Nuance Communications Identifies the Five Pillars for a HumanTouch in Support of a Better Customer Experience

BURLINGTON, Mass., August 8, 2006 – Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN), the world’s leading supplier of speech and imaging solutions, today outlined its speech application blueprint that can help global businesses and contact centers achieve the customer experience and goals for phone-based customer service set forth by GetHuman.com founder Paul English.

Based on a proven track record of helping contact centers create positive customer experiences, Nuance has developed a list of best practices, Five Pillars for a HumanTouch, that businesses can implement today to improve caller satisfaction. The Pillars underscore Nuance’s HumanTouch™ capabilities that are part of its quest to create great caller experiences where people can interact more naturally with automated applications, and include:

• Say it Once, Only Once – Nuance can eliminate the need for callers to repeat information when they are transferred to a live agent. The customer data collected from Nuance voice automation solutions can be tightly integrated with enterprise call center applications before a call is transferred to a live agent. Agents have the required information immediately available before speaking with the customer so that they are prepared to deliver highly responsive service for quicker issue resolution.
  
  
• Give Fingers a Rest – By eliminating confusing and frustrating touchtone menus, Nuance Open Call Steering empowers callers by letting them describe their needs naturally, in their own words. Callers are immediately routed to their destination, without having to navigate complex touchtone mazes.
  
  
• Operators Standing By – Nuance’s HumanTouch powers a system that allows people to complete self-service tasks while providing intuitive and immediate access to a live agent for more complicated requests. Nuance speech systems allow call centers to route callers more quickly to the right agent and give callers the ability to enter the queue for a live agent at any time.
  
  
• Give Callers What They Want – As pioneers in the speech industry, Nuance’s experts in psychology, man-machine interface and creative design have formed a user interface design team whose exclusive focus is on discovering, designing, and realizing the optimal caller experience.
  
  
• Treat every Caller as Your Only Caller – Nuance can build flexible systems that can handle the multiple ways that different callers interact with a speech solution, making people feel a system has been designed especially for them. Nuance’s latest speech systems support HumanTouch capabilities such as discerning when the caller is speaking to the system rather than to a friend or family member; enabling callers to provide information in their own words; comprehending more information than what might be required; and easily allowing callers to back-up if they misspeak. These features make calls more efficient and eliminate the most common automation issues that cause caller frustration.

“At Nuance, as with any customer engagement, our first priority is a compelling, superior customer experience,” said Peter Mahoney, vice president, Worldwide Marketing, Nuance. “Speech solutions have traditionally eliminated long hold times for live agents, delivering callers faster, more convenient access to information. But, as highlighted by Paul English’s GetHuman initiative, it’s not enough to buy technology off the shelf and automate customer service without considering the effects on your callers. To move beyond traditional contact centers and Jurassic-age touchtone systems, businesses can rely on the expertise and best practices from Nuance to deliver the most flexible, efficient and personal experience for callers. The goal of the GetHuman initiative is to capture best practices and extend them throughout the industry. Nuance does this for our customers today, and we welcome the opportunity to share our expertise to the benefit of all users.”

About Nuance Communications, Inc.

Nuance is the leading provider of speech and imaging solutions for business and consumers around the world. Its technologies, applications, and services make the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with information and how they create, share, and use documents. Every day, millions of users and thousands of businesses experience Nuance’s proven applications. For more information, please visit www.nuance.com.

Nuance, the Nuance logo and HumanTouch are trademarks or registered trademarks of Nuance Communications, Inc. or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. GetHuman and gethuman are trademarks of Paul M. English. All other trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners.