Picture this: you’re sitting at your desktop computer updating your MySpace page, waiting for LimeWire to finish downloading the latest Britney Spears album so that you can upload it to your iPod. You’re in the early 2000s.
And while it’s nice to look back on this time with nostalgia-glazed eyes, if we’re being honest, not many of us would trade in today’s mod-cons for the more rudimentary lifestyle of 25 years ago… despite how much ‘Oops I Did it Again’ slaps.
Unfortunately, for many contact centers, the audit and coaching process still looks surprisingly similar to the floor layouts of the early 2000s.
Supervisors roam between rows armed with wired splitters, Y-cords, and spare headsets – tools that may be familiar, but increasingly feel out of step with modern operational demands.
The friction is felt everywhere: in slow QA workflows, limited coaching visibility, and the constant scramble for the ‘right’ setup whenever a compliance team or client arrives onsite.
As customer expectations rise and regulatory scrutiny increases, this traditional approach is becoming harder to justify.
Whether in healthcare, financial services, or large-scale customer service operations, leaders are now asking a simple question: why does auditing still require so much effort?
The Problem with Legacy Monitoring Setups
Even today, many contact centers rely on analog tools for side-by-side monitoring and coaching.
These setups are often cumbersome, difficult to maintain, and – ironically – are becoming harder to source.
Thor Mitskog, CEO of Cyber Acoustics, highlighted this growing industry challenge in a recent discussion with CX Today:
“There’s this conception that the technology relating to headsets hasn’t changed. Lots of organizations continue to go back to the same hardware options they’ve been using for many, many years, which are cumbersome and complicated.”
Worse, those old platforms don’t integrate well with the modern cloud apps that now dominate enterprise CX stacks, as Thor explains:
“You’ve got some advanced cloud applications that have expectations that the agent is using up-to-date hardware instead of something developed 30 years ago.”
The result is a perfect storm: fragmented technology, inconsistent monitoring practices, and training tools that only come out of the closet when auditors show up.
Real-time Agent Assist: A More Modern Approach
Instead of relying on analog accessories, Cyber Acoustics’ Agent Assist solution shifts monitoring into a wireless, real-time workflow.
Supervisors connect directly to an agent’s headset – without splitters, cables, or device swapping – while maintaining the immediacy and natural flow of true side-by-side coaching.
Thor details how there are “software tools today that can allow a supervisor to listen in, but they’re still not the same as the coach sitting right next to the agent. That collaboration is so much more effective.”
Agent Assist brings that proximity back… but without the wires. Supervisors can move freely around the floor, support escalations instantly, and coach any agent at any station.
A Better Audit Experience for Regulated Industries
Industries with stringent compliance requirements often have rigid auditing expectations. Yet the traditional setup of pulling out old Y-cord systems once or twice a year is far from ideal.
According to Thor, Agent Assist transforms audits into routine, low-effort activities:
“When a client comes in and wants to do an audit, they don’t have to wait for a particular agent to get a call that only has the QD setup. They can go to any agent and listen.”
Importantly, the solution avoids cloud dependencies, which is key for healthcare, finance, or payment environments where sensitive data must remain local.
“We process everything locally on the headset,” Thor notes. “Nothing ever has to go to the cloud.”
This eliminates concerns around data exposure, bandwidth variability, and the vulnerabilities associated with streaming voice to third-party services.
Operational Efficiency and Measurable Cost Reductions
Beyond compliance and coaching advantages, leaders are also responding to the operational and financial impact. Consolidating multiple pieces of equipment into a single everyday headset reduces complexity and spend.
Thor shared an example from a recent conversation with a customer’s IT leadership team where they were able to simplify their purchase “because now I don’t have to buy one, two, three, four pieces for a setting. I just have to buy one piece that does the same thing.”
Many organizations also discover they can drop some of the cloud-based noise-cancellation subscriptions they previously maintained – further reducing “cost takeout” targets that BPOs face year after year.
And because every agent is already equipped with the same headset used for training and coaching, supervisors avoid the constant setup and teardown associated with legacy gear.
This mobility improves floor coverage and reduces time lost to configuration issues.
Adoption Across Global Enterprise Environments
From major healthcare insurers to shipping providers and technology manufacturers, a wide range of enterprise organizations are adopting Agent Assist.
Thor says:
“Everyone we’ve shown it to has started implementing it, and they’re expanding it. They’re pushing out the QD stuff.”
These deployments reflect a broader trend: large organizations are actively simplifying their tech stacks. Hardware-based, local solutions that “just work” complement cloud ecosystems without adding complexity.
Raising the Bar for Modern Contact Center Operations
Auditing and coaching will always be fundamental to running a high-performing contact center. But the way organizations execute these processes is changing rapidly.
Wireless, real-time monitoring provides the immediacy of traditional side-by-side coaching, while eliminating the complexity that has held teams back.
As CX leaders look for ways to tighten compliance, improve training cycles, and streamline operations, solutions like Agent Assist are quickly becoming part of the modern toolkit.
You can learn more about the advantages of hardware-based noise-cancellation technology by checking out this exclusive interview with Thor Mitskog.
You can also check out Cyber Acoustics’ full suite of services and solutions by visiting the website today.
