that customers are suddenly talking more frequently about. These "automatic discovery analytics" can then proactively alert organizations about issues with their products or services of which the organization may not have been previously aware.
5. Improving agent work quality more efficiently and effectively. Speech analytics don't just overcome the challenges inherent in traditional quality management systems and processes from the customer perspective. It's also possible to use the technology to automatically monitor 100 percent of calls, as opposed to the small fraction that can be reviewed with traditional manual methods, to assess agent productivity. In addition, because evaluation criteria must be objectively defined according to phrases used within conversations, human subjectivity is eliminated. When text analytics is unified with speech analytics, all conversations across all channels of contact can be evaluated in exactly the same way.
6. Improving the effectiveness of sales, up-selling, and cross-selling. Organizations are increasingly encouraging their agents to use up-selling and cross-selling techniques. However, the sales techniques that are most effective can differ markedly depending on the product or service being sold. The techniques that are most effective for each situation can be identified by analytics, then agents can be trained when to use each technique within conversations. These conversations can be continuously monitored to ensure that agents are properly using the techniques they've learned.
7. Reducing costs by maximizing operational efficiency. Once all calls are classified by call reason and specific agent skills used within the call, business process or agent training issues that are causing high call volumes or long average handle times are identified, and the underlying issues can be corrected to maximize efficiency and minimize costs.
8. Boosting revenue. Ultimately, by identifying the agent skills that are most important for successfully selling your product or service—or collecting a particular type of debt—and then facilitating training and coaching targeted on those key skills, it's possible to automatically monitor usage of agent skills on an ongoing basis, thereby increasing sales and/or collections revenue.
Success Story Shows Results
Just how can speech analytics increase sales and boost revenue better than traditional processes? The Healthcare Revenue Recovery Group (HRRG), a division of TeamHealth, one of the largest suppliers of outsourced professional staffing and administrative services to U.S. hospitals and healthcare providers, provides a great example.
One of the challenges HRRG faced was to identify which agent skills were crucial to increasing collections revenue and to measure usage of those key skills. Speech analytics helped to focus training for contact center agents on those key skills and automatically monitored skills usage across the contact center.
The data gleaned through speech analytics enabled the HRRG to change some of its business rules and processes. It refocused training, coaching, and self-learning programs on the skills that speech analytics had identified as critical to success. The skills were not just taught but also practiced in role plays and evaluated with real customer calls during training, coaching, and self-learning sessions enabled by speech analytics until the agents became very proficient with them. Speech analytics then continuously monitored agents' usage of those key skills.
In the first few months after agent training, key skill usage improved over 13 percent, prompting 32.5 percent more phone payments. This contributed to a dramatic increase in collections revenue, which exceeded expected revenue by 20 percent.
So, What's the Conclusion?
Customer service and customer engagement operations need to start moving to more holistic measurement programs for communication channels and touch points, to understand the customer journey end-to-end and completely understand all conversations the organization is having with customers and prospects. By analyzing all conversations and capturing the Voice of the Customer across all channels, organizations can begin to accurately measure customer loyalty, understand and validate what is driving customer satisfaction, while identifying potential areas of improvement.
Just as the consumer of today has found a voice across many channels, so businesses need to be able to capture and analyze that voice to help them identify and address problems with the customer experience before they significantly impact customer acquisition and retention.
Tom Eggemeier is the executive vice president of global sales at Genesys.