Press Release

Time Customer Service Earns Fifth Consecutive Speech Technology Award for TuVox

TuVox Customer Deployment Wins Impressive Speech Implementation Award

Time Customer Service is the global customer service, information systems, marketing services, and subscription fulfillment operation of Time, one of the world’s largest publishing companies, with a stable of titles that includes Time, People, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, Money, Health, Entertainment Weekly, Essence, National Geographic, and Southern Living.

The Implementation Award recognizes companies that have gained significant and extraordinary results from their recent speech technology deployments. The winners are chosen by the editorial staff of Speech Technology magazine in consultation with industry experts.

The primary objectives at Time Customer Service were to provide a world-class customer service experience to 10 million callers, to maintain control and consistency of the customer experience, and to provide responsive customer support solutions to more than 65 different magazines, all while managing expenses.

Today, speech-enabled IVR applications from TuVox handle calls for name and address changes, voucher redemptions, and cancellation requests, thus allowing contact center agents to more effectively help callers with more complex issues. TuVox has enabled Time to realize their stated customer service objectives, including a cost reduction of 40 percent and an automation rate of over 70% for key applications.

"TuVox as a company is very skilled in using speech recognition," said Pat Kaufman, vice president of customer service at Time Customer Service. "They've put together an extraordinary solution that our customers use. For customers to be able to change their addresses in our databases with voice is phenomenal and for Time Customer Service, it’s a large part of our call volume."

“Recipients of the Speech Technology magazine’s Speech Industry Awards are recognized for accomplishments that stand out from the crowd,” says David Myron, editorial director of Speech Technology magazine. “They have distinguished themselves through their individual accomplishments, service to the industry and the implementation of truly innovative new applications using speech technology.”

This achievement is the fifth consecutive Speech Technology award for TuVox, following the "2007 Implementation Award" for Telecom New Zealand, the "2006 Most Innovative Solution" award for the TuVox Perfect Router deployment at Canon USA, the "Best Speech Application Award" in 2005 and the Speech Solutions CHALLENGE II Usability victory in 2004.

"We are delighted that editors of Speech Technology acknowledge TuVox's commitment to deliver superior self-service solutions, particularly compared to the frustrating IVR systems that many of us know too well," said Larry Miller, President and COO, TuVox. "We value our long standing relationship with Time Customer Service and are honored that they allowed us to help them demonstrate the quantifiable benefits that could be realized with sophisticated voice self-service."