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How speech and text analytics improve performance, processes and costs

Posted February 15, 2018
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Speech and text analytics can be used to capture and analyze customer tweets, chat conversations, text messages and phone calls to build a more satisfying customer experience. But improving CSAT scores are not the only benefit.

The technology’s ability to learn from every word or nuance in an interaction also helps companies identify key data points in the customer journey to convert them into actionable measures for increased operational efficiency. “We can take these little tidbits of insights that happen interaction-by-interaction and harness them to help paint a bigger picture of the environment we’re operating in,” says Brad Cleveland, senior advisor at the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI). “Working across a company’s boundaries to create a better experience and a better set of products and services across the board provides true strategic value for brands.”

Here’s a look at how speech and text analytics can drive increased revenue, improved conversion rates and lower costs in the contact center and beyond.

Cutting costs

Speech and text analytics capture, evaluate and learn from voice-based and written customer discussions to optimize the relationship between brand and consumer. Taking it one-step further, today’s analytics software also has the ability to examine the screens used and the keystrokes taken by support agents to similarly access vital customer information.

The resulting data can improve learning and training programs by creating an ongoing feedback loop.“Speech and text analytics tighten up your training processes, so you stay focused on what’s important and don’t have to provide each new agent with an overabundance of training,” says Steve Weston, a senior consultant at customer support advisory firm, EPIC Connections.

Optimizing learning and training programs isn’t the only area where speech and text analytics can make a difference. Thanks to the technology’s ability to identify patterns across multiple communication channels, it can flag recurring problems early on — affording your team the time, insight and opportunity needed to come up with an inspired solution.

This could mean adding a new item to your site’s FAQ section or resolving a product or service defect proactively. Whatever the solution might be, reducing contact center volume will almost always reduce overall costs. “If every call is costing me six dollars, and you can chase 10 percent of those away, that could be a substantial savings over the long term,” says Cameron Smith, a strategic solutions director at Genesys.

Boosting conversion rates

Speech and text analytics absorb every typed and spoken word, every second that has passed, and every nuance of tone and inflection to identify customers’ moments of truth’ — those critical instances of contact with a customer where an opinion is formed or changed about your company. The technology is a natural fit for improving a brand’s sale or up-sell conversion rates. “There’s probably no better tools than speech and text analytics in terms of determining why a sale didn’t close, or why you couldn’t cross-sell,” says Weston of EPIC Connections.

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Speech and text analytics take the guesswork out of up-selling by indicating precisely where a conversion stumbled or soared— whether it can be attributed to a specific line in a script, an improvised word or the agent’s timing in trying to push a sale. These aggregated results – both good and bad – can then be used to tweak and improve agent scripts to achieve greater conversion success.

For example, speech and text analytics can determine if words like ‘policy,’ or phrases like ‘financial opportunity,’ correlate with higher sales volume. If not, scripts can be modified to use more conversational word choices for ongoing improvement. Pinpointing exactly what makes customers commit to your company’s offer will help optimize your sales efforts.

Generating revenue

Using technology to make operations leaner and more profitable is an ongoing trend in business. By the same token, cutting costs and increasing conversions are the most popular reasons why companies adopt speech and text analytics. However, the technology is not just about making customer service strategies more efficient and effective. Speech and text analytics can also help fine-tune your outreach, advertising — and even the product itself.

Analytics tools can track the success of marketing campaigns and social-media mentions around your brand, to learn what customers love (or could do without). These outputs can then be used by marketing departments to create ads tailored to particular segments of the company’s target audience resulting in increased lead generation, and ideally sales.

In addition, speech and text analytics can help identify problems with your product or service that can be passed along to the development team to rectify. For example, if gamers are consistently posting in online forums about a particular bug, or small business owners are calling in about the same printer problem, analytics will help solve the problem before it becomes more widespread by quickly identify the commonality. The resulting improvement in customer satisfaction is an invaluable form of word-of-mouth marketing, increasing your company’s bottom-line.

In today’s highly competitive digital era, the data and insights derived from speech and text analytics are critical to gaining a competitive edge in the marketplace. Brands that effectively harness the technology to enhance customer satisfaction, better train support agents, and effectively manage processes and costs will prosper now, and well into the future.


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