Call Recording Featured Article

The unified experience in the contact center is quite different today than it was just five years ago. Thanks to the acquisition of Aurix by Avaya (News - Alert) in 2011, speech analytics became a part of the contact center and unified communications solutions offered by Avaya. With a number of companies adding call recording to the mix, being able to search archived recordings according to spoken text streamlines processes across the board.

As an industry overall, speech analytics has been in the contact center space for the past 11 years, yet integration was still somewhat lacking in the early years. Users weren’t completely on board with all capabilities and potential benefits only went as far as the adoption of features. As the offerings continue to evolve, however, success is projected to continue to increase. In fact, research in this area by DMG Consulting suggests analytics seats grew by 26 percent from 2013 to 2014.

The majority of the calls measured in this statistic were from sales of post-call solutions. Throughout the marketplace, however, the adoption of real-time speech analytics is beginning to gain traction. Post-call speech analytics is used to quickly identify procedural, technical and staff-related issues through a strategic enterprise application.

By contrast, a real-time speech analytics solution is designed to be tactical so as to alter the outcome of phone conversations while the caller is still available on the line. The purpose here is to reduce risk and minimize back customer experiences. While post-call speech analytics has evolved to a higher level, real-time options in the market are emerging as a compelling solution to improve overall customer experience outcomes.

The customer journey is quickly evolving with the use of both text and speech analytics. Known as interaction analytics in the omnichannel environment, these tools help companies better track various touch points of the customer journey, while also providing insight along the way. Agents within these environments require a greater level of skill and discipline, honed through comprehensive training where call recording is used to demonstrate what works and what needs improvement.

More activity is expected over the next several years in multi-channel analytics solutions and Avaya is expected to be one of the companies at the head of the pack. When leveraged with proven call recording solutions, contact centers have the deep insight into current operations, customer experiences and training resources they need to drive the performance company leaders and customers expect. Soon, this will be a key differentiator in the market and only those challenging already high standards will survive.