Improve your virtual receptionists’ or live agents’ listening skills
Have you heard a common word or phrase spoken in a certain way one time and then used differently at another time? Consider this simple question: “What did you mean by that?” It can quickly turn into an angry exclamation: “What did you mean by THAT?!” Same words. Same order. Different intent. That’s not exactly how speech analytics works, but you get the idea. Depending on inflection, tone, volume, and other characteristics, the same words carry a different meaning.
What is call center speech analytics?
It’s what you say AND how you say it
Forrester Research identified speech analytics as a recent customer service megatrend. According to its report: “Marrying speech data with customer contact data will allow companies to do root cause analysis.” For example, a customer calling multiple times for the same issue is likely due to a process problem, such as a language barrier, not agent performance.
“Why agents put customers on hold or transfer them…have to be addressed with the department to reduce the number of times and duration that customers are placed on hold,” according to Donna Fluss of DMG Consulting. Speech analytics technology can help companies zero in on trouble spots during conversations between customer service agents and customers by listening for certain words, phrases, and attributes (like anger or frustration). Those conversations, and the agents on the calls, can be tracked for follow-up later.
When it comes to analyzing calls to virtual receptionists or live agents, there are many benefits. Of note,
- To enhance the customer experience
- To improve agent skills
- To create better products
- To lower costs by reducing call times
You and your team could listen to hundreds and thousands of hours of conversations. Although, you probably lack the time. Why not let artificial intelligence with speech analytics software do the same thing? Once protocols or algorithms are applied, AI doesn’t lose focus, and isn’t prone to subjectivity or stereotyping, like humans.
Techtarget describes Speech Analytics two ways:
- Post-Call Speech Analytics: The major advantage of post-call analytics is it allows you to monitor and review thousands of calls without adding additional quality-assurance staff.
- Real-Time Speech Analytics: When you monitor calls in real time, you can refer callers to managers immediately and potentially solve the problem before the call ends.
Quickly identify keywords when setting up your speech analytics center
Whether you outsource your call center services or integrate them into your existing customer service experience, here some of the phrases to listen for, according to Emily Nave, an expert on the subject for VoiceBase:
- Opinion statements: “I want”, “I need”, “I wish”, “I hate”
- Competitor names: Learning what your customers think about your competition gives you a leg up on them
- Profanity: This is standard protocol that can immediately red-flag calls or situations for referral to live agents or managers
- Customer Dissatisfaction: Words and phrases such as “cancelling”, “closing”, “stop service” are easy to identify
- Product & Feature Terms: This information helps you identify what customers view favorably or unfavorably
Listener beware
According to the Forrester AI-Fueled Speech Analytics Evaluation Overview, not all Speech Analytics are created equal. Consider the following:
- Transcribe spoken audio accurately?
- Provide end-to-end analytics; that is, from the moment a call is answered to the moment it ends?
- Allow user access without programming skills?
Speech analytics technology is continually evolving, so stay tuned. Or stay focused. Or whatever industry terminology we’ll be using to talk about AI Speech Analytics in the next 10 years.
Interested in learning more about call center outsourcing and artificial intelligence? Read “Will Artificial Intelligence change call center and answering services good?” and don’t miss additional information available on our website.
