Applications of Speech Analytics for Business Continuity
Businesses continue to experience all kinds of unanticipated fallout from the COVID-19 virus. From social distancing polices that pushed workforces into remote-work scenarios to fear behaviors that have changed the ways consumers communicate and spend. As a result, companies are more dependent than ever on technological resources to provide business continuity. VoizTrailâ, a behavioral & speech analytics program, is one of these key resources to help navigate through the continuing COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
The Technology in Brief
Spoken content is analyzed for keywords and so are emotional cues such as: pitch, tone, and volume. A good speech analytics’ platform can further measure for the space in-between, the length of the call and, yes, even “dead air!” Other parameters can be customized to a business’ specific needs. The resulting audio data is captured and stored so that it can be searched and used to generate reports.
Speech analytics has created opportunities for automating processes that can eliminate human error, measure quality of service, and strengthen procedural standards for script adherence and compliance. The most progressive application of this technology involves behavioral science. By applying techniques and research on consumer behavior to a company’s call data, business strategies can be optimized for the best possible results.
Oversight of Remote Workers
One of the biggest concerns for employers when it comes to remote workers is oversight. Speech analytics provides a way to monitor 100% of phone activity without the necessity of manual auditing. Not only can you keep a close eye on your employees’ engagement levels, but performance can be tracked and graded with personalized scorecards that allow you to rate the most important aspects of your agents’ conversations, from attitude to compliance.
Originally, speech analytics was created for call-center agents; however, any employee considered a front-line worker (collection agents, sales, client care) can and should be monitored for compliance to both industry regulations as well as your business’ own internal policies.
Consumer Relations
Even pre-COVID-19, the way consumers communicated was impacted by many factors, and any one of them individually could easily contribute to a consumer’s state of stress and fear. With speech analytics you have a tool for quickly and accurately gauging consumers’ mental states. Trend data can illustrate not only what is on consumers’ minds by tracking keywords, but how they are coping through the analysis of emotional cues. Insights like this can help you get the most out of your interactions.
The Three Building Blocks to Success
There are three primary areas of focus that facilitate success for any business: compliance, efficiency and performance. Employing a speech analytics system can help maintain optimal levels of execution in these three areas in order to reap the rewards in the form of profitability and reputational success.
- Compliance Speech analytics is a key strategy for ensuring compliance standards are adhered to and to negate the possibility of fines or potential legal action. Scorecards can be generated for employee performance to ensure compliance standards are being met. This allows for accurate risk assessments and the mediation of potential issues before they have an opportunity to escalate. Speech analytics software facilitates quick and accurate audio searches in the instance of a dispute. Locating recorded call information in a timely manner can save monitoring, auditing and litigation costs.
- Efficiency Employing a speech analytics tool offers opportunities for quality assurance that would otherwise be unattainable. Monitoring call volumes produces invaluable data about business processes as a whole, highlighting areas for improvement. Speech analytics easily identifies trends in consumer experiences and agent performance. Information collected can give valuable insight to issues with products, services, as well as missed opportunities. This information is beneficial as a training tool and often used by companies to adjust internal policies. This technology not only points out weaknesses in operations, but also provides guidance on specific areas in need of attention, making improvements easier to implement.
- Performance Nothing can put you in the mind of consumers the way employing speech analytics can. Data mining call audio is the most powerful tool for giving businesses a competitive edge. Reports offer clear impressions of areas for concern, consumers’ emotional states, levels of satisfaction, and reflect their overall attitude towards products and services. For example, VoizTrail’s Decision Analysis module can track key decisions that consumers make while on the phone, such as payments, reasons why they can’t pay and disputes. It also tracks new trends such as the growing prevalence of certain call types with a particular client (e.g. “insurance should have paid”) and the success of new business initiatives such as digital engagement. Speech analytics is the most concise way to evaluate consumers’ needs and to recognize when to make adjustments to better fill those needs.
The list below includes some of the key metrics provided by VoizTrailâ.
Measurable Metrics
- Number of Calls
- Time of Call
- Average Call Length
- Percentage of Sales, Upsells, Cross-Sells, Conversion Rates
- Service Level / Response Time (i.e. X percent handled in Y time)
- Agent Adherence to Scripts
- Compliance Standards
- Courtesy / Professionalism
- Emotional State of Consumer (i.e. Consumer Satisfaction)
Summary
Data supplied by a speech analytics platform like VoizTrailâ can offer a big picture view of how your business is being impacted, not just during the pandemic, but at any time, and allow for timely modification of strategies for process improvement and better consumer relations. Deep analysis from both sides, (i.e., employee performance and consumer behavior), provides you with all the metrics needed for stabilizing operations and maintaining business continuity despite present uncertainties.
