Nuance Introduces 'Connections Partner Program' to Expand Distribution of Intelligent Voice and Natural Language Customer Self-Service Applications

New Program Strengthens Sales and Distribution Partnerships for Nuance Enterprise Solutions Worldwide with Formalized Engagement Strategies, Sales Training and More

BURLINGTON, Mass., – January 22, 2013 – Nuance Communications, Inc., today introduced Nuance Connections, a program that provides tools and services for global contact center solutions providers to deliver advanced voice and natural language solutions to organizations across the globe.

The Nuance Connections program provides Nuance contact center solution partners with the best technology and a competitive advantage through formalized customer engagement strategies, sales and product education, demand generation support and more – all designed to increase sales results.

With the new channel program, Nuance partners will also have access to new solutions, including Nuance Call Steering Package, a rapid-development environment for creating VoiceXML natural language solutions more quickly and affordably. In addition, partners will have access to Nuance FastStart Solutions, packaged speech self-service offers that allow partners to resell Nuance Professional Services in pursuit of opportunities that require resources or specific skills not available from the partner.

“Consumer expectations for how they interact with companies have grown, and so has demand and opportunity for intelligent self-service solutions,” said Dan Nordale, vice president of marketing for Nuance Enterprise. “Nuance natural language understanding technology gives our partners an advantage to benefit from this growing demand, and Nuance Connections will give them the sales, marketing and training needed to win.”

Nuance Connections is a global program for Nuance’s existing global solutions partners, including Avaya, Cisco, Huawei and Genesys, as well as regional partners worldwide. The new program is focused on training, demand generation and transparent collaboration to empower Nuance partners and reward them for their commitment. Nuance Connections provides access to partner-friendly solutions designed to expand the market for differentiated self-service to organizations of all sizes:

• Call Steering Package, a powerful capability to quickly deliver call steering solutions, leverages the innovations of the Nuance Natural Language Portal, a web-based portal for quickly creating, deploying and optimizing natural language solution and Nuance Call Steering Runtime App, a standards based application to manage the call steering conversation.
• FastStart Solutions, packaged speech self-service offers for the mid-market that deliver advanced technology and customer service best practices developed by Nuance over more than 20 years of working with the world’s leading brands.

“As one of the nation’s premier Managed Services and Technology Solutions Integrators, we’re excited to see Nuance strengthen its commitment to its partners through the new Connections Program,” said Rick Houlihan, Director of Technology with Carousel Industries. “The additional support earlier in our sales cycles, particularly with the FastStart Solutions Package, will help us get our customers up and running on their new solutions more quickly.”

For more information about Nuance Connections, please visit http://www.nuance.com/for-partners/by-solution/contact-center-customer-care/index.htm.

Nuance is a leading provider of solutions that enhance and automate the customer service experience, through intelligent virtual assistant powered solutions for the IVR (interactive voice response), mobile and web channels. Nuance’s solutions increase customer satisfaction levels by reducing or eliminating hold times, enabling highly accurate automated self-service, and enabling highly valued customer interactions via inbound and outbound solutions. Nuance’s solutions process over 12 billion interactions per year, and its voice biometrics solutions have over 26 million secure voice prints enrolled – more than the rest of the industry combined. Nuance customers include the world’s largest and most respected organizations, including Acer, Amtrak, GE Money, Time Warner Cable, T-Mobile, US Airways and others.

Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) is a leading provider of voice and language solutions for businesses and consumers around the world. Its technologies, applications and services make the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with devices and systems. Every day, millions of users and thousands of businesses experience Nuance’s proven applications. For more information, please visit www.nuance.com.