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How Analytics, Big Data and AI Are Changing Call Centers Forever
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September 6, 2016 News

If you’ve ever had to call a customer help line or other call center, you probably experience a shiver of dread at the mere thought.  Some customer help lines are so reviled that people would rather deal with the issues than try to get support.

But all that may be changing as companies use advances in data collection, data analysis, and artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the call center experience for customers and provide valuable insights for companies.

A wealth of data

You’ve probably heard the recorded message that “your call may be recorded for training and quality purposes,” but companies are starting to realize that those recordings are valuable for a great deal more.

With the advent of natural language processing (NLP) technologies and the ability to understand more unstructured data, like phone call recordings, companies are sitting on a wealth of information every time they record a call.

And because the field is expanding so rapidly, there are many different ways companies can put this data to use.

Speech analysis and NLP

Natural language processing is what allows an automated system to properly direct your call when you speak into the phone. It used to be that you had to use the exact word or phrase, saying “accounts” or “operator” in order to be routed properly. But with the growing sophistication of NLP algorithms systems can now interpret long strings of words, like “I have a weird charge on my bill I want to talk to someone about,” and route that caller to the correct department.

Speech analysis goes beyond what you say to understand how you say it.  For customers, speech analysis can analyze the caller’s tone, vocabulary, sentiment, and even silences to gauge emotion and satisfaction. It can detect a caller’s age, which could determine the success of an age-related campaign or direct the caller to a particular agent; studies show that older and younger people have different preferences when it comes to the type of agent they want to deal with.

On the agent’s side, speech analysis can listen for certain keywords or phrases and prompt the agent accordingly. It can also be used to identify gaps in an agent’s knowledge, types of calls they are least comfortable handling, and other factors that can influence training and call routing.

Predictive analytics

Speech analysis, combined with predictive analytics, can also detect when a caller is on the verge of getting frustrated or angry — or even predict when a caller is lying or trying to commit fraud.

The predictive models can provide insights on the best ways to handle different types of calls, in order to boost an agent’s effectiveness and improve the customer’s experience on the call.

But it also goes outside the call center.  When call center data is combined with social media data, companies can watch for complaints about specific problems, and predict a higher volume of calls for that reason. For example, if Twitter suddenly lights up with complaints that phone service is out in a certain region, the phone company call centers could be alerted to expect a higher incoming call volume, and could even change recorded messages to include information about the outage.

Other emerging ideas

This is really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what may soon be possible.  One company, Mattersight, is developing a system that will analyze a caller’s personality and then match them with an agent who best suits their preferred communications style.  People in the northeast, for example, tend to prefer a more formal style compared to people in the midwest; and older callers have a strong preference for U.S. based agents, while it is less important to young callers.

This article was originally published on www.forbes.com can be viewed in full

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