I’m hearing more talk about using real-time speech analytics to monitor agents. Do you think that makes sense? I’m wondering if I should give this consideration.
Requires Free Membership to View
When you register, you'll begin receiving targeted emails from my team of award-winning editorial writers on the latest customer relationship management (CRM)and call center technology issues today. Our goal is to keep you informed on the hottest issues facing this fast-changing industry.
Hannah Smalltree, Editorial Director
Real-time speech analytics is in its early stages, both as a technology and in contact center use. Not all vendors offer it, and most that do announced availability within the last year. Adoption of speech analytics in general is fairly low, and companies that currently use or are planning to adopt analytics are focusing on driving value from the technology.
When considering speech analytics, real time or not, don’t view it simply as a tool to monitor agents. Its value goes well beyond that in terms of insights and actions it can drive for your contact center as well as other parts of the company.
Achieving value from speech analytics requires analysts and defined business objectives, whether focused on quality, compliance, sales, relationship building, product insights or other goals. Pursuing real-time speech analytics requires that people and processes identify what they’re looking for in a conversation and trigger the right actions -- such as through scripts, integration with other systems (like CRM or knowledge bases) -- or desired outcomes when the conversation is taking a defined path.
The benefits can be great for both the customer and the company -- reduced call lengths, increased call resolution and targeted cross-sell and up-sell, for example. However, companies pursuing this technology must be willing to invest in the people and processes to use it effectively, both up-front and ongoing. Anyone tackling this project today could be considered an “early adopter,” so if your organization is interested, make sure it can make the right investments of time and resources and expect some bumps along the way. Not many companies have done this yet and thus cannot yet share their learning or provide insights that will improve the products. Your organization will be a pioneer but may blaze a trail that leads to great advantages if all goes well.
This was first published in December 2011
Join the conversationComment
Share
Comments
Results
Contribute to the conversation