Speech Analytics knowledge gap still exists

Speech Analytics still remains a relatively under-utilised technology, despite all the hype so we decided to investigate further with a questionnaire uncovering some surprising insights we wanted to share…

We polled contact centre and customer service managers across healthcare, banking, utilities, telecoms, travel, local authorities and outsourcing firms and found that only a third of respondents understood the difference between the various vendors and technologies on offer.
38% of respondents admitted to having little or no awareness of this technology as either a concept or a technology with key reasons cited as analytics not being considered a key part of contact centre strategy, not having the budget to pursue the technology or just not having the time to do the necessary research.

Senior Analytics Consultant at Business Systems, Gary Smith commented “Adoption of  Speech Analytics is still at a fairly embryonic stage but having said that significant R&D investments have been made by manufacturers in the last 18 months, leading to improved accuracy and additional modules and products emerging with similar capabilities. Vendors are learning from each other and this can often make it harder to differentiate between products.”
The survey also indicated that investment is being held back primarily because organisations could not see how they would achieve a return on investment, no budget was available or they just did not see a value in the technology. It could be argued that this is a result of manufacturers attempting to establish a footprint for Speech Analytics in customer accounts as part of a technology refresh, so not as a specific or independent project, virtually ensuring it becomes ‘shelf ware’ and is perceived as adding little value.

Gary Smith concludes “This survey validates what we already knew, vendors need to clearly differentiate their offering whilst demonstrating without question the value of the technology by providing an ROI based business case centered around real time contact centre information. As an independent Speech Analytics reseller we have undertaken a number of engagements in this area and can demonstrate that by asking the right questions and using the right product, objectives can not only be met but a yearly bottom line contribution can be achieved .”

Complimentary Speech Analytics White Paper
Learn more about Business Systems’ Speech Analytics Consultancy Services or register for our forthcoming white paper exploring further the Speech Analytics Knowledge Gap, email [email protected] or call 0800 458 2988.