Financial services is one of Convergys’ key vertical markets. It already claims that “nine out of 10 top commercial banks” leverage its customer care capabilities. This offer provides banks with access to resources that will enable them to scale-up quickly to meet anticipated demand driven by stimulus programs from both the government and private enterprises. It is a combination of specially trained agents, programmable speech-based resources and application logic to support outbound campaigns politely referred to as “early treatment and collections.”

The program is designed to give partners an opportunity to increase their employees skill sets for installing, configuring, testing, and troubleshooting Nuance enterprise products. The course curriculumcovers installation and configuration of solutions that include Nuance Recognizer v9, Nuance Speech Server, RealSpeak TTS and the accompanying license manager and assurance of technical support for these foundational products.

Nearly all voice self-service implementations are the product of partnerships and involve integration with technologies from multiple vendors. In this environment, a certification of proficiency on Nuance’s latest technologies is an important differentiating factor. Just as important, it signals that Nuance is encouraging more activity from go-to-market partners while insuring that they conform to an acceptable level of quality.

In the midst of a general slowdown in IT-infrastructure spending, a hosted approach to caller authentication is starting to take hold. In a briefing, Paul Watson, GM of Multi-Channel Self Service at Convergys, told Opus Research that the company is prepared to offer either an “on-premises” solutions (building on a stronghold established by Intervoice) or on-demand, much like a Web service, based on the partnership with Trade Harbor. Indeed one of Convergys’ clients is already using the on-demand service and has found the hosted approach to be a good way to accelerate development while minimizing capital expense.

There are strong signals that the market for voice biometric-based authentication services is beginning to stir again after a few chilly quarters. In addition to the financial services vertical, healthcare, credit card payment processing and phone-based commerce loom, once again, as potentially fertile ground for new implementations. And the sleeping giant of government transfer payments is showing signs of growth in a few countries around the world.

Opus Research estimates that spending on commercially available, voice biometric-based authentication and verification solutions will approach $145 million in 2009, reflecting growth in the 15% range, which is double the growth in 2008 over 2007. The increased growth rate can be attributed to greater flexibility exhibited by solutions providers, like Convergys, as well as a greater appreciation by prospective buyers that voice biometrics offers a superior user experience while supporting secure transactions and commerce over the phone.

Our latest findings and market assessment, along with dossiers on the major technology providers, will be included in “Voice Biometric Market Potential Report: 2009-2014,” to be issued this month. It is an update of the well-respected forecast and planning guide issued by Opus Research since 2005.