Speech analytics is one of the fastest growing market segments in the call center industry. Once the purview of large enterprises, today speech analytics technology is being adopted by organizations of all sizes, at an increasing rate.
It could be argued that over the past several years, speech analytics solutions have gained greater value outside of the contact center than inside.
To that point, today’s speech analytics solutions are increasingly being used by executives to not only improve overall contact center performance, but also in sales, marketing and operations to increase revenue, reduce costs and increase customer retention. They can identify the context of what is being said, giving organizations the ability to more accurately categorize calls and gain new insights into customer and agent behavior.
Organizations recognize the need to acquire speech analytics technology, but what are the right questions to ask to select the right solution?
Speed to business insight: How long will it take to process your audio files? How soon can you expect to see results? How quickly can you drill down to identify and clarify your core problems across your contact center? What is the accuracy rate for words and phrases? Contact centers should expect to get meaningful intelligence in a few hours, not days or weeks.
ROI: What quantifiable business benefits should we expect? What are the industry benchmarks for a company of similar size and complexity? ROI varies by organization, but the key to achieving stronger ROI is to align contact center objectives with that of the enterprise.
Root-cause analysis: What are the key call drivers of long calls, repeat calls and other costs and satisfaction drivers that impact customers? What process improvement opportunities exist with agents or across the enterprise? It can be difficult to successfully perform root-cause analysis, since the primary ‘evidence’ providing insights into business processes – the conversation in the calls between customers and agents – is available only through a speech analytics solution. Careful vetting of potential partners will enable you to acquire a solution that fits your business needs.
Intuitive reports easily understood by senior executives: Can reports containing large amounts of data be summarized and consolidated quickly? Are the reports easily scalable? Are result presented in a visually intuitive format? Senior executives are busy people; simplify how they receive their information. Report presentation layers vary. When discussing your requirements with potential partners, secure buy-in upfront from the end consumers of the data on how they want it represented (chart vs dashboard) and delivery preference.
Hidden concepts and trends: I need to understand and better manage agent performance, how does speech analytics integrate into my workforce management suite? Can I capture competitive information and conversely, what is the market saying about us? How can speech analytics and call recording help our contact center identify fixes for product offerings or business processes? How can speech analytics enable enterprise-wide teams to address issues that generate call volume or conversely increase sales revenue? By recording customer interactions, uncover opportunities to identify and correct trends that can potentially impact the entire organization. Proactive customer contact can take these learnings, reach out to customers and address trends before they impact your bottom line revenue.
Speech analytics is no longer a ‘nice to have’ but a ‘must have’ contact center technology.
Proper diligence can provide a long-term speech analytics solution that focuses on positive customer experiences.
To learn more on speech analytics, register today for the webinar with Donna Fluss, DMG Consulting – Make Speech Analytics Actionable with Performance Management for Better Customer Outcomes Thursday, August 23, 2012 at 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. EDT.