Due to the increased interaction of end users, disclosing things like payment details and highly personal information, the contact center market is required to be highly regulated. Those regulations necessitate that contact centers record their calls to guarantee they adhere to rules and regulations. Subsequently, contact centers possess of a nest of data that has built up over years, offering volumes of data for traininmg purposes by way of all the customer insight and engagement they contain. With the ever-growing tally of incoming calls added by the minute, hour, week, and month, the amount of data keeps growing as well.
Automatic speech recognition (ASR) can transform this data through transcription of all pre-recorded calls into a text-based format that can then be used in a lot of ways. Added to that, the ability to transcribe in real time means agents are empowered with new tools. Those tools can be adapted and changed, according to the conversation. Such solutions can also provide the agent with meaning, sentiment, context, and nuances of language, adding further value to the final output of the text.
How do you ensure voice data is being used at the right time?
The contact center market has created more processes that have moved away from just having voice. The omnichannel path has refocused businesses on having mostly text-based components. This is as a result of how we, as individuals, now communicate. With the continual growth of instant messaging, email, and social media, contact centers have been quick to use these channels to engage with customers. From those text-based forms of communication, the data is easy to search, index, and store with maximum efficiency. Additionally, contact centers have abundant amounts of data they can use to gain valuable insights into their businesses and develop more tools to further assist end users.
Voice is also becoming increasingly popular as calls provide a wealth of rich data. A recent report from Red Box highlighted that artificial intelligence and machine learning suddenly make voice data newly accessible in volume, whereas before, it would only have been accessible by listening to individual recordings. This offers organizations an opportunity to leverage a full data set that can help drive measurable business results.
Real-world use cases require understanding and resolutions.
Sometimes the most simple tool can be the most impactful for call center customers. Transcripts provide data that can be searched and used to generate insight into frequent issues. It might be that these issues can be resolved by adding a new section to an FAQ page, a new response in a textbot, or even the creation of a self-service portal. The ability to empower customers not only means their issues can be resolved, but it can be done in a way that will help contact center staff, leaving them to handle customers who definitively need human interaction to sort out the most pressing issues.
At a deeper level, sentiment analysis can help at a one-to-one level for the agent to better understand the caller. If agents can gauge customers' moods, it can make the difference between a successful call outcome or losing that customer.
Are you saying the right things to the right customers in real time?
The ability to transcribe the content of a call enables key words to be identified and used to autonomously trigger actions within agent dashboards in real time. Using ASR services in real time can significantly impact the service that new agents can offer to customers.
Do you really have to ask a customer at the end of a call if they've had a good experience?
Core elements for agents can be enhanced by what ASR can offer. These include the ability to capture conversations in a text-based format for faster review. Using ASR can trigger information to be at agents' fingertips or extract insight to be integrated into analysis products so agents can dedicate more time to issues that require human attention. Agents are then best equipped to provide higher-quality service to customers and also feel that they are doing their best.>
Use the right data at the right time.
Contact centers are always looking to provide the highest levels of customer service to minimize customer turnover and accelerate issue resolution. Speech-to-text technology allows them to conform to rules and regulations easily while supporting agents with more knowledge and less frustration.
The value and benefit of transcription is that the information can be available almost instantaneously. Even when transcribing the call content after completion, the information can be used just after the conversation has finished. This enables issue resolution to be accelerated for quality assurance managers to use almost immediately. That eliminates the time and effort required to review the call in an audio format afterwards. Using text also means the content of the call history can be searched more easily, with the added value of enhancing the customer experience, even in a dispute situation.
Alex Fleming is products manager at speech-to-text technology specialists Speechmatics. He was formerly a marketing manager and sales support manager at Nokia, Alcatel-Lucent, and content delivery network provider Velocix. Previous to that, he worked in the film industry, delivering product placement for leading brands like BMW, Ducati, MINI, Sony Computer Entertainment, and Cisco.