“This call may be monitored for quality assurance purposes.” Consumers have grown accustomed to hearing this phrase whenever they call a company’s customer service or sales department. But what does it mean? Ideally, it should mean something very different now than it did years ago, as call center recording technology continues to improve.
Back in the day, this prompted message meant that calls were being recorded and then manually monitored to ensure quality. Because this was such a time-consuming, labor intensive process, not all calls were being monitored. Only a sample size of all calls were being analyzed, which meant that businesses weren’t getting an accurate picture of their customer calls. Important insights that may have been hidden away inside of the calls that weren’t monitored were lost and companies were missing out on this important data and information. This process was inadequate and didn’t allow a business to respond to the ever-changing needs of its customers.
Noting this lack of transparency in the reported customer experience, companies are moving away from simple call center recording software to a more reliable solution that includes an audio mining component. Here’s why:
It quickly searches for keywords
Prior to implementing audio mining software, call center managers were left to manually listen in on every selected call and check items off of a list of pre-determined criteria to ensure that agents were performing as they should be. Clearly, this method was very time-consuming and inefficient. Audio mining software can do most of this work for you once you set up the search criteria. The software provides users with statistics and the number of calls that contain a specific search phrase and those calls can be honed in on to identify business trends.
Data is delivered immediately
When managers were left to manually listen in on calls, it was happening days, weeks, or even longer after the call actually happened. This means that they couldn’t do much with the information, other than use it for educational training purposes for the future: “This is what you should or shouldn’t do”. That alone is incredibly valuable information, and a great way to leverage the data and insights that can be extracted from recorded conversations. But, with near real time audio mining software, managers are able to receive call data immediately after a call completes, which means they can immediately go into course-correction mode with their agents, if necessary. This can improve the customer experience by leaps and bounds for the next call coming in, and all future calls from customers.
Benefits extend beyond improving agent performance and customer satisfaction
Basic call recording software is primarily used to monitor agent performance and customer satisfaction in the call center. Because audio mining software is more advanced, and provides quick access to a wealth of data, it can benefit other departments as well. For example, the marketing department can search for specific keywords around products, campaigns, promotions, etc. in order to determine effectiveness and use this information in future campaign planning.
In today’s competitive business environment where the customer experience is of the utmost importance, a basic call recording solution isn’t going to cut it. A company must invest in audio mining software in order to truly capture the voice of the customer.
