Voice analytics is quickly becoming indispensable within the customer service industry. Call centres are being inundated with calls during the pandemic as more customers are staying at home.
This is why using technology such as voice analytics is imperative to ensuring call centre staff can still provide the best quality of service, despite rising call numbers.
Lockdown has left phone lines ringing at an unprecedented rate, so call centres need to be prepared in every way for this sudden surge.
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What Is Voice Analytics?
Voice analytics is a technology that can analyse both live and previously recorded phone calls for patterns in customers’ speech.
This can be many areas, from commonly used phrases to identify similarities within callers to pinpointing the emotions of callers and determining satisfaction levels at the beginning and end of the call.
This is achieved by breaking down the acoustics within a caller’s voice, from time, pitch, energy and even pauses.
The words that are spoken are dissected to determine the sentiment of the words used, such as positive, negative or neutral.
With vocal emotion detection, any manner of affection can be determined, from happiness, anger, sadness, anxiety and misunderstanding.
Calls can be quickly transcribed electronically, providing a detailed paper trail of every interaction.
All of these can be turned into actionable insights to help achieve the most from agents on a daily basis within contact centres.
We discuss the top benefits for why all call centres should be using voice analytics and how it can help customer satisfaction levels, while also easing pressure on agents and managers.
1. Provide The Best Customer Experience
Customer service levels are always one the largest KPIs of any call centre. Agents are there to help with queries or complaints from the public and rectify them as quickly and easily as possible for callers.
Using voice analytics to identify patterns within callers can quickly flag to managers if there is a particular product or service that may not be performing to standard. This can then be relayed to the relevant team to look into.
Agents who have consistently high levels of dissatisfied customers can be identified by managers, providing them with the opportunity to step in and give extra training or guidance as soon as possible.
Resolving a customer query first-time is crucial for customer satisfaction. Voice analytics can also quickly determine which agent or department is best suited to resolve the call and put the customer through to them.
2. Reduce AHT
Average handling time is crucial to reducing disgruntled customers. Nobody wants to be left on hold for long periods of time, but at the same time, there are only so many agents who can be ready to help.
Voice analytics can also be used to detect if there are common questions that are constantly being asked to agents.
This can then be used to determine if there is a better way to avoid customers having to call, perhaps more information on the website relating to this or even pre-recorded information on the phone lines.
Not only will this reduce the wait time for those seeking answers to these common questions, but it means agents will be free to answer calls from customers with different queries, therefore reducing their waiting times too.
3. Keep Compliant
Every sector has rules and regulations that need to comply with. Straying from these regulations can not just incur with unsatisfied customers but can also lead to detrimental effects on the business reputation and even hefty fines, depending on the severity of the matter.
Call centre staff are already likely to have been trained in all these methods and to uphold the high standards of the business. Unfortunately, these standards can slip and it is imperative to catch these calls quickly before irreversible damage is done.
Voice analytics can help to identify calls that may be violating these standards and allow managers to provide the best training possible to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
It also means these errors can be rectified with the customer as soon as possible, leaving them both satisfied and unlikely to take the initial issue further.
4. Reduce Costs
Especially in the current economic situation, every business is always looking to cut costs, without compromising on quality.
Voice analytics can do just that. As it can help to automate calls and reduce AHT, this leads to fewer agents needed and reduces the costs of extra annual wages for staff.
Fines and fees for non-compliance are avoided with regular monitoring of calls, a costly sum for any business if they were to face these.
As call numbers can be reduced overall with analysis provided from voice analytics, agents are less likely to have to work overtime. Similarly, the numbers of equipment such as headsets and computers can be significantly reduced.
With pressure eased off staff members and higher levels of happy customers, this can lead to lower attrition rates, meaning costs are saved for training and recruitment.
5. Aid Training
Training for both new and current employees is the key to ensure customer satisfaction levels and also reduce pressure on agents by providing them with the best resources to complete their role well.
A common tool for training is to playback real calls to provide an insight into what was handled poorly or to provide an example of outstanding customer service.
However, with constantly changing products, services and regulations, these examples can quickly become dated.
Without voice analytics, managers would have to listen to hundreds of hours of phone calls to find new training examples. Agents aren’t always likely to flag up potential training calls, especially if their outcome had not been positive.
Voice analytics can quickly pick these calls out to allow the best methods for all training across the business.
Voice analytics is one of the fastest-growing methods within call centre technology and new features and benefits are constantly being added.
The above are only a few of the myriad of benefits available through this technology. Utilising this new software can allow staff to manage customers to the highest standard, retain contracts and relieve pressure, especially during busy periods, ensuring staff are also content in their daily roles.