If you want great speech recognition, there are a variety of options on the market. Apple wants to corner it with its latest purchase of British speech recognition specialist Novauris (News - Alert) Technologies. As I have sent a number of weird voice-activated texts via Siri, advancements in this area are sure to be a good thing.

According to a Tech Week Europe report, the move is expected to boost Siri and perhaps set apart the technology for the smartphone maker as a leader in another area of the market. Actual financial details of the sale have not been shared, although Apple (News - Alert) does have a strategy that includes purchasing smaller technology firms to shore up its own efforts.

This latest acquisition brings on technology that works through the identification of whole phrases instead of words or sequences of words. It should enable the user to provide nearly any length of phrase and get the answers he or she needs from a potentially huge database. It’s truly taking Interactive Voice Response (IVR) to the next level.

Just how big are we talking on this database? It’s been reported at up to 100,000 items of unstructured data or 245 million items of structured data. A test of a database with 245 million U.S. addresses proved to have 99 percent accuracy, using just 100MB of memory. As a result, consumers can easily use this fun little tool while on the road.

Low memory requirements were likely at the top of the list for Apple as the company is not always known for taking up the smaller corner of the server. As consumers are drawn to increasingly data-hungry tools, those more likely to succeed will know their place and ensure compliance with mobility.

This is especially true when calling on your favorite brand. It’s not uncommon for those of us on the move to rely on voice recognition to launch calls for us from the car. If the IVR on the other end of the line can’t support the self-service functions we need to complete, frustration mounts. If the company is known for its innovations but is lacking on its IVR, the customer is more likely to question the company’s ability to deliver on other expectations.

Likewise, if I’m frustrated with a company because the IVR doesn’t understand my command, I’m more likely to want to just access the operator. If I’m in the car, however, and the IVR can’t understand “zero” as a command, the frustration mounts. It’s very rare that I would blame my phone; I’ll be mad at the company I’m trying to contact.

Whether that’s a rational response or not, it’s true for many a consumer. That’s why companies need to be picky about the IVR they put in place to handle customer calls. Angel offers an IVR solution that allows for complete customization of the calling experience, allowing companies to take the self-service experience to the next level. To avoid frustration, press or say, “1”.