Access
The provisioning of telephone interpreting generally fits into two main categories:
- Automated: an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) application is employed to convert spoken or keyed Dual Tone Multi Frequency (DTMF) data into a request for connecting to an interpreter in a specific language (identified by unique language-codes). Companies such as CyraCom developed this voice recognition technology to save time for customers who may have the need for very fast (and sometimes a fully integrated) connections to an interpreting service. Previously, customers had to look up the three digit code for a language in order to access an interpreter.
- Operator-led: utilise customer-care staff to answer the call, gather the required information from the caller, and facilitate the connection to the interpreter. A service of this nature can be preferred by organisations such as emergency services, where the client's knowledge of language codes is absent.
Additionally, some of the companies that have the required capability will offer a hybrid of the two principles, where for example a customer can:
- Call in to the service
- Input their "account code" into a single-layer Interactive Voice Response (IVR) using the phone keypad
- Be connected to a call-centre agent who will already know who the caller is, and will facilitate other data capture relevant to the call (including the required language)
Read more about this topic: Telephone Interpreting
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“Knowledge in the form of an informational commodity indispensable to productive power is already, and will continue to be, a major—perhaps the major—stake in the worldwide competition for power. It is conceivable that the nation-states will one day fight for control of information, just as they battled in the past for control over territory, and afterwards for control over access to and exploitation of raw materials and cheap labor.”
—Jean François Lyotard (b. 1924)