BPO’s & Enterprise client’s thirst for meaningful data to promote success in their business & brand. When BPO’s & Enterprise clients effectively use Conversational Analytics, a symbiotic relationship can occur, which will uncover working combinations to the ever-changing locks of CX & EX ecosystems. But choose & plan wisely as it can make or break you.
In CMP Research Team’s recent 2023-2024 Customer Contact Executive Benchmarking Report*, “Creating a frictionless customer experience and retaining talent” are the top, most urgent priorities for customer contact leaders.
To attain frictionless customer experiences & retain talent it’s critical to consistently gather customer data throughout the customer and agent journey. Businesses cannot afford to rely on statistical samplings, bad transcriptions, generic queries, and water-cooler hunches. It will break you. Meaningful data will make you. You must always be solving combinations to locks such as:
- Labor, Hiring, & Recruiting Locks: labor markets, costs, hiring profiles, minimum skill requirements, successful/unsuccessful profiles, etc…
- Training & Quality management Locks: training curriculum, knowledge base intel, compliance, best practices, recurrence training, quality trends, etc…
- Performance Management Locks: KPI’s, Product/Service quality impacts, self-service, NPS/CSAT/loyalty insights, agent & supervisor coaching, customer journey, etc…
- Product and/or Service mix Locks: shifts in market, product/service quality, competitors, voice of customer, supply chain, geo/political, etc…
- Financial Performance Locks: Operational Costs, Revenue/Sales, Retention, Shrink, Loyalty, Pricing, Penetration/marketshare, Risk Management, Fraud, Trust & Safety, etc…
Enter in the era of true conversational analytics, a combination solver & lock opener that is always on. When using the word true, we mean accessing 100% of omni-channel / multi-layer /multi-lingual interactions & data; then translating to a single textual & emotional data information stream. Using conversational analytics technology involves an alchemy of acronyms such as ASR, ML, NLU, AI, etc… When applied properly, the technology can provide instant insights, business intelligence, and guidance. It will forge combinations to unlock the insights hidden within your unstructured data.
As a brand starts OR continues their Conversational Analytics journey, choose wisely.
When assessing key elements to any Conversational Analytics platform, many parts must be present for a true conversational analytics tool. Core foundational parts in a fine-tuned engine include:
- Reliable core tech stacks: With middleware, anyone can create an analytics platform. Grab some SR, ML, AI…stitch it together, add a UI & voila! The approach is more common than you think. But beware of these points of failure approach. Take time to look under the hood at core tech stacks. Do a SWOT analysis. Assess risks & long-term viability of the underlying tech.
- SESTEK is a purist. In-house R&D, 16 patents, 100% ownership of ML, AI, SR, NLU, Biometrics, etc… And SESTEK is profitable, not depending upon PE funds to survive.
- Avoid GIGO: Garbage In equals Garbage Out. Inaccurate transcriptions equal inaccurate insights. Don’t settle for low transcription accuracy. Below 90% is unacceptable. Work-around coding and inaccurate words in phrases will break underlying AI & ML, producing inaccurate outputs. Ensure the CA tool used has control of Speech Recognition’s transcription quality & grammar/glossaries.
- SESTEK’s in-house Speech Recognition has achieved a best in class 3.4% Word Error Rate (low % is best), with expandable vocabulary & glossaries for your business/industry/geo.
- CCaaS/BPaaS/Comm Platform Agnostic: With countless CCaaS, BPaaS, CRM, WFM, HRMS platforms & tools utilized by both BPO & Enterprise, the key in today’s ecosystem is integration & hybridization. One must again look under the hood at architecture, API structure, & perform a SWOT analysis. How much customization & cost is required to accommodate your topology?
- SESTEK’s CA is platform agnostic, with over a dozen pre-built integrations, well documented API’s, & the ability to ingest hybrid (on-premise & cloud) topologies.
- Custom Categorization/Queries: CA tools have various capabilities to categorize & query data. Generic/canned categories & queries lay a foundation. Customizable categories & queries let you dig deep and uncover true root cause. When customizing categories, consider if you are empowered to build, or must you pay someone to build it for you? Can it be built in real time?
- SESTEK’s Analytics simple no-code builder allows your trained users to drag & drop, build real-time. Indexing allows fast processing & eliminates costly data re-digestion.
- Custom Automated Quality Management: True AQM allows 100% cross-channel (video, voice, & textual) evaluation, whether stereo or mono. If not, then you’re still sampling. Form builders should empower a ‘re-think & re-build’ mind-set, leveraging categories & queries built. A manual & automated (hybrid) capability lets you dig deep & stay calibrated. Dispute features must exist; else you will alienate agents. Triggers & alerts should be easy to build & deploy.
- SESTEK’s AQM provides no-code drag & drop builds of automated & manual forms on textual & emotion/tone fields. Categories & queries can be added. A built-in dispute process & simple trigger/alert tools allow for proactive quality/compliance management.
- Training Simulation: CA platforms with reliable transcriptions & insights contain a treasure trove of learning & development material. Why create fake customer scenarios for training, when you can use the real thing? CA should empower users to leverage real interactions to improve learning & development libraries of training curriculum for initial & on-going skill building.
- Knovvu Analytics’ built-in training simulator allows interactions (Pii redacted) to be flagged, libraried & assigned as hands-on experiential learning by the click of a button.
- Real Time Guidance: Approach cautiously & leverage CA gathered insights to test real time/agent assist use cases. Ideally, the UI allows users to build flows, test, pilot, and measure, before rolling out. Gather critical agent feedback. Measure outcomes. Simple API’s & webhooks should exist. Know what you can build vs. what has to be built for you.
- Knovvu Analytics Real Time allows custom building & guidance around flows you specify. The builder allows you to push tools/info/scripts/etc..to test for success & then measure.
- Platform On-boarding: What good is a fancy engine if you’re not empowered & trained to use it? Clearly define the training you receive & what your users are empowered to do vs. what you must rely upon your tool partner for. Know the support you have from your partner, and the on-boarding steps to reach objectives & go-live date. Don’t assume. Manuals are just manuals.
- SESTEK on-boarding includes hands on training & side-by-side experiential learning administered by Client Success, Account Management, and support. On-boarding navigates the setup of permissions, dashboard, category & AQM building, training simulation, reporting, triggers & alerts. Support is on-going. Your team is empowered.
SESTEK’s Knovvu Conversational Analytics platform was solely built as a combination solver. SESTEK’s 20+ years of building conversational automation solutions, with in-house R&D, patented core technologies, & streamlined architecture, has brought forth an engine that compiles meaningful data to solve combinations and open locks across all interaction types.
Get busy uncovering working combinations & un-lock hidden business insights. View Conversational Analytics & AQM tools as a 7x24x365 problem solver for leadership, support staff, frontline agents, & your customers.
To learn more about Conversational Analytics strategies, tools, & solutions, consult with SESTEK.
Author: Jeffrey Guymon, US Channel Partner Manager, SESTEK