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Speech analytics technology vendor CallMiner (News - Alert) has teamed up with call recording/quality monitoring solutions provider CallCopy to deliver a combined solution to the contact center industry.

By combining CallMiner’s Eureka! analytics software with CallCopy’s (News - Alert) cc: Discover call recording software, organizations can gain deeper insights into customer behavior while at the same time improving agent performance.

Speech analytics is one of the fastest growing market segments in the call center industry. Thanks to significant (and ongoing) improvements to the algorithms used to interpret speech, coupled with increasingly faster processors, these automated systems now enable organizations to “mine” their recorded calls and learn details about their customers - and their agents - which they were previously unable to discover using manual processes. Unlike the speech analytics solutions of a few years ago, which were mainly used to perform simple “keyword spotting,” today’s solutions can actually identify the context of what is being said, thus giving organizations the ability to more accurately categorize calls and gain new insights into customer and agent behavior. In fact, these systems have advanced to the point where they can actually detect emotions - thus giving organizations a powerful new way to measure customer satisfaction.

As such, today’s speech analytics solutions have uses beyond just improving agent performance. In fact, it can be argued that they now have greater value outside of the contact center than inside. That’s mainly because today’s solutions are capable of mining all of the call data, as opposed to just a small percentage of it, which in turn enables organizations can get a more accurate view of the “big picture” and then take appropriate action. As a result, speech analytics are increasingly being used by executives in sales, marketing and operations to increase revenue, reduce costs, increase customer retention and improve the overall performance of the call center. Interestingly, as companies come to adopt these solutions, the role of the call center is being redefined into that of a “business intelligence center,” or “central hub of intelligence” for the organization.

CallMiner Eureka! is unique in its ability to perform super-fast, whole vocabulary searches of recorded conversations. Not only is it capable of determining the context of what is being said, through speech patterns, it can even measure silence, changes in tempo, changes in pitch and changes in volume to determine, for example, when an interaction is going “sour” – or better yet when a customer is about to defect. Similarly, it can be used to detect undesirable agent behaviors: Sarcasm, resentment, perhaps even indifference – the hallmarks of an agent who is no longer happy in their job or who simply refuses to provide good service. All of this falls under the category of “emotion detection.”

Although most organizations tend to mine their call data after the calls have been completed, CallMiner Eureka! uses proprietary technology enabling super fast search of audio, thus it can be used to carry out near-real-time monitoring of agent/customer interactions. Therefore it can be used to send “alerts” to supervisors in the call center, who then might have enough time to “intervene” on a call that might be in trouble, before the caller hangs up. Although still in its infancy, this type of technology is starting to become desirable for companies operating customer-facing contact centers, because, let’s face it, in today’s business world every customer counts more than ever. Rumors abound that one day soon true real-time speech analytics will become a reality, and will be the new standard for monitoring interactions in the call center.

CallCopy’s cc: Discover software combines call recording and quality management with customer surveys and speech analytics. The platform offers an API which facilitates integration with third-party workforce management, IVR, HR and CRM software. By enhancing the exchange of data between the different systems used across the enterprise, CallCopy helps bring the 360-degree view of a call center’s performance.

“CallCopy is one of the fastest growing companies in the call recording/quality monitoring market. Its scalable applications are compatible across a wide range of technologies to enhance the exchange of data between contact center systems,” said Jeff Gallino, CallMiner chairman and co-founder, in a press release. “Together, we are providing companies with the most complete set of tools for easily acquiring and analyzing customer communications with their contact centers. The knowledge generated will help companies improve their business processes to positively impact customer experiences and the bottom line.”

“CallMiner provides the only solution to analyze every aspect of every contact center conversation, including every word, speech patterns, acoustic data and meta-data, to deliver a total view of customer/agent interactions,” said Ray Bohac, president and CEO of CallCopy. “Companies that use CallMiner and CallCopy’s applications can improve operational efficiencies and increase profit through the measurement and management of key business metrics including marketing effectiveness, agent quality, customer satisfaction and sales performance.”

For more information, visit www.callminer.com and www.callcopy.com.

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Patrick Barnard is Associate Editor for Customer Interaction Solutions magazine and Assignment Editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page.