Itochu Techno-Solutions Corporation provides CTC-AICON, a voice bot service that automatically responds to inquiries to contact centers. Its flexible integration and customization with PBX and core systems makes it popular with companies with large contact centers. At the time of the service's release, the company only used Google's Speech-to-text, but has since adopted the AmiVoice API. We spoke with Ichimura Takahiro, head of the CTC-AICON department at Itochu Techno-Solutions Corporation, about the background and benefits of this decision.

Issues/background

Name recognition issues in voicebots caused by Kanji conversion:
A key barrier to CRM integration

This voicebot service was initially developed as a solution to the need for cost reduction in contact centers, but now that it is becoming more difficult to hire contact centers, it has become an effective solution for CX (customer experience) and EX (employee experience), and is increasingly being introduced as a fundamental reform.

Voicebots understand the intent of end users based on the text of their speech and communicate with them, so the accuracy of voice recognition is an important factor that determines the accuracy of the response.
When we first released the service, we only used Google's Speech-to-text, but because Google converts names into kanji, names do not match in CRM, etc., making it difficult to utilize names. Also, some customers could not meet their security requirements with cloud services, and Google's inability to build an on-premise environment was a problem.
However, we discovered that the AmiVoice API can obtain kana recognition results using a general-purpose engine and can be built on-premise, which led us to adopt AmiVoice.

Introduction Results

Significantly improved name recognition accuracy by acquiring kana information

Because names can be obtained as "kana" information rather than kanji in the voicebot flow, the accuracy of name recognition during identity verification has improved significantly. As a result, recognition has been successful with an accuracy of over 8% (*).
Another advantage is the ability to register words. By being able to register proper nouns, we were able to improve the accuracy of converting "product/service names," "custom names," and "original terms" into text.
In terms of fees, there is a free quota, so it is relatively inexpensive to use.
In addition, since it can be built on-premises, we can now propose AmiVoice API Private if on-premises construction is preferable after confirming the client's security and operational requirements.
Currently, AmiVoice API,AmiVoice API PrivateWe offer a choice of on-premise and Google Speech-to-text depending on the customer's needs.

*AmiVoice API can add reading information to speech recognition results using a general-purpose engine,AmiVoice API PrivateNow, let's focus on names.Name EngineThis is only trained on first and last names, so you can expect higher recognition accuracy and display everything in katakana.

Future prospects

Achieving higher automation rates and outstanding CX than any other provider.

We would like to expand and develop the functionality of "CTC-AICON" as a multi-functional voice bot that achieves a higher automatic response rate and a higher CX than other companies.
To achieve this, it is essential to improve accuracy, so by collaborating with AmiVoice API, we hope to build a good relationship that will help our business grow.