Artificial intelligence (AI) is the most rapidly growing technology for contact centres and customer service. AI solutions are typically created to assist and improve contact centre and telephony operational methods. The ultimate goal is to deliver the best customer service levels.
Interactive speech analysis works by analysing spoken words, silences, variations in speech and other verbal cues. A research firm, Technavio reported that the global voice and speech analytics market is expected to grow by $2.17 billion between 2019 and 2023.
An increasing number of businesses realise that speech analysis software is a great tool for transforming their customer experience. In this article, we delve into the ways it achieves this.
What is Speech Analysis Software and How Does it Work
Speech analytics software is a tool that automates the process of listening to interactions with customers. It extracts customer information from conversations which could have otherwise been lost. They can go beyond detecting words and phrases to analyzing the emotional character of speech.
It uses a multi-step process to get data within audio from calls and transform it into data that can be searched and analysed. The first step is integrating audio from the source system (call recorder) with the associated metadata (agent and customer identification, date and time of call).
The next step is the audio passing through the speech recognition process, where it is converted to text. Simultaneously, acoustic signals such as silence and agitation are analyzed and noted in the text. The last step is to examine interactions for specific language patterns to categorize them according to their characteristics.
Advanced solutions allow automatic scoring to combine certain words with metrics that access performance like first contact resolution, agent quality, emotion etc.
The Benefits of Speech Analytics for Customer Service
Firms doing business in very competitive markets must discover ways to give customers value beyond offering competitive prices. Excellent customer service in such an environment is a strategic initiative because it facilitates customer loyalty that secures continuous revenue generation.
Speech Analytics Ensure Vital Information is Preserved
No matter how good a customer service agent is, after handling hundreds of calls by the day, it becomes difficult to remember vital information. A busy environment such as this will benefit from real-time speech analytics.
Software for speech analytics collects unstructured data and converts it to structured format. The program then analyses the data to identify the tone of customer and agents voice, the reason for the call and products discussed. It is also possible to transform the data into various formats like text, which can then be mined for keywords or indicators of customer sentiments.
In summary, this software ensures data that could have been lost gets used in creating a better customer experience.
Monitoring Contact Centre Agents to Ensure Performance Improvements
An objective of call centre managers is to create teams that deliver the highest level of service possible. Speech analytics facilitates identifying what causes repeat calls and lets managers find out if agents have been sticking to their scripts.
It can help detect the most successful agents and learn how to copy their winning techniques. Using the information from this software, training can be designed to improve new or lacking agents’ abilities. Targeted training is also possible since one can determine the specific areas where an individual agent is faltering.
Effective Gauging of Customer Satisfaction
Most businesses understand the value of delivering excellent customer service to stand out from competitors. This means that customer satisfaction with how a company operates, handles complaints, and products it offers is vital.
Currently, the most popular way to access customer feedback is through surveys. However, speech analytics is a great alternative. This software provides more insight into the customer’s experience. They reveal the events that took place during a call and what caused dissatisfaction. This software improves a user’s ability to understand a customer’s perspective through speech rate, loudness, and pause. You can also measure a team member’s tone of voice.
Meanwhile, surveys create significant intelligence gaps because they cover small sample sizes and delve into questions that they believe are critical.
Speech Analytics Help in Customer Retention
Software for speech analysis can uncover the complaints that are most often made. Companies can use it to spot trends and pick out calls for analysis to inform them how to improve their products or services.
Customers can request something that you do not provide and over time, you notice that this request occurs repeatedly. A business can know what service or product to add to its repertoire from this freely given knowledge.
By analysing customers’ speech patterns, it can go a long way in helping companies maintain their customer retention levels because they can truly understand the nature of their customers’ requirements.It is imperative that companies keep their existing companies happy because attracting a new customer can be approximately 6-7 times more expensive than retaining existing customers.
Bottom Line
The customer service sector is constantly changing with new developments and trends filling the landscape. Speech analytics is one of the most promising new developments that empowers companies to deliberate in their interactions with customers. Firms who do not keep up with these solutions might find it hard to stay afloat.
