Speech Analytics Expected to Continue Rapid Growth
Despite the global recession, speech analytics continues to grow rapidly because of its ability to help enterprises improve customer experiences, cut costs, retain customers, and minimize risks, according to a new report from DMG Consulting.
The “2009-2010 Speech Analytics Market Report” predicts the speech analytics market will continue to grow annually, with a 45 percent increase in 2009, a 40 percent increase in 2010, a 42 percent increase in 2011, a 32 percent increase in 2012, and a 25 percent increase in 2013.
According to Donna Fluss, president of DMG Consulting, the speech analytics market will continue to grow because the technology and solutions contribute to the primary goals of enterprises. “[Speech analytics] help generate revenue,” Fluss says. “They help improve productivity. They help to reduce customer attrition.”
Additionally, the report shows that speech analytics has been one of the fastest growing contact center technology sectors since its introduction in 2004. DMG research indicates the market grew from 25 commercial speech analytics implementations in 2004 to 1,764 at the end of 2008, yielding a five-year compounded annual growth rate of 190 percent.
Fluss attributes this growth to increased knowledge and understanding of analytics and the unique nature of the technology.
“[Speech analytics] gives us information that we had no other way of getting,” she says. “The only other way we had of getting it was to have our agents write up these conversations or have phone recordings transcribed, and that was prohibitively expensive.”
Fluss says the uses of analytics are varied—everything from boosting sales and assisting with the creation of focus groups to decreasing customer attrition and preventing fraud—and that many opportunities exist outside the contact center. “Where the value comes is using it to identify new product ideas,” she says. “Our customers tell us what they want, and it falls onto the deaf ears of agents who are being rushed to move onto the next call. Speech analytics doesn’t get rushed.”
The report also provides best practices and suggestions for avoiding implementation pitfalls, including discussing which department within an organization should “own” speech analytics.
According to Fluss, speech analytics should not be owned by the marketing or data warehousing departments, but rather by a new group dedicated to customer analytics and possessing the ability to impact multiple operating groups. “It should be a separate group whose title is customer analytics,” she says. “And that group has to be analytically oriented, but also able to handle large volumes of interactions and positioned to interact and influence all departments or many departments within the organization.”