How Speech Analytics is Changing The Way We Interact With Contact Centers

Speech analytics is at the forefront of the corporate push to make intelligence gained from ‘Big Data’ not only valuable but actionable in real-time. Speech analytics offers the ability to create meaningful voice data and interaction trends to help companies improve services, reduce costs, and grow revenue in their contact center and other business areas.

The basis of the technology has been around for some time. Previously, audio files were converted to text to enable searches of specific words or phrases, a long winded process. Speech analytics takes this significantly further and now involves in-depth searches based on phonetics with the ability to detect certain emotions expressed on a call as well as trends such as hold times, silent periods, or even agents talking over a caller. 

According to an Opus Research Survey, 72% companies believe that speech analytics can lead to improved customer experience, 68% regard it as a cost saving mechanism, 52% respondents trust that speech analytics deployment can lead to revenue enhancement.

The technology is particularly relevant and useful to businesses operating call centers because it enables them to extract crucial information from customer interactions, identify patterns and take action to improve the way they conduct their sales or customer service over the phone. So, armed with this information, what are the main benefits of speech analytics in a call center environment?

Improved call quality

Previously this has been measured by recording or monitoring the calls answered by agents, a time consuming process. With Speech analytics, call center managers are able to evaluate the calls on the quality of interaction an agent had with the customer in real time. For example, they can establish whether the caller was greeted correctly and courteously, whether the agent captured all the necessary data and even the tone of the conversation. All of these elements can be combined to improve performance and react much more quickly to problems as and when they occur.

Identify compliance & risk issues

Speech analytics can automatically score every single call against compliance criteria. This is a vital tool for regulated industries such as finance or insurance. 

It can also allow for learning opportunities for your agents. Rather than spending time reviewing hours of recorded calls, speech analytics can quickly highlight potential compliance issues or poor performance by focusing your compliance team on problems as they occur. This means any problems and re-training can quickly be nipped in the bud before it becomes a potential compliance issue.

Reduced repeat calls

More information on call content can help in reducing costs by giving organizations the insight to reduce repeat call volume. Reducing repeat calls not only reduces overall call volume, but at the same time leads to greater customer satisfaction. Through speech analytics, data captured can be used towards providing first call resolution. With this, the total count of repeat callers will decrease, leading to improvement in efficiency levels and reduction in cost per call. Ultimately this may lead to fewer agents being needed or they could be re-deployed to other work within the business.

Improve your upselling and cross-selling rates

By monitoring and identifying keywords that trigger customer conversions, call center managers can use this information to optimize sales scripts. If you’re able to identify keywords that drive successful call outcomes, it’s easy to test scripts and experiment by adjusting wording to see the effect on conversion rates.

Plus, you can create upselling and cross-selling strategies that are proven to drive results. For example, rather than saying ‘Would you like to upgrade to business?’ you might find ‘Are you looking for more legroom?’ to be a more persuasive call-to-action.

The future is here right now

Speech analytics might seem like a technology that’s still some years from development and realizing its full potential, but actually the technology is here right now and it’s being used by businesses across the world.

According to industry experts, speech analytics is one of the fastest growing areas of the contact center technology market, and with good reason. Recorded phone conversations are probably the most under-used resource companies have in studying the customer experience and using what they learn to improve their service. Using speech analytics, you can zero in on your top concerns, find out what customers’ top issues are, what’s frustrating them, what’s causing them to leave, and actually do something about it. 

In a competitive world, the future doesn’t necessarily belong to the businesses shouting loudest, but to those that truly listen to their customers and learn from it to deliver outstanding service.  Speech analytics is helping enterprise leaders appreciate the value that contact centers bring to an organization. Those that have put in place processes that enable them to apply the findings from speech analytics are realizing great returns. Isn’t it time you joined them?