People who want to build a new home can hire an architect to design a one-of-a-kind custom dwelling, pick from a range of stock house plans or buy prefabricated house parts ready for the field. Deciding which is the right way to go depends on schedules and budget, among other factors.

Companies in the market for new call routing and self-service speech applications have similar options at their disposal. Like home construction alternatives, today's speech deployment options range from the custom-built to the pre-built. It's different from in the past, when companies had little choice but to develop speech applications using one vendor's proprietary platform and tools - aided in many cases by an army of consultants.

Today, corporate buyers can sacrifice application customization and complexity in favor of configurable, packaged offerings, often geared to specific vertical markets. ScanSoft, for example, offers SpeechPaks tailored for healthcare and utility companies that combine design templates, standard call flows, dialog components and pre-recorded voice prompts.

In addition, the advent of standards such as VoiceXML and the Microsoft-backed Speech Application Language Tags is letting users develop applications that can be ported from one vendor's platform to another.

Users are buying into the idea, analysts say. According to Gartner, 50% of voice application development will be based on platform-independent application development tools by year-end 2006.

At the same time, outsourced services from vendors such as Tellme Networks and NetByTel are getting the attention of companies that want to avoid the capital expenditure required for traditional voice technologies deployed in-house.

Taken together, these trends are driving up demand for voice-enabled technologies. According to Datamonitor, global voice business revenue totaled more than $800 million in 2003 and is expected to hit $1 billion this year and $1.3 billion by the end of 2005.

Speech in small doses

WageWorks.com's experience is typical of a midsize business that wants speech-enabled applications but is held back by the cost of entry. Randy Rubingh, director of customer service at the San Mateo, Calif., benefits administration company, had been looking to invest in a traditional interactive voice response (IVR) platform but found the technology too expensive for his company's budget and too specialized for existing staff to manage.

"Not only was the expense of paying $150,000 or $250,000 for an IVR system too much for a company of our size, but we also would have had to hire another telecom person," Rubingh says.

He found an alternative in Angel.com, which develops and hosts IVR applications for tasks such as resetting passwords, placing an order and conducting speech-enabled phone surveys. Angel's hosted model gives WageWorks the tools to build and deploy its IVR applications, billed on a pay-as-you-go basis.

WageWorks is using Angel's services to automate certain benefits-related functions. For example, customers can enroll in new services or check the status of pending claims using speech commands.

For Rubingh, one important feature is the ability to make application changes through a Web browser. WageWorks can upload its own recordings and modify call flows, for example, on the fly. With other hosted services, the company would have to make change requests and wait for the provider's technicians to make the changes, Rubingh says.

In return, Angel collects per-minutes charges. Service costs start at $40 per month for the tools needed to build and manage an application, plus 300 minutes of usage, says Mike Zirngibl, president and CEO of the company.

Angel's line charges are three to four times the cost of standard line charges, Rubingh says. But transactions handled by the automated service cost about one-quarter the price of those handled by live WageWorks agents, he says. "Right out of the box, we started saving the equivalent of four full-time employees," Rubingh says.