Vendors are now appreciating the potential of voice applications for building long-term customer relationships, as well as the reduced overhead costs that voice technology can generate. Confidence has also risen amongst end-users and they are beginning to appreciate the efficiency voice applications bring to their commercial interactions. In EMEA, the UK, Spain and Italy are good prospects. In the Asia Pacific region, innovation in solutions has been on a par with North America and there’s still room for growth, while in Japan and China, voice solutions are gaining traction.
In EMEA, uptake in voice solutions in the UK ranks ahead of Germany, Eastern Europe and South Africa. According to Datamonitor, voice revenues in the UK will more than double from an estimated $90 million at the end of 2004 to $260 million by 2008.
Given the large population and commercial enterprise base, as well as the use of English as the primary language, the prospects for voice vendors in the UK market are good. In addition, the UK has a strong self-service culture due in part to early development of speech applications, as well as high Internet and mobile telephony penetration.
In the UK, telcos will use voice for call-center automation functions, such as call steering, as well as value-add applications including voice-activated dialing. However, mobile providers are also looking at adding functionality around productivity, such as remote email reading.
UK financial services providers have adopted voice as a method of call-routing and information provision, most notably in the retail-banking sector. Furthermore, insurance companies are beginning to seek voice applications that can automate routine customer information harvesting, such as name and address capture.
The UK public sector is automating information provision, call steering and transactions in an effort to reduce costs associated with labor, as well as complying with the ‘e-government’ initiative. A growing number of bodies are also looking to leverage online offerings over the telephone. This has been especially notable in local government, as well as in the state-controlled National Health Service.
Numerous firms associated with the tourism industry have voice-automated customer service portals in place. These range from transportation networks, including British Airways and Virgin Trains, to hotel reservation systems.
Spain and Italy are likewise good markets for voice vendors in EMEA. Both have high mobile telephone penetration, and are becoming accustomed to using such devices as their primary technology interface. Mobile telcos are rapidly adopting voice solutions to offer value-added services, while the public sector are examining uses for information provision and augmented security.
Voice vendors should pursue opportunities in all EMEA and APAC markets. While it is clear that in EMEA, the UK, Italy and Spain offer some excellent prospects in the near future, the very large markets of Germany and France should still be kept in mind, particularly as their respective economies begin to grow. The same is to be said for Eastern Europe and South Africa, where market reforms and technology investment are leading to good future opportunities for voice proliferation. By pursuing good local partnership, strong vertical markets and localization strategies, further voice solution adoption will be the likely result.
