With $280 billion on outsourced call-center services last year there is a big push for software that can make call centers more efficient. “Neurolinguistic” software looks at which words callers use and tries to provide agents with insights into their psychology.
Callers' words and cadences are analyzed to create a profile that helps agents adjust their vocabulary and behavior to improve their rapport and agents receive on-screen tips on which phrases, sales pitches and conflict-resolution tricks are most likely to resonate. Cisco has a voice-analysis system that monitors parameters including volume, cadence, tone, pitch and inflection, and then sorts callers into six personality types to help agents fine-tune call handling.
Other caller profiling software can be used for quality control by scoring agents depending on the way the caller's emotional state changes over the course of the call. Although callers are told that their call may be recorded for quality-control purposes, some in the industry worry that voice analysis smacks of Big Brother, and prefer to keep quiet about it but sales of caller-profiling systems are expected to increase by 70% this year compared with 2007.
Photo: "slacking on a monday" by sun dazed Flickr Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic
It's not at all like Big Brother. People can naturally "read" each other's psyches and moods through visual and auditory signals. But since callers and recipients are divided by the telephone line, it's difficult to read these signs.
Posted by: Sonia Roody | November 02, 2011 at 12:51 PM