The problem with current speech analysis is that the organisation has to turn the analysis output into meaningful and targeted training in order to have an impact and improvement on front line service provided by the agents. But it doesn’t stop there…in order to find out if the training has been effective you still have to monitor and measure every agent to discover whether the training, and therefore analysis, has had any kind of positive impact on improving customer service and increasing first call resolution. Often the amount of analysis data that is produced can be massive, requiring time and effort to be translated and more often than not this can end up falling into the preverbial black hole!

Not any more. GemaTech have chosen a different path. Whilst other speech analytics vendors have decided to diversify into analysis data held in CRM solutions, social media and email, GemaTech have decided to tackle the voice issue head on. By providing a solution which doesn’t analyse voice recordings, but analyses conversations as  they happen, the focus is placed on helping the agent during the call and effectively cutting out the back end processing requirement. Therefore analysis, training and measurement takes place simultaneously and automatically – requiring no manual intervention from analysts, team leaders or training staff. As a bonus all calls are analysed, all of the time, not just a sample of calls.

For more information call Karen at GemaTech on 0845 345 8718 or email me at k.jones@gematech.com.

For contact centres selling finance, insurance, mobile phone contracts, utility contracts or even tasked with debt collection (to name but a few), there are certain key statements which have to be said when talking to customers over the phone. Neglecting to ask key questions such as “this is a five year contract, are you happy to go ahead?” can make a contract null and void or leave the organisation open to non-compliance penalties by industry bodies such as the Financial Services Association (FSA) and more recently in the media Ofgem who have imposed multi-million pound fines on an increasing number of the “Big 6” energy suppliers.

By way of example, one particular mobile phone retailer was fined £245,000 in 2006 for not treating its customers fairly following telephone sales of general insurance. Rather than telling the customer over the phone information such as features and benefits of the mobile insurance policy they were buying, how long it lasts and the duration of the ‘cooling off’ period, they planned to send out a written document following the call instead. However 118,000 customers never received the document, and therefore the fine was issued. What’s more because the FSA was not informed of the system’s failing in a timely manner the fine was particularly harsh.

This organisation experienced a dilemma shared by many call centres. They had a choice to either train their telesales agents to remember to give and obtain essential information during the call, or choose to send written documentation after the call. The latter of which clearly failed.

Human error or system error: both can be avoided, but historically it has proved harder to prevent human error. How many senior managers have had one of those moments when a poorly handled call, or series of calls has led to particularly bad PR or direct loss of revenue?

The first generation of speech analytics solutions in use today aim to pinpoint calls and agents that are non-compliant by analysing hours of voice recordings, but unfortunately not before the damage has already been done. Call backs to the customer are then required to rectify the situation which can reduce first call resolution and increase customer dissatisfaction and call handling time.

While many of the first generation speech analytics vendors have moved sideways into providing multi-channel analytics (to include data analysis of emails, SMS texts, Tweets etc.), there is one vendor that has focused on perfecting the ability and benefits of live, on-call, speech analytics. GemaTech’s new Call Analyzer monitors and analyses calls as they happen on agent by agent basis, enabling an interactive desktop prompt to commend or correct every agent as their call progresses. Not only are calls now recorded for compliance purposes, but every call is monitored and analysed automatically so that cases of non-compliance are instantly highlighted to both agent and supervisor providing the ability to address the issue before the call is finished.

GemaTech have harnessed this speech analytics ‘gold’ and have developed a solution that solves the 5 key problems…

Problem 1:   My Voice Recording supplier won’t give me access to my voice recording files making speech analytics too difficult

Solution: GemaTech’s Call Analyzer is a completely stand alone solution which doesn’t require any integration with any existing call recording equipment. Simples.

Problem 2:  I need to employ expensive specialist speech analysts to configure the analytics system

Solution: Most speech analytics solutions require some amount of ‘training’ to be fully configured and therefore require the services of a professional speech analyst, but GemaTech’s Call Analyzer has done the hard work already. Just type in the key words and phrases you want the system to search for and a handy tool will create the breakdown of individual phonemes, as well as telling you if the phrase is maximised for search accuracy. So anyone can configure the system with half a day’s training.

Problem 3:  It’s taking months to get the speech analytics system working!

Solution: Firstly Call Analyzer is a ‘plug and play’ solution with no integration to voice recording equipment required. Secondly anyone can be trained on configuring the solution in around half a day. Thirdly no on-going professional services are required, meaning that benefits can be realised within the first few days of installation.

Problem 4:  The speech analytics system is generating so much data that it can’t easily be turned into actionable benefits

Solution: For those companies who have successfully installed a speech analytics solution, I have been told that often so much data is produced by the system that turning the data into real tangible benefits which can improve agent performace on the phone, is slow, if done at all! Call Analyzer however cuts out this process. By anlaysing calls as they happen and prompting agents as a result of what is being said to the customer at-that-precise-moment, there is no need for back-end processing. The benefits and training go directly to the individual agent as each call is happening.

Problem 5: The costs of this speech analytics solution just keep going up and up!

Solution: Upgrades, professional services, system training….suddenly the price you originally agreed on for your speech analytics solution is going up and up and you are powerless to say no. Not so with Call Analyzer….there are no hidden costs. What you see is what you get and upgrades are included in the price.

So, take another look at speech analytics and tell me if any of these problems ring true with you. Are there any others I’ve missed? What are your experiences? Do you think such a system is too good to be true? Call me…challenge me…

However a new wave of live speech analytics has arrived in the last couple of years. Nexidia, a company solely focused on data mining large amounts of voice recordings has emerged as a leader in the field of trend analysis. Established voice recording vendors such as Nice and Verint have also developed their own data mining analytics primarily as value added services for their customers. But if customers hadn’t caught up with the first tranche of speech analytics technology they are out of luck as the next wave of analytics has been expanded to now include ‘live’ and data analytics, delivering what is now known as ‘contact centre analytics’ (to include data mining of social media outputs, email and text messages) just to muddy the waters, making it difficult to discern what ‘real-time’ and ‘live’ speech analytics actually means.

For some vendors, real-time means that the results of data mining large amounts of voice recordings occurs so fast as to be seen as ‘real-time’. Others can process data very quickly once a call has been recorded. But as far as I can tell, no other company can do on-the-call speech analysis as GemaTech can. This being the primary reason why GemaTech have developed Call Analyzer – offering to market a completely stand-alone real-time speech analytics solution which doesn’t require integration with an existing voice recording vendors equipment. It doesn’t do data, it only does voice. But after all, isn’t that the point? You cannot fully control your call centre agents and what they say on every call, but if you could influence, correct and guide them automatically on every call for the very best chance of the very best outcome – isn’t that the holy grail of speech analytics? Isn’t that what it primarily set out to achieve? And therefore isn’t that the benefit of live speech analytics?

For further information on live speech analytics I would strongly recommend reading the FREE Contact Babel, Inner Circle Guide to Speech Analytics and if you are serious about speech analytics, watch this space for the up coming report from DMG Consulting.

Unfortunately the news is often filled with stories of lone gunmen on school or college campuses threatening to shoot students or as in the recent case in Norway, actually undertaking a hofrrific attack.

But for every exceptional case there are plenty of situations which go under the radar of the headlines, so these types of occurances are more common than you might expect. Having plans in place as well as effective communication tools is essential. Rapid notification solutions are perhaps the best known way of reaching lots of people fast. Using a software application to send out emails, text messages and to post messages on web status pages is a fast way of getting information to the people you need to protect e.g. students and staff. For an example of how this is used in action can I refer you to a website by the University of Texas following an incident last year. It shows how they used email, texts, website status pages and even social media to keep communicating with students.

Under stress it must be said that solutions which are easily accessible, yet secure, and more importantly easy to use are perhaps the most effective when it comes to being able to communicate fast and effectively. Finally, knowing that the messages have a guaranteed delivery mechanism is also of importance, after all you need to know that those text messages are going to get through and take network priority.

Well from a voice communications point of view the voice recording of phone calls has been around for a number of years, but the key to using such a tool successfully is being able to search for parts of conversations which are non-compliant, and when you consider how many calls are handled during one day of trading, fast search and retrieval is paramount.

Coming into effect in November, certain mobile phone calls must also be recorded to be compliant with new FSA regulations which should help plug the hole of rogue traders using work mobile phones rather than landlines.

Perhaps more exciting though is the rise of advanced live speech analytics solutions which can pinpoint key phrases and words said during a phone conversation and flag the compliance officer to take immediate action to manage the risk. Unlike bulk analysis on voice recordings which can take hours and is usually only undertaken on a sample of calls, live speech analysis can monitor every word of every call as it is happening.

Technology is great and is advancing at a great rate but at the end of the day it is still down to human inquisitiveness and perception to identify rogue traders. It’s just that he tools are getting better and are making this job even easier, so hopefully we will see fewer headlines about banks losing £1.3 billion to rogue trading.

This revolution in technology is the amalgamation of the latest speech-to-text, phonetics and key phrase recognition innovations. Unlike first generation solutions, next generation speech analytics solutions do not require on-going expensive professional services and ‘training’ because it has now become intrinsic to the software.

What this means is that an agent can be handling a live call, and a discreet desktop client can indicate when the agent has spoken key phrases (or even bad phrases) during the course of the conversation. The system therefore monitors agent performance, adherence to compliance phrases and send statistics back to the call centre manager or team leader on how the agent is performing on a call by call basis.

So the live speech analytics market is gathering momentum and the choice is expanding depending upon an organisation’s objectives, be they understanding customers or monitoring agents, there is a solution for everyone.

Now is the best time to  re-enforce the necessity of having your business telecoms continuity plans in order. So here are my top 3 tips for being prepared:

1. Ensure you have an easy-to-use emergency mass notification solution to communicate with employees when under pressure

One of the first rules in managing a disaster situation has to be communicate, communicate, communicate. Your employees need to be confident that they are doing the right thing during an emergency and that you as a business have their safety interests at heart. In a matter of minutes you can direct your employees to stay put or evacuate, tell them the severity of a situation or whether they simply need to find another place to work. The key features you need to look out for include:

Ease of use - it’s your responsibility to send out an alert to your company. Chaos and confusion is happening around you and yet you have a job to do. The simpler the system, the better for you. Just a few clicks and you can reach all the right people with the right message via the most appropriate media: SMS text, email, voicemail, web status page, even Facebook or Twitter.

Accessibility - if your mass notification system can only be accessed on a company’s internal network or static computer, you could be screwed! Secure web access is the only reliable way to know that you can access your contacts and system from anywhere with an internet connection.

Flexibility – you are investing a substantial amount of money into purchasing a mass notification solution, and situations like 9/11 do not happen every day, therefore invest in a flexible solution which can be used for loyalty marketing purposes or distributing company information when not needed for crisis communication.

Visibility of costs – ok so you have invested in a solution, now each time you send an alert you incur costs – but do you know how much? Choose a solution which enables you to know exactly what you are spending and where.

2. Ensure that all your incoming phone calls can still be answered

Think of this scenario: If your offices were a few blocks away from the World Trade Center in the days following the disaster, your employees were all safe but your building was unusable due to extensive dust, how do you ensure your business continues ticking over and doesn’t become an indirect casualty of the situation? The answer is enabling your employees wherever possible to continue working to some degree and that means having incoming phone calls re-directed to other landline or cell phones in safe locations such as home or remote office.

Many blue chip organisations may choose to send their employees to a workplace recovery site which is specifically designed for such situations with desks, pc’s and phones waiting to be used. But how many calls are directed at individual direct in dial numbers? Hundreds? Thousands? Some recovery sites will simply transfer all calls to one number that can be then distributed to the appropriate person. The time delay this incurs can be costly as callers wait for the right person to be tracked down. Wouldn’t it be better if callers rang the regular DID number of the person they need to speak with and then get through to them instantly as if they were still in their main office? Check out your telecoms continuity plan and see how seamless it really is in such a situation…

3. Voice record re-routed phone calls

The benefit of continuing to voice record phone calls  during and after an office evacuation or major disruption, is that you can assess the behaviour and actions of employees during the crisis. It can help in providing evidence of who said what to whom and it can help in planning for future unexpected events, enabling you to brief or train individuals and departments as needed. Of course under less critical circumstances voice recording phone calls is the best way of ‘covering your corporate back’ and what’s more consumers are accepting the fact that most calls are recorded all the time now.

Business Flexibility is the key to surviving a major crisis like 9/11. Enabling employees to carry on working during and after the disruption should help ensure that your business doesn’t become a permanent casualty of the situation.

The East Coast of the US has been extremely lucky. The earthquake which hit Washington on the 23^rd August reached 5.8 on the Richter scale and was felt from North Carolina to New England. Luckily the impact caused minimal damage, but a more powerful quake could have broken both telecoms and power cables and dislodged essential telecoms circuits, according to telecoms business continuity experts at GemaTech. If Hurricane Irene had hit the East Coast with more power, severe flooding would have compounded the problem, making it impossible to reconnect circuits quickly. Thirdly factor-in a Verizon workforce strike (which did in fact occur on the 7^th August and lasted for some two weeks) and there would have been no-one available to get any broken telecoms circuits back up and running anyway. The perfect storm of these three events coinciding could have been a major disaster for any organisation which has inadequate, or indeed no, telecoms resilience plan. And there are no guarantees such a scenario could not still happen at some point in the future. Eventually luck will run out…

Just think what the impact would be on a business if their telecoms circuits failed, if employees were denied access to their offices or if the transport system was out of action. How long would it take the city and telecoms carriers to repair and restore normal service? If buildings were severely damaged or waterlogged it would take major resources to rebuild infrastructure, and if lots of customers are in the same situation a carrier is going to be inundated with work – all at top priority.

Specialist telecoms technology company GemaTech (carrier compatible providers of telecoms business continuity services) understands that telecommunications is the engine of any organisation. It connects a business with its customers and suppliers, and enables all communication via voice and data. When that infrastructure is disrupted, the ability to continue operating as a business is compromised and money is lost fast. After all how many US businesses can continue operating effectively when they have no ability to communicate with their customers?

But protecting your business telecoms doesn’t have to be expensive. For just the price of a cup of coffee a day, an individual number can be re-routed safely and securely from one office location to another, a cell phone or a home phone, enabling an employee to continue receiving those mission critical inbound calls by working from somewhere else. GemaTech have been delivering proven business telecoms resilience, which can be activated within a few minutes following a disruption, to blue chip organisations in the US and UK for many years, and is relied upon in times of telecoms failure by organisations in various industry sectors where telecoms is mission critical including hospitals and investment banks.

One day luck will run out, and those businesses left unprepared risk losing everything. But, for those who have prepared for the worst (for the sacrifice of a few cups of coffee!) the COO can sleep safe in the knowledge that it can be business as usual even if earthquake, hurricane and telecoms strikes create the ‘perfect storm’.

For further information on GemaTech’s product portfolio contact Karen Jones, Marketing Manager

The latest live speech analytics technology can capture information as it is being spoken. Unlike ‘bulk’ analytics, GemaTech’s Live Call Analyzer is an always on, always working solution, delivering analysis on every conversation being held in real-time on every call handled by your call centre agents. What this means is that you can capture live market research and act upon it fast, before your competitors. You can even use this information to change call agent’s scripts on the fly. For example if your competitor has published an offer or advertising campaign and customers are referring to it frequently on the phone to your call centre agents, you can tailor a response in lightning speed informing customers why your product or offer is still better than your competitor’s.

During the course of every phone call, a desktop pop-up screen delivers prompts to the call agent letting them know that they have omitted certain phrases in their conversation with the customer. These phrases can be anything from stating contractual terms e.g. ‘this is a 5 year contract, are you happy to go ahead?’ in conjunction with an answer e.g. ‘yes’, to prompting them to give a positive response when the customer says the name of a competitor.

Social media has opened the flood gates for your customers to be brutally truthful about your company and products. But brutal honesty has always been prevalent in the conversations held between customers and call agents, it has just never been effectively harnessed. Now you can have real-time access to live market research in both data and voice formats and then it’s up to you how you can use it to your company’s advantage.