Because agents spend a lot of time behind the wheel, and because agents are super busy human beings, a personal voice-controlled virtual assistant would likely be a miracle to many agent ears. For new iPhone 4S users, there is of course the anticipated new Siri app. But don’t fret, Android and Blackberry users – you also have similar options.
The most notable option is Vlingo, a free virtual assistant app that can send SMS messages and emails, make phone calls, surf the web, find local businesses, and launch applications – all using natural language.
Vlingo’s speech recognition is quite good, rarely mistaking contact names or commands. The main point of this app is hands-free living, which translates to more productive car rides that are less life threatening.
The practical scenarios:
Safe texting while driving. Instead of risking an accident to get your message out with your thumbs, you can concentrate on the road and dictate your message to Vlingo.
Find directions while driving. OK, so you probably have a GPS, but for the small percentage of agents who don’t, this is a handy time-saver as you can get directions without having to pull over and type it into your phone.
In a rush to an appointment, but want to get a message out to a client? Hit the road and dictate it to Vlingo as you’re on your way.
Let people know you’re running late without texting while driving or wasting time on the side of the road calling or texting them.
What Vlingo does not do, though, is command within applications that aren’t voice-control enabled. In other words, you can launch a specialized app, but wouldn’t be able to control it using Vlingo. This isn’t that big of a deal breaker, though, considering that most of the hands-free commands you’d need to perform would be messaging, calling, or surfing the web in some way – and all of these are covered by Vlingo.
Vlingo is available for iPhone, Blackberry and Android. To get started, go to http://www.vlingo.com/download and choose your provider
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