Published on the 28/11/2013 | Written by Newsdesk
Companies considering recording and analysing customer conversations could learn from the current spat between Australia and Indonesia over clandestine phone tapping…
Australian cloud communications specialist Call Journey has launched a voice analytics platform that analyses recorded phone conversations, picking up on the emotions in customers’ voices that can then be used to steer future interactions.
Andrew Lamrock, director of enterprise intelligence, said that the underlying technology, developed originally in the military sector, had a broad range of applications ranging from financial institutions using the tool to better manage risk, to retailers harnessing customer insights to steer call centre conversations. He acknowledged that the underlying technology used in recording calls was the same as that used to tap phone calls – but said that they had quite different intent.
Asked whether recording and analysing conversations was not in any case an assault on customer privacy, Lamrock said that Call Journey’s default setting was to alert consumers that their conversations could be monitored, although he acknowledged this could be overridden by the companies deploying the technology.
The trick for any organisation looking to eavesdrop on customers and analyse their behaviour will be to telegraph clearly the value proposition, or risk them feeling as violated and angry as Indonesia.
A range of Australian organisations already use the Call Journey cloud to record conversations, the company is currently in negotiations to sign its first New Zealand customer, and now a handful of Australian companies, including three of the nation’s largest banks and a retailer are trialling the new analysis appliance said Lamrock.
Banks are particularly keen to decode customer intentions in order to sell more products or reduce risk by identifying potential defaulters. Big data analytics have been widely deployed by the financial sector, and a range of tools which can analyse customer sentiments across multiple platforms are starting to gain traction.
Bank of New Zealand for example recently announced it was using technology to analyse the facial expressions of customers watching marketing videos, then harness that insight to steer future communications with the customer.
Salmat Digital meanwhile this week announced a partnership with voice specialist Allegiance to launch a service called Salmat Listen which analyses information gathered from sources including social media, voice recordings, emails or SMS. “A lot of businesses are trying to move to a one-to-one relationship with customers…but have not had the means to capture feedback,” said David Blakers, executive general manager of Salmat Digital. He said Salmat Listen could analyse even open ended commentary to determine if a customer was happy or not, which could be used to improve call centre services and boost customer satisfaction.
