Telenet receives innovative product award 2008 for “Oma Anneliese – the speaking crossword puzzle“

Munich, 28 April, 2008. The German business initiative for medium-size businesses „Initiative Mittelstand“ awarded Telenet’s application „Oma Anneliese – the speaking crossword puzzle“ with the innovative product award 2008. “Oma Anneliese“ is a dial-in contest where participants interact with a German grandmother called “Oma Annaliese” and work together to solve a crossword puzzle, which is displayed on a website in front of them.  “Oma Anneliese” is an innovative synthesis of telephone and internet services. The processes of interacting, listening and watching are combined to provide a pleasant emotional experience. The crossword puzzle provides a high level of entertainment , attracts attention and is an ideal tool for retaining customers, generating addresses and for permission marketing applications.

The dial-in contest, which was twice nominated for the Voice Award 2007, has now been presented with the award for the most innovative product in 2008 by the German initiative for medium-sized businesses "Initiative Mittelstand”.

The dial-in contest is distinguished by three special features: a very open, casual and funny dialogue, a special persona design with a grandmother called Anneliese and the innovative combination of voice and web applications.

The casual and undirected dialogue is based on a highly tuned grammar, professional VUI design and a clever and funny error handling feature. Callers are free to answer the way they want and can decide the order in which they enter their solutions themselves. They can skip answers, return to them at a later stage or admit that they do not know the answer. Granny Anneliese then helps callers by giving hints and tips. The system recognises correct answers as well as predictably wrong answers and provides comments. The correct term that solves the puzzle can be entered at any stage of the game. The caller does not have to fill out the crossword entirely before supplying the overall solution. And the random prompt generation feature keeps the dialogue interesting, no matter how often one calls.

Correct answers given in the course of the dialogue are captured by speech recognition and automatically entered into the corresponding field on the internet crossword puzzle. The letters that belong to the overall solution are also filled in automatically in the correct field. This process is carried out in real time and the result of the telephone quiz is directly visible on-screen.

Grandmother Anneliese’s voice and expressions create the impression of talking to a real life grandmother on the phone. Her casual, chatty tone  and the background noises create an authentic and enjoyable atmosphere: there is a dog barking in the background, reminding the granny to bring him for walk, her hearing aid is giving her trouble, all this while she is baking a cake and talking about the latest gossip.

“Oma Anneliese“ is an ideal tool for customer retention and for generating new addresses. At the same time, the dial-in contest can be used as a means of receiving callers’ permission to send them material. When callers enter their personal data, they can be presented with a choice of newsletters, product information and invitations to trade shows and events. Monthly crossword puzzles and a special first prize at the end of a crossword puzzle sequence can attract frequent participation.

Telenet offers the complete service as a hosting solution. Customers don’t have to bother themselves with the technical details and can save themselves the cost of hardware and software equipment.