Capture and Analyze Agent Performance with
Speech Analytics to Improve the Customer Experience
By Laura Noonan
Often agent performance is measured quantitatively by the number of calls each agent takes per hour, average call times, average processing times, and so on. However, it is important to evaluate the quality of calls – conversations with customers – in order to identify areas that may need improvement in the contact center and by each agent specifically, in terms of quality of customer-handling, gauging the experience from the customer’s perspective, their satisfaction levels, and the nature of the reason they are calling. This data cannot necessarily be obtained quantitatively, without listening to the nature and substance of each conversation.
To make the compilation and analysis of this vast amount of data contained within hundreds and thousands of phone calls more manageable, it has become essential to use the right technology that will help accomplish a huge portion of this undertaking for a company automatically, and nearly instantaneously. After all, it’s nearly impossible for any company, regardless of size, to listen to every recorded conversation from beginning to end, looking for the golden nuggets that are insights. Companies need to consider whether that data could be more efficiently aggregated and analyzed, and whether the use of cloud-based call recording and speech analytics technology can expedite turning that data into proactive actions.
Implementing a solution should revolve around key management objectives and goals the executive team wishes to achieve in the near future. The benefit of a cloud-based audio mining solution is its flexibility and scalability. Without the hindrance of equipment and servers to maintain, expanding a solution to mine increasing call volumes, based on growing needs and additional applications of the solution, it is simple and quick to make adjustments to a cloud-based solution to increase call traffic that is handled and recorded by a speech analytics provider.
Many factors influence a customer’s experience when they interact with a contact center agent, and most of them fall directly under the agent’s control. An agent’s attitude, knowledge of the product or service, their conveyed understanding of the customer’s issue, and their ability to respond to and resolve the customers’ inquiries during the first interaction are four significant elements that contribute to the overall customer experience, and are a direct result of the agent’s performance.
It is undeniable that an agent’s performance is fundamental to the customer experience. To be able to monitor and become aware of the four main factors noted above, companies must focus their energies on improving agent performance, which includes mining call recordings for quality and compliance.
Laura Noonan has 20 years of experience leading the marketing team at CallFinder, delivering telecommunications solutions and cloud-based marketing technology tools including call recording and speech analytics, sophisticated call routing platforms, call tracking metrics, and Custom 800 toll-free number service. Contact Laura at 1-802-860-0378 or email lnoonan@mycallfinder.com.