IVR

Soon contact center callers who might be a little hot under the collar will be able to connect almost automatically to a manager or supervisor.

 

Hosted contact center solutions provider WS iNet is working with the University of Texas at Dallas on a joint research project designed to automatically identify, in real-time, callers who display anger or emotion during a call to a customer service agent.

 

The idea, says George Platt, executive vice president and general manager of WS iNet, is to develop software that will notify supervisors and managers when a customer may be angry or upset with their level of service.

This is expected to enabling supervisors to jump in immediately while the customer is still on the phone in an effort to increase customer retention and customer satisfaction.

 

"John Hansen, with the university's Center for Robust Speech Systems, and the University of Texas at Dallas are recognized leaders in speech and speaker analytics research," said Platt.

 

"If we can service our clients with the best technology available for providing superior customer service, we've accomplished what we set out to do," said Platt.

 

The anticipated outcome of the research, according to Hansen, is to save at-risk customers. “Customer retention is the key component for any enterprise; reducing customer churn by as little as 1 percent can result in huge revenue increases and profit gains.”

 

In fact, improving customer satisfaction ultimately means the success, or failure, of any business that relies on customer satisfaction. Through providing insight and immediate access to unhappy customers in real-time can give enterprises the ability to solve customer issues before it is too late.

 

"The University of Texas at Dallas and the Center for Robust Speech Systems is excited to continue its research on detecting anger and emotion in speech,” said Hansen. “WS iNet, as a sponsor of this research, is dedicated to helping enterprises improve the customer service experience and increase customer satisfaction."