Speech Analytics: How to Find Out Why Customers Engage With You

Jeff Gallino of CallMiner discusses how you can help find out why customers engage with your business through the use of speech analytics.

Call centre agents interact with more customers daily than any other department of your company – and these conversations tend to be what makes or breaks the customer’s perception of the brand.

That’s why it’s crucial to plan for every type of problem that a contact centre agent could encounter, and that begins with not only understanding what happens during 100% of their interactions, but uncovering the why behind each experience.

There’s a method in doing this – I like to call it the science of conversation – which is guided by AI-powered speech analytics.

Through combining historical and real-time data that’s easily accessible by agents and supervisors, employees can better understand what customers expect and how to achieve that desirable outcome while maintaining compliance expectations.

So, speech analytics becomes one of your most valuable employees with the power to unlock the science, covering three important positions your organisation didn’t know it needed:

 1. The Customer’s Interpreter

Speech analytics applies AI and machine learning capabilities to conversations in order to better understand experiences and maximise customer lifetime value.

Through real-time recommendations based on the specific needs of your organisation, it can increase first-call resolution rates and NPS scores by minimising the need for customers to call back and seek additional assistance.

While many companies lack a true understanding of the message the customer is trying to relay, your new employee, speech analytics, can combine the context of the words spoken, the tone, and the tempo of the conversation with the words themselves.

The technology also enables sentiment analysis to gather unsolicited feedback by combining data around semantics and acoustic characteristics to score and provide an unbiased interpretation of factors that are usually difficult to measure.

This helps agents deliver better customer outcomes by adapting their communication style and message according to the individual customer and their emotional state at the time. Talk about your new employee being a team player!

2. Your Company’s Sidekick

When it comes to driving business initiatives, speech analytics is the tech for the job. It goes far beyond its duties within the call centre – insights gleaned from your company’s interactions can have profound impact in all departments (from sales, to marketing, agent onboarding, and more).

Speech analytics can provide a rating of how likely a customer would be to positively respond to an up-sell request based on historical data. Then, based on your organisation’s priorities and initiatives, the tool would prompt your agent to try to up-sell to the most-probable prospects.

Taking it a step further, AI can also help avoid lost revenue by detecting fraudulent activity and reducing phishing-related fraud by 99% through a rapid assessment of how often and which channels a customer uses to contact your organisation, as well as the questions and requests they usually make during these interactions.

3. Your Agent’s Compliance Advocate

According to the HIPAA Journal, there was a total of $28.7 million collected in HIPAA fines. And as call centres continue to become more highly regulated than ever before, simply asking your agents to be mindful of compliance standards and industry regulations is not enough. But not to worry – your most dynamic employee is here to help.

Speech analytics technology offers a proactive approach to risk management by automating oversight functions and documentation processes for 100% of your customer experiences.

Operators can rest assured that their tools are determining whether scripts are being followed, and call recording disclosures are automatically distributed during every call.

A “real-life” employee may not have the capabilities of speech analytics, but tech is available to give customers, agents and the overall business the superpowers that weren’t possible before.

This new level of understanding of the science of conversation enables your business objectives to be seen through during 100% of your consumer interactions across every channel, from start to finish.

The tools are there—so why not take advantage of them and uncover the science of your customer conversations?