Speech analytics is rapidly coming to the forefront of the call center technology scene. With an increasing number of different solutions, all with varying capabilities, it may seem like a daunting task to attempt to implement a speech analytics solution at your company. There are many different facets to take into account when trying to understand the right speech analytics solution for your company, some of the key aspects to look for include speed of response, level of accuracy and reliability, reporting capabilities, as well as the speed of return on investment.
Speech analytics solutions are often implemented as a preventative measure for many companies. They seek to reduce lawsuits brought against them, retain dissatisfied customers before they move their business to a rival competitor and ensure a consistent level of customer service. With these goals in mind, one of the most important aspects of a speech analytics solution is the speed at which it can analyze and report back the results of any given number of conversations going on within a call center. Learning about a dissatisfied customer, after the fact, does not operate as an effective preventative measure. When looking at a speech analytics solution, it is important that these insights into calls be delivered as rapidly as possible, in real-time. This allows your supervisors and quality control officers to respond to customer satisfaction and other potentially volatile situations as fast as possible. The use of a whisper function or marquee message to the agents desktop will allow your customer service agents to diffuse the situation or alter their approach to provide a more favorable result.
Speed of response alone is not enough for a good speech analytics solution, accuracy must also be present. Delivering alerts and warnings quickly means nothing if the majority of those warnings are false, they must also be accurate. It is important to evaluate the recognition rate of words, phrases and other key indicators when looking at speech analytics solutions. This can often be accomplished in an initial proof of concept phase done with the analytics company. Proofs of concepts are a very important part of the process of selecting the proper system for your company. Through the use of a proof of concept, a company can select a specific project to test the speech analytics software on, then measure the return on investment as well as any other benefits identified during this period. This allows for minimal risk during the evaluation of the system and can provide valuable insight into the speed of return on investment.
Assuming the above qualities are present, another extremely important aspect to examine when choosing a speech analytics solution, are its reporting capabilities. This type of system has the potential to provide massive amounts of data to your company. However, without a proper reporting engine, this data will become useless. The system must be capable of delivering meaningful data in intuitive ways to allow your business to identify important things such as trends, productivity levels and overall customer service quality. A quality system should enable users to drill down to specific calls on an agent by agent basis if necessary.
As the speech analytics field continues to grow, more and more solutions will present themselves. It is important to understand the needs and expectation of speech analytics in your business and evaluate the value of any system before implementing it at your call center.
