If you’re evaluating a new quality management or speech analytics solution or questioning whether your existing solution is a fit, something isn’t working. Whether it’s higher compliance risks with remote teams, lack of trust in the data and adoption, or the inevitable impact of a pandemic economy, finding the right provider is key to maintaining resilience in 2021.
Mistakes can be costly. On average, companies waste 37% of their software spend on unused platforms. In the U.S. alone, this amounts to $30 billion new technologies that aren’t being leveraged.
You don’t have to wait until you’re months into a new contract to learn it was the wrong choice. Or, stick with a solution that’s not working for your dispersed team.
We sat down with one of our customers at a Fortune 500 Global Medical Products Company who broke down why they switched from a legacy solution to Observe.AI for their now all-remote team’s needs, and the lessons they learned about choosing the right Contact Center AI partner.
Here’s what we learned.
1. A customer service-driven culture isn’t front and center
For customer experience-focused companies such as business outsourcers, retail, and finance brands, it’s imperative that your partners have a demonstrated workflow to provide exceptional customer service to you, and demonstrated domain knowledge.
For example, at Observe.AI we provide dedicated onboarding at no added cost. Plus, our onboarding team has a combined 50+ years of experience using AI, analytics, and coaching tools to power modern contact centers.
4 Indicators of a service-driven culture
Dedication to success
Does the team have dedicated customer success and onboarding teams beyond technical implementation? Do they charge more for professional services, or include them at no or minimal cost? In addition, the first 30 days is a critical window that defines how your partnership will progress. Do they offer guidance on how to leverage the platform to achieve maximum ROI? What are other businesses able to achieve in the first 30 days of go-live?
Onboarding & implementation fees
Most providers charge fees that can add up as needs increase with your use of the platform evolving. Are integration and onboarding included, or part of an additional set-up cost? Trustworthy partners don’t have hidden fees and include this information upfront.
Internal company culture
The final thing to consider is whether the company’s employee satisfaction is high. After all, the best service comes from a culture that fosters motivation and empathy. Companies that have been named a Great Place to Work or have positive Glassdoor reviews should be ranked highly.
Product Development & R&D Opportunities
What opportunities do you have to interact with the product teams and executives? How will you influence product development? If digital transformation is a priority for you, it should be for your provider, as well.
“From the digital transformation perspective, we’re a very hungry department that likes to innovate. We’re always looking for new ways to do things and more efficiently to better serve our customers, and we chose Observe.AI because it was clear they had the same priorities to innovate and think big.” —Manager, Reporting & Analytics, Fortune 500 Global Medical Products Company
2. The provider doesn’t offer fast time-to-value
Before the pandemic, the average quality assurance or speech analytics solution took 3-6 months to implement. That timeframe simply doesn’t hold in our current economic climate where time and efficiency are your most valuable resources.
Today’s premiere Contact Center AI solutions, which merge speech analytics, quality assurance, agent performance, and coaching, solve for this by enabling customers to go live in three weeks. Speed in implementation allows for decision makers to build executive trust and show results early on.
3 Indicators of fast time-to-value
Clear milestones and accountability
If you are working with a provider that is focused on delivering results, you’ll be able to get a clear timeline for every step of the way as you are activated on the platform and move along your journey to optimal results.
Support with change management initiatives
New processes and technology are difficult to implement. Without a well thought-out change management plan, time-to-value lags, the needle doesn’t move on KPIs, and most importantly, your team feels the pain. Observe.AI offers support and guidance throughout the process to help drive awareness and avoid these pitfalls, educating and leading your teams through change.
Extent of training & support
One thing is to go live on the platform fast; a whole other is ensuring that you receive the necessary training & support needed to make that fast implementation worth it. Will the provider include guided onboarding and re-training/up-skilling for new users, for instance? This level of investment can make a big difference in long-term success as your teams grow and evolve.
3. The platform isn’t easy to navigate.
One word matters most: adoption. As the decision-maker, it can be easy to fall into the trap of looking at a solution's capabilities without considering usability for various levels of your team.
At Observe.AI, we considered both data accuracy and usability when developing our user interface. Every level of your contact center team - including operators, analysts, supervisors and agents can log in and view.
“Finding a tool that your business leadership and end-users can be comfortable working in is important. In the past, we’ve implemented tools that were so difficult to use and inaccurate, our teams simply stopped using them.” —Manager, Reporting & Analytics, Fortune 500 Global Medical Products Company
2 Indicators of usability
Simple UI
This one is a no-brainer; if the interface is easily navigated, the likelihood the team will adopt goes up. If it isn’t intuitive, you’ll likely know right off the bat.
Cross-functional insights
Insights are of course a must. But if various teams across different functions and levels can gain from the tool, the insights tool then becomes a way to keep teams aligned, which is particularly important in the new world of work.
To illustrate this a bit better, here’s a snapshot of the different roles and what the Observe.AI platform offers:
- Supervisors gain value from the ability to have full visibility into the team’s performance along with tracking around important contact center KPIs such as Average Handle Time, First Call Resolution, and dead air.
- Operators gain value from what the platform indicates around production or operational inefficiencies.
- QA & Speech Analysts gain value from voice and chat analytics that quickly analyze speaker tone, dead air, and more.
- Agents gain trust that their performance evaluations are being done on the basis of data provided by the platform rather than subjective information.
4. The provider’s data isn’t accurate enough.
We can’t repeat this enough—accuracy matters. It’s impossible to make business decisions based on data that is unreliable. Your team simply won’t trust it, and will spend more time debating the data than putting it into action through integrated analysis, QA, and coaching workflows.
For modern contact centers aiming to understand customer interactions at a deeper level, transcription accuracy is where it all starts. To nail accuracy, companies with a best-in-class automatic speech recognition (ASR) engine use AI to not only understand what is being said on a call, but how it is being said by assessing tonality, silence, pauses, and so much more.
“We evaluated other solutions that checked boxes Observe.AI didn’t check yet, but the transcription accuracy was far better. We chose to go with Observe.AI and wait because if the transcription accuracy, isn’t there, the functionality doesn’t matter.” —Manager, Reporting & Analytics, Fortune 500 Global Medical Products Company
3 Indicators of strong accuracy
Your SLA guarantees accuracies of 80% or more
We hate to break it to you, but if the provider’s service level agreement (SLA) for transcription is anything below 80%, they are falling short on best-in-class guaranteed transcription. Here’s a visualization of what that really means.
Accuracy continuously improves
Transcription self-learning and tuning is critical, especially for customer-specific words and phrases. AI-powered redaction also plays a huge role in ensuring contact center compliance by allowing contact centers to select sensitive data entities and censor (redact) them on both call audio and call transcripts. This means that anyone reviewing the call transcript or recording will not be able to hear or read sensitive information that the customer provides.
There’s an in-house machine learning team
While this doesn’t necessarily mean accuracy is top notch, it does mean that the provider has a deep knowledge of the technology, and has dedicated R&D resources to ensure the machine learning parts of the technology keep improving.
Making your final decision.
Making a switch and moving into a new tool can be daunting. Consider the people who you’ll be working with, as they will play a big role in your success. Learn about your provider’s involvement in the implementation phase, and ask deeper questions to uncover how they’ll support you in the months, weeks, and years ahead. Make sure you vet your provider’s data accuracy and platform UI, as that will dictate whether or not your teams will adopt the tool.
Most importantly, go with a provider that is focused on innovating with your partnership, working alongside you to bring to life your needs through their feature developments and product launches.
The closer your provider is to your needs, the more effective the partnership will be in the long run in helping you build a best-in-class, remote customer experience team.
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About the Author
Sharath Keshavnarayana is the Co-founder and CRO at Observe.AI, and has over a decade of experience in the customer care space. Connect with Sharath on LinkedIn.
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