

Countrywide selected Nuance Voice Platform, a VoiceXML-based software platform specifically designed for speech systems, as well as Nuance's speech recognition software and Nuance Vocalizer text-to-speech engine.

"Voice automation helps companies realize a competitive advantage and achieve bottom-line business results," Nuance CEO Chuck Berger said.

Nuance Voice Platform offers a broad range of speech specific capabilities, including a real-time return-on-investment measurement and reporting tool. The platform monitors speech system performance in real-time.

Countrywide provides mortgage banking and diversified financial services in domestic and international markets.

All rights reserved. This content may not be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, in part or in whole, without written permission of Inman News. Use of this content without permission is a violation of federal copyright law.