It’s funny how popular things fall out of fashion just to trend again at some later point. For example, skinny or “ripped” jeans were very fashionable in the 80’s. Popular TV shows, big hair bands, Madonna and other artists, all created a phenomenon with those types of jeans. Moving into the 90’s and early 2000’s, the trend had shifted from the skinny jeans to baggier and then normal fitting fashion. Currently, we are in a time where “ripped” and “skinny” jeans are back in fashion and many people are headed to their attics and the deep recesses of closets to try to squeeze into those jeans once again!
Like jeans and other things fashionable, we often invest in the latest and greatest technology but in time, that technology also takes a seat in storage. Speech Analytics is one of those solutions that sound great, and we are so excited to try on, but eventually lead to being placed in “the back of the closet” because it loses favor. This occurs mainly because we have forgotten how to wear it or, in this case, utilize it. Speech Analytics is a tool that can cost-effectively transcend your organization and enhance you customer journey by analyzing your interactions, identify trends and help your organization make decisions based on data that was once unavailable.
Let’s explore some best practices for Speech Analytics that will keep your solution current and popular among your organization.
Assemble Your Dream Team
Like you favorite band or sports team, success in any industry takes a collaboration of efforts. Speech Analytics is a solution that requires a cross-functional team to input, participate and maintain in order to achieve optimal results and to keep the solution relevant. This cross-functional team should consist of members of the operations department and, ideally, should also include representation from the executive level. Their role would be to champion the product and communicate the ROI and success to the other executives, the board, etc.
Taking Speech Viral Across Your Organization
To aid in keeping your Speech solution popular, make your whole organization aware of its existence and functionality. Thanks to celebrities wearing those iconic jeans, their popularity level rose significantly due to the awareness and visibility brought on by the wearer. The same ideology needs to be present in order to create organization buy-in. Making Speech Analytics results go viral across your enterprise is a great way to increase product awareness.
Discover Opportunities – determining KPI’s
Now that you have spread the word of what Speech Analytics is, you have to decide on how it will best be utilized within your organization. Achieving ROI with Speech Analytics is dependent on how you utilize the product. In this step, you need to determine what are the areas and KPI’s that are challenging the business. These areas could be outside of the contact center such as, marketing, sales or they could be more KPI driven such as handle time, quality, etc. Have your dream team represent the organization; brainstorm the challenges from various departments and white board them.
Rifle vs. Shotgun approach
This step immediately follows the discovery phase as you will determine how to approach the opportunities that were brainstormed and white boarded. Many organizations use a “shot gun” approach and try to tackle all the challenges at once. This is not ideal for Speech Analytics as it is more of an art than science and takes time to optimize and analyze reports to make sure you are getting back relative data. We recommend that you start with a more narrow approach; focusing on one or two areas first.
Establishing Baselines
Now that you have starting points, create baselines of those areas. This step is often forgotten and is crucial when determining ROI and solution effectiveness. You may want to set 30, 60, and 90 day check points to compare your results to your baselines in order to acknowledge improvement, or lack thereof.
Define Search Phrase Criteria
You have decided what area(s) to start with. You have accessed where you currently are in those areas by setting baselines. Now you need to determine the keywords and phrases that represent and speak to those areas that you will be focusing on. For example, if you are focusing on customer churn, you may want to add phrases that your customers utilize when canceling your service or products such as cost, competitors and/or service complaints. Once you have determined which phrases would be applicable to your focus areas, add them to your solution to be analyzed within your call recordings.
Analyze, Report & Repeat (if necessary)
Not all speech solutions are the same and, depending on which solution you have chosen, this phase can be the longest. Some analytic solutions will take longer to optimize than others, but the steps are ultimately the same. In this phase, run reports and analyze the data to ensure that your results are accurate, viable and measurable. If the key phrases and/or keywords are not producing the results or data you expected, repeat the define-phrase-criteria step again and reanalyze the data. Patience and collaboration from your dream team and organization are key here when reviewing the reports for validity. For example, if your data is showing that in 60% of you calls, agents are giving the branded greeting, than your quality team, supervisor or managers should be able to validate through your quality management program.
Ongoing Reporting & Updating
As time goes by, organizations change, but many analytic users forget to update their solution with these new needs. Instead they continue utilizing and reporting on outdated search criteria. Ongoing visibility with reporting and updating the solution will keep your solution in style and yielding ROI.
With a little exercise and consistency with these practices, you will be at the forefront of Speech Analytics and become the example of success with analytics. Set the trend that others follow by purchasing or removing their own solutions from the closet.
