As the world entered into a new millennium in the year 2000, few people would have predicted how the next 19 years would completely change the face of several industries. All this transformation was made possible through the rising IT juggernaut. One such industry was the call center industry. Traditionally, the industry focused on dealing with as many customers as it could within a certain time period. Times have changed since then, and now the objective is to get the approval of customers by fixing their issues and generate quality CX (customer experience).

This paradigm shift was supported by speech analytics, which refers to a practice in which the voice of customers undergoes analysis and processing. This voice is converted into the text where analytics identify patterns in the recorded data. In this way, customer feedback like complaints, recommendations, suggestions, and other useful factors are collected easily, which are then applied to enhance the services and products of organizations.

Therefore, unsurprisingly, speech analytics has become one of the major reasons behind the resurgence of customer satisfaction and retention for many organizations. According to MarketsandMarket, by 2020, the speech analytics industry is estimated to balloon up to $1.60 billion.

Today, organizations harness speech analytics for raising the standards of their conversations, insights, and outcomes. If we examine through a historical outlook, then it was always the norm for organizations to comprehend and recognize the requirements of customers and adjust their offers accordingly.

For instance, Henry Ford got a breakthrough in the automotive industry when he divided the major issues at hand and went through their individual analysis. Then, he began implementing procedures that would supplement the efficiency of his organization. Ford’s approach was not too dissimilar to the modern-day analytics.

The Change in Mindset

Previously, call center agents were involved in repetitive outbound calls to their potential and actual clients. They received queries from inbound calls and the actual emphasis was on the length of the call. However, in this age, the emphasis has shifted towards customer engagement and overall experience. Organizations now understand that offering solutions to identified issues can help in fostering loyalty with customers and maximizing their own revenues.

Consider your surroundings to analyze accepted and normal behaviors. For instance, have you noticed how invested people have become lost in their smartphone screens? It is hard to imagine how days went by before the invention of the smartphone. Interpret the usage of IT and its impact on daily human interactions. Likewise, get a grip on the social media frenzy which has become the primary medium for communication.

Today, industries are actively pursuing speech analytics to boost their operations. The older voice solutions like IVR (Interactive Voice Recognition) have been shunned a long time ago. This is the speech analytics age where the technology is powerful enough to grasp the message of a customer and facilitate the management to respond with a workable and effective solution.

What Did Speech Analytics Do?

Speech analytics has triggered a revolution for call center agents through the following benefits.

Locating Customer Issues

The operational nature of call centers vary. However, standard practices are applied by all. It is important to understand that these practices may not be the best replacements. On the other hand, speech analytics ensures that a call center is able to mark the exact points from where customer grievances arise. Likewise, it can then guide agents to respond to those issues.

For instance, a customer purchases a winter jacket from an e-commerce website. After receiving the jacket, he might find its quality subpar or that the color does not match his order description. In response, the agitated customer calls for the cancellation of the order and demands a refund. Speech analytics can be used here to identify the common issues in these orders which can not only improve the service but also assist in adding a new feature in the product as a result, the churn cycle could be minimized to an extent.

Marketing

There is a strong relationship between the sales and marketing departments of organizations, and therefore they are interdependent. With speech analytics, marketing experts can take notes from the calls of sales agents which can assist them in “connecting” to their customers.

For instance, speech analytics pinpoints to the high pricing of a product as a major issue for a wide majority of customers who are primarily students. The marketing department can use this piece of information to promote an advertisement based on discounts for those students. Consequently, orders pour in and the marketing department scores an important victory.

The marketing department views speech analytics as a formidable tool which can provide it with the demographics of customers like their occupation, gender, age, location, etc. Hence, their marketing strategies are adjusted accordingly.

Training

One of the most productive uses of speech analytics is to allow supervisors and managers to train their calling agents. The performance of those agents is duly assessed by going through these calls. Proper analytics can also recognize if a particular agent requires further training or not. Likewise, it can serve as the basis of promotion for an agent whose output was not noticed before.

Minimizing the Churn Rate

The loss of clients is referred to as the customer churn. Customer churn is an extremely important factor for organizations, especially the SMEs. Presently, consumer habits are ever-changing which means that same product which generated positive results in 2017 may not generate the same results today. This is where speech analytics can be leveraged to identify the changing trends so businesses can comprehend and tailor their processes accordingly for better results.

Final Thoughts

The inception of speech analytics has disrupted the conventional call center industry. Businesses are using it to increase their revenues. If you do not use it in your operations, then do give a thought or two about integrating it in your business processes.