T-Mobile USA Inc. announced it will install a do-it-yourself customer-service application from Nuance Communications Inc. on “select” handsets, which the carrier said will allow customers to solve common service and handset problems without contacting the carrier’s customer-service representatives. The offering is an effort to offload sometimes costly customer-care calls.

The application appears instantly when T-Mobile USA subscribers call customer care, and allows users to diagnose and report configuration problems and make billing and account inquiries. T-Mobile USA said device-self-service has proven successful through trials in the U.S. and Europe.

Nuance first launched its Mobile Care Solution this summer. The application acts as a natural extension of existing Nuance speech-recognition solutions, which allow telcos and other consumer-facing business to handle customer-care calls without the use of a live agent.

“Nuance Mobile Care gives us the ability to provide a superior customer-service experience and offers our customers an easy way to learn about and use advanced services, right from the screen of their phone,” said Warren McNeel, VP of product development at T-Mobile USA.

The application can be installed onto the device over the air or by the manufacturer. Operators can add various tools to the application such as billing, tutorials and customer-service functions. T-Mobile USA did not say how many devices, or which ones, would carry the app.

Nuance managed to score the T-Mobile USA deal in a heated market. Similar companies offering such solutions include Zi Corp. and vlingo Corp. Indeed, Nuance recently cut into the competition by acquiring SNAPin Software for $180 million.

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