Speech analytics is among the most promising technologies for contact centres, with applications across customer journey analysis, employee engagement, agent training, and compliance. Last year, Gartner mentioned speech analytics as an effective way to cut costs in a contact centre, without compromising on staffing or service capabilities. There’s no denying that speech analytics hold incredible value for enterprises, even if adoption is slightly low today.
The Rise and Rise of Speech Technologies
In previous articles, we have reported on the rise of speech analytics and how it could shape the future of customer experiences. The fact that 92% of businesses still rely on voice (despite the rise of chat, email, social media, etc. means you have sufficient data to run speech analytics and discover meaningful outcomes. By 2023, speech recognition – a prerequisite for running analytics – is expected to be worth $18 million globally.
One of the key trends leading to growing applications of speech technologies in the call centre is the sharp increase in cyber-attacks. The number of attacks targeting call centres is growing by a worrying 113% per year. This makes it critical to employ technologies like speech analytics to detect risk and mitigate the damage before it can happen.
The State of Speech Analytics Today
In 2020, contact centre platform provider LiveVox conducted a detailed survey on the state of speech analytics and its perceived value. 75% of respondents said that extracting CX insights using analytics tools was “very important,” but just 11% was using speech analytics tools at that time. Importantly, nearly 4 in 10 companies are yet to invest because they are unsure about the ROI.
However, there is plenty of interest in speech analytics adoption over the next few quarters, with 15% mentioning it is a “top” or “key” priority. Nearly a quarter said that it is a priority but not on the immediate agenda, while another quarter said that it’s not something they are planning to implement very soon.
These numbers suggest a couple of key trends around the potential value of speech analytics:
- Adoption is low, but the trend could turn if ROI was clearer
- The market is segmented into early adopters and laggards, which could shape success
Applying Speech Analytics for Value Generation
There are three discrete areas where speech analytics could prove invaluable for contact centres:
- Customer journey and CX analysis – Find out customer intent, reasons for escalation, ideal survey design, trends for automated self-service, and channel insights
- Employee engagement and coaching – Address lack of soft skills, monitor quality in real-time, validate NPS, train agents using call recordings, and improve FCR
- Regulatory compliance – Prevent undue collection of personal data, comply with PCI DSS data standards, flag obscenity/profanity, and ensure consent is obtained
These use cases aren’t lost on enterprises today, most of whom are well aware of the value speech analytics can provide in quality management (38%), risk/compliance alerts (29%), performance insights and coaching (48%), operational insights (44%), and most importantly customer experience (70%).
