Lola gets the job, as a natural-sounding cyber-guide for Avis.

Avis has chosen Lola, an "Interactive Agent" designed by Cantoche, using Acapela Sayso™, to play a key speaking part on their on-line car rental Microsite. Created in 2002 for their many partners, Avis France's Microsite allows users to book a vehicle on line. The Microsite is available via over 200 partner sites : tour operators, e-stores, travel companies... Lola's mission is to guide, help and accompany visitors when they visit the Microsite. This "human touch" should help increase client fidelity and encourage the visitors to reserve their vehicle.

Olivier Sellem, Distribution systems and E-commerce manager of Avis France gives us the reasons why they chose Lola : "The reservation Microsite is a great contribution to Avis online booking. Our B-to-B and B-to-C visitors didn't have access to the guidance of our agency staff. Lola's task is to correct this : to guide and inform the visitors, and show them the flexibility and the advantages of our rental system, online, 24/7, according to what they need to know."

Lola can be called at any time by the visitor, by clicking on her icon, and speak out helpful and pertinent advice using Acapela Sayso™. With Acapela Sayso™ text to speech technology, Lola can speak to visitors with an incredibly natural voice. This application of TTS adds efficiency and user-friendliness to on-line help. The choice of this technology also allows increasing flexibility and speed in updating any information for the site, adding promotional information or changing prices, free from the technical and cost constraints of recorded speech messages.

The text to speech prompts are generated by Virtual Speaker, Acapela 's new software solution for vocalising content with Acapela Sayso™ without any development work or hardware investment.