There’s no denying it: artificial intelligence (AI) is more prevalent than ever before, especially in the world of quality solutions. Speech analytics prove a powerful tool, tirelessly searching records, solving complicated problems, and computing with incredible speed. AI provides an organization with the ability to mine 100% of calls they receive, which can be extremely useful in a customer-focused industry. Improving bottom-line results while analyzing immense amounts of data truly changes the game.
What this technology doesn’t have is exactly what sets other quality solutions apart—human connection.
There are countless aspects of the customer experience that simply cannot be maximized through only AI. Tone, inflection, and cadence all make up the depth of emotional intelligence a living, breathing person has. Those moments when a person can read between the lines and identify the root cause of frustrations are invaluable from the ear of a customer. That perspective brings insight unobtainable through machine learning. Beyond that, wherein AI helps target manual call monitoring, it can also fail. Human intuition and our ability to read even the smallest shift in speech patterns fill the gap created by AI.
The beauty of these two contrasting aspects of customer experience is at the intersection of technology and humanity. Yes. It is possible to maximize the extraordinary potential of Speech Analytics. Yes. You can coach your customer experience team to recognize the minute details of a voice. And yes. These tools can be used in harmony to bring a successful, meaningful, and holistic experience to your client base. Let’s talk about how we can bring aspects from both the technological and humanistic worlds to create an inclusive, effective customer experience.
Targeted Coaching
The artificial intelligence of a high-quality speech analytics tool can accurately sift through thousands of conversations to identify and highlight keywords, phrases, or conversations. In the customer experience space, this means you’re able to quickly recognize, track, and elevate calls when necessary. These moments of immediate action provide insight into trends that can be targeted for coaching. Calls and agents can be evaluated in real-time, allowing you to home in on areas of improvement. Speech analytics, when integrated into a robust coaching program, can yield incredible results.
A challenge many companies face is seeing results from an investment in coaching. In fact, research by McKinsey suggests that the average 500-person contact center in North America spends around $2 million annually on coaching activities. And yet, The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the average customer service representative (CSR) stays at one job for a far shorter time almost half as long as other employees.
Why is that?
- Pressure from Customers and Supervisors
- Customers Have Their Own Set of Complaints
- Customer Loyalty Must Be Earned
How does an integrated speech analytics & coaching program help?
As we mentioned earlier, speech analytics can raise an incredibly quick flag for customer agent managers. The pressure that customer experience agents feel can often be traced back to the dual action of upset customers and high-octane management. When we can eliminate the stress of “am I doing this right?” from an agent’s thoughts, they’re free to help their customers.
With speech analytics, you’re able to laser-focus each individual agent’s coaching and training based on behavioral trends they exhibit, or recurring pain points that could use improvement. This approach to coaching allows the manager to pre-plan their course of action, eliminating the process of identifying the root of the agent’s performance problems. This isn’t a one-size-fits-all system—every agent has their own needs!
Because customers will always have their own set of complaints, it’s important that agents feel able to handle a challenge on their own, or confident enough to escalate the conversation. With the help of speech analytics, frequent questions can be targeted, and a response can be coached so they aren’t ignored or handed off. In addition, with the help of AI, agents can be coached faster, so questions don’t remain unanswered in your inbox.
In a space where 86% of customers would pay for a better customer experience, monitoring the quality of the services you provide is paramount. With an investment in a combined approach of AI and human intuition, you can connect what you garner from your customer experience department and apply it to other areas of your business. Only using AI as a measurement of performance is self-limiting—quality monitoring data provides with a deeper set of analytics to gather meaningful insights that impact the business far beyond just the customer experience departments.
This is all to say, the immense utility AI of speech analytics and the wealth of emotional intelligence your customer experience team possess when combined, improve the experience for everyone. Ease rolls downhill—when managers have the tools to easily provide targeted training, agents, in turn, are equipped with the tools to provide customers a good experience. And when your customer feels taken care of, the benefits are astounding.
Are you interested in integrating Speech Analytics with a high-performing Quality Monitoring coaching program? ARCQS can work with you and your customer experience management team to design a program catered to your needs. Read more about our coaching programs here or contact us at info@arcqs.com.