The VoiceAnalytics pilot scheme, introduced in Aegon Hungary last year, has already inspired voice coaching sessions and positively impacted quality assurance.
It's the job of contact centre expert, Beáta Steigerwald, to find new ways to improve the effectiveness of contact centre in Hungary and retain Aegon's top market position in client service there.
But with around 50,000 calls a month, it was impossible for eight Quality Assurance employees to assess anything other than a tiny cross-section of calls. As a result, Aegon Hungary decided to try out VoiceAnalytics to assesses all calls from every agent each month against such criteria as – objective measurements and emotion.
Calls are screened to detect key words which would indicate the customer had a complaint or issue which may not have been conveyed to the supervisor
The software produces daily reports which detect the emotions both of call centre agents and customers. "We assess emotion. Not based on the words used, but tone, pitch, articulation, and volume ratio," says Beáta.
All calls are screened to detect key words which would indicate the customer had a complaint or issue which may not have been conveyed to the supervisor. In the morning, those calls are provided to Quality Assurance so they can take follow up steps.
Turning a deaf ear The technology has turned up unexpected results. "Some colleagues were assessed as sounding disappointed or displeased, while others were considered happy, even if those were not the emotions they actually felt in a particular call," says Beáta.
Agents who took part in speech lessons, found that their First Call Resolution score increased 4% within three months
It wasn't the software that was defective. Employees had become 'deaf' to the tone of their co-workers. "In some cases agents have worked with us for 14 years. We recognize their voices, so they always sound normal to us, but from the customer point of view they can come across as displeased. This might be because their voice is deeper, or slower in rhythm than average. Or because they have a natural inflection which comes across as happy," says Beáta.
In response, Aegon Hungary introduced speech classes to improve vocal techniques. "Even agents who didn't improve their knowledge, but only took part in speech lessons, found that their FCR (First Call Resolution) score increased 4% within three months based on vocal improvements," says Beáta.
Mind your language VoiceAnalytics provides other measurements, such as call length. "Too short a call indicates that not enough information has been conveyed to rectify a query, but calls that are longer can prompt negative customer emotion too," Beáta says.
Thanks to the analysis, Aegon Hungary established that four minutes is the optimal duration for a call.
"The software gives us lots of possibilities, but for now we are focusing on the quality enhancement of the agent, and saving of quality assurance time," Beáta concludes.
