The Many Benefits of Speech Analytics For All Businesses

Today’s consumers have more options to contact businesses than ever before, including email, online chat, social media, and more.  Yet with all these choices, calling a company directly remains people’s leading preference.  Whether it’s calling to inquire about a product or service, or someone with a question or complaint, most people prefer to speak with a real, live person. So when these calls come in, businesses must ensure the conversations being held are producing the desired outcomes.  Using call mining tools such as speech analytics allows companies to quickly scan their phone conversations for specific words and phrases, converting unstructured data into actionable business insights. Here are just a few of the ways implementing speech analytics can produce tangible benefits for any business.

The customer experience has become the primary driving factor in most company-customer interactions, and is one of the main reasons companies choose to utilize speech analytics.   By listening to and analyzing phone conversations with common questions and complaints, companies can determine the best way for agents to interact with callers based on solid evidence – what their customer are actually saying.  As a result, agents become capable of resolving practically any situation for a customer with promptness and ease, leading to a growth in first-call resolutions and a decrease in repeat callers.  And customers feel reassured when agents clearly know to handle situations with both knowledge and confidence.  Speech analytics allows agents to provide customers with an exceptional experience, which can help retain current customers, as well as draw in and keep new ones.

The initial set up of speech analytics in a business does require a noticeable amount of time and resources.  However, the results are well worth it, with most companies seeing a return on their investment in as little as 3-6 months.   Discovering patterns and trends in phone conversations can help companies better determine cost-saving strategies and lessen call center expenses.  It can also help to more easily identify potential up- and cross-sell opportunities.  For instance, if a company discovers with speech analytics that more than one product or service they offer tends to be inquired about at the same time, they can bundle them together in a cost-saving package for their customers.  This makes it more convenient (both time and expense-wise) for both the agents and the customers.  With speech analytics, a business can make real improvements to its bottom line.

Contact center agents are some of the most important people in a business, as they are often the ones who have the initial interaction with a customer.  So it is important to ensure they give a consistently excellent performance.  Using speech analytics in conjunction with call recording can more easily detect where an agent’s strength and weaknesses are when it comes to their phone conversations.   It can reveal what agents are saying (or not saying) that is ultimately determining whether or not they retain a customer.  And speech analytic’s ability to scan all calls in a fast and thorough manner can provide a much more precise depiction of an agent’s performance, rather than just a small sampling which would not nearly be as accurate.  By providing agents with solid evidence and examples, speech analytics can help them gain a clearer understanding of how they can always be at their best with customers.

Implementing speech analytics means helping to guarantee each phone conversation yields the optimum result.  When it comes to both short and long term solutions in a business, it really does not matter what a business believes will work; what matters is the customers’ opinions.  Speech analytics is a proven way to gain more complete insights into the minds of the customers, and help ensure that a company’s best practices truly are the best.

Learn more about the benefits of speech analytics for all businesses and industries here.