In many ways, call center agents are the “face” of an organization. When a customer has a question or concern, they speak with an agent. This means that call center agents must be properly trained to handle a wide variety of issues and topics in a professional manner. The conversation a customer or a prospect has with an agent goes a long way in determining what their overall experience and perception of the company is. Since a positive customer experience is everything in today’s business world, it’s necessary to invest in the proper call center tools to ensure that agents are doing everything possible to create and maintain happy customers. The following are two of the top tools that call centers must be utilizing today:
Call Recording Software
Call recording software is standard in a call center environment today. It allows management to listen in on calls to monitor agent performance for quality assurance purposes and to ensure compliance. It records both inbound and outbound calls. Calls can be listened to live or after they have completed. When an individual agent’s calls are recorded and monitored, their performance can be evaluated and then improved upon with further training in order to enhance service quality and the overall customer experience.
Speech Analytics Software
Speech analytics technology takes call center recording to the next level. While basic call recording software allows management to review a sampling of calls manually, speech analytics software can mine every call an agent has for specific keywords and phrases which provides a more accurate picture of their performance. Employee tracking codes segment calls by specific employee or department, automatically capturing all of the data necessary to determine which employees may need additional training in order to address customer questions and concerns. Because it provides a more robust set of data, call recording software with a speech analytics component is very useful when conducting agent performance reviews and can be utilized for future trainings for both new and existing agents.
While basic call recording software has been a call center “must-have” for many years, speech analytics software is now becoming a “must-have” technology as well. Previously, voice of the customer data was hidden inside calls. With speech analytics software, that data is now structured allowing actionable trends to emerge that management can analyze in order to improve agent performance as well as company performance overall.
