Speech Analytics Product and Market Report Reprint. Reprinted for:

Transcription

1 Speech Analytics Product and Market Report Reprint Reprinted for:

2 Table of Contents 1. Introduction What is Speech Analytics? How Speech Analytics Works Maximizing the Return from a Speech Analytics Investment Market Activity... 7 About NICE About DMG Consulting i - DMG Consulting LLC

3 1. Introduction Post-call speech analytics is ready for prime time and all types of users. Realtime speech analytics is an emerging solution that is highly compelling due to its potential. Although the underlying technology for these two types of solutions can be the same, their uses are totally different. Post-call speech analytics is a strategic enterprise application that companies should use to rapidly identify operational, procedural, technical and staff-related issues, as well as to identify new revenue opportunities. Real-time speech analytics is a tactical application designed to alter the outcome of phone conversations while the caller is still on the line. This makes it a contact center tool that can be used to reduce risk and minimize bad customer experiences. And as a result, it also becomes an effective coaching tool for agents. Post-Call Speech Analytics is Reaching Maturity Speech analytics entered the commercial market in 2004, and has been growing rapidly due to its unique and highly compelling value proposition. Speech analytics remains the only application that can structure phone conversations and find insights and trends. The automation component of these solutions is the easy part of the process; the enterprise challenge has been to figure out how to apply the findings. Speech analytics solutions are sophisticated tools that require management by highly trained resources in order to realize the expected benefit and return on investment. However, contact centers, the primary users of speech analytics, prefer solutions that are highly intuitive and can be used by supervisors. This misalignment is the primary reason why many speech analytics implementations are not delivering the expected benefits. These solutions require ongoing care and modification tuning, searching and filtering to deliver targeted and effective findings. And once trends and insights are identified, companies need a way to share this information on a timely basis, and a vehicle for driving change. Speech analytics is an enterprise business intelligence tool whose findings should be incorporated into a formal change management process. This tool and process should be overseen by skilled business analysts who are empowered to drive change throughout the enterprise. Not all Solutions are Created Equal There is a misconception in the market that most speech analytics solutions offer similar capabilities. This perception comes from vendor marketing, as almost all speech analytics vendors make similar claims about their solutions capabilities. First-time buyers of speech analytics solutions do not typically have the expertise or knowledge to distinguish between the offerings. Solutions designed to spot key words and phrases, which are the most common in the market, cannot DMG Consulting LLC

4 perform a forensic analysis and identify new trends, for example. Speech analytics packages built to address specific business issues and that come with pre-defined lexicons (libraries), searches, reports, dashboards and key performance indicators, are very different from solutions that come with a blank canvas where users have to build everything themselves. DMG cautions prospects to carefully evaluate the various solutions when making a selection, and keep in mind that if you are getting it for free, there is probably a good reason why. Speech Analytics Reduces Risk From the beginning, speech analytics has been used to measure agent script adherence making sure that agents say what they are supposed to at the right time during a conversation, such as verifying a caller prior to sharing sensitive data. It has also been used to ensure that agents are not saying inappropriate things to callers. Script adherence remains an important use of speech analytics; this capability has a proven payback for companies that set it up properly and maintain it. But as governments and other agencies in a number of countries around the world have introduced regulations to control the handling of sensitive customer credit card information, debt collections, sales, the calling of mobile phones, etc., speech analytics has become a valuable tool for proving that a company is in compliance. Companies are using speech analytics to help them adhere to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) and to improve their staff s compliance with the proliferation of debt collection regulations. Real-time speech analytics is also beginning to surface as an important new capability for outbound solution providers who need to demonstrate compliance with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). QA Gets an Overhaul Companies have been doing quality assurance the same way since this technology was introduced close to 40 years ago. Vendors initially introduced and marketed these tools as a way to improve service quality, and they did not sell. Only after the vendors tied quality improvements to a reduction in call average handle time (AHT) did adoption pick up. It became clear that companies would invest in contact center solutions that improved quality and the overall customer experience as long as they also improved productivity. So, although traditional QA is a manual process enabled by technology, companies invested in these solutions because they delivered significant quantifiable benefits. Analytics-enabled QA takes this to a new level. Speech (and text) analytics can be used to identify a variety of calls (and s, social media interactions, chats, etc.) where agents do not follow departmental policies and guidelines. As long as a company can build a rule to check and look for certain things, speech analytics can find and monitor it. There are still lots of things that speech analytics cannot check for and catch. While speech analytics can identify if an agent properly DMG Consulting LLC

5 delivered the mini-miranda or verified a customer at the right time, it cannot determine if the answer given is correct or not. However, given that most companies only check 3-5 (and possibly 10) calls per agent per month, or just 1% to 3% of all calls, applying speech analytics to 100% of calls improves the odds of identifying behaviors that need to be changed, even if it cannot catch everything. And, as time passes, the more sophisticated solutions are getting better at catching more things. So, while analytics-enabled QA is not perfect, it is better than the traditional way of doing quality assurance, which does not yield statistically relevant results for most of companies that use it. It s all About the Customer Journey Companies are finally building multi-channel (also known as omni-channel) and cross-channel servicing environments. Delivering a true multi-channel contact center experience is very different from having separate groups of agents handle various non-integrated media. Customers do not want to begin a transaction in one channel and then start over when they move to a different channel, as is the case when they start on a website and then have to call an agent. Customers rightfully expect a seamlessly integrated sales and service experience, whether they call, , chat or send a social media comment. Companies also need customer experience analytics to measure all touches in the customer journey, and the speech analytics vendors have jumped at the opportunity to deliver packaged solutions. Vendors have started to offer integrated speech, text and desktop analytics. Other vendors are combining speech analytics with surveying solutions in order to provide both an internal and external view of customer satisfaction. DMG expects to see substantially more investments in these packaged multi-channel analytics solutions during the next few years. What to Expect in the Future The speech analytics market has come a long way in a short time, and a great deal more is expected. Real-time speech analytics is in its infancy, but its potential is great, as it gives companies a new way of looking at and interacting with customers. More companies are going to integrate speech analytics with real-time guidance solutions to transform the way their staff handles customers. Speech, text and desktop analytics will be integrated with predictive analytics solutions, and the output used to feed real-time guidance applications. More vendors are going to build customer experience analytics solutions that can capture and analyze customer behavior throughout their journey, regardless of where they start and end. It s clear that speech analytics is useful on a standalone basis, but its value increases as it is integrated with other high-value applications and processes DMG Consulting LLC

6 2. What is Speech Analytics? Speech analytics, also known as audio mining, is software that converts unstructured conversations into structured output. The conversations are structured using a variety of techniques, and turned into metadata and transcripts. The output files can then be analyzed and used by the enterprise. See Figure 1. Figure 1: What is Speech Analytics? Source: DMG Consulting LLC, August How Speech Analytics Works Speech analytics applications use a variety of mathematical algorithms, analytic techniques, contextual and other call/customer-related metadata (increasingly including screen, desktop and text analytics) to structure unstructured conversations. These techniques can be applied to live calls/conversations or recorded audio files. The analysis is multi-phased; it starts with a speech engine either phonetic or large vocabulary continuous speech recognition (LVCSR, also known as speech-to-text) to perform the initial task of converting a DMG Consulting LLC

7 conversation into system-readable data that can be analyzed further. Next, each of the speech analytics solutions applies its own technology and methodology to create output that can be analyzed for meaning and searched by the customer. This step in the process, which enriches the output file to improve its usefulness, is critically important and an area of great differentiation among the solutions. The output is indexed prior to making it available to end users. At a more detailed level, audio mining solutions take recorded or real-time conversations and send them through a speech engine that breaks them into phonemes (representations of sounds), or words, phrases and concepts. In order to improve accuracy and provide context, each of the solutions applies a variety of techniques to further analyze and index the conversations, using proprietary algorithms to enhance the recognition capabilities. Depending on the underlying speech engine used, the output file may be a transcript of the conversation, an index of words and phrases, or an index of phonemes. All output files must be searchable so that end users can create queries to parse the data into words, topics or categories for root cause, trend and correlation analysis. Once the data is bucketed into categories, users can run reports or conduct ad hoc searches of databases or indices populated by the analysis/indexing layer of the application. Increasingly, the solutions come with the ability to identify trends and the root cause of calls, with little customer intervention. (This is being done to reduce implementation time frames and make the solutions more actionable.) It should be noted, however, that the usefulness of the output is greatly impacted by the time and effort that organizations dedicate to improving their searches. The core output from speech analytics solutions is the information delivered via dashboards, reports and alerts. Users can also run queries and see their findings online or in reports. In many cases, the solution offers pre-defined queries related to business issues or concerns, such as customer satisfaction, experience and retention; first call resolution; operational effectiveness and weaknesses; agent compliance and adherence to scripts; agent compliance to regulatory requirements; sales and marketing effectiveness; competitive intelligence; product feedback; etc. Reports and ad hoc queries can be designed to utilize captured data to shed light on agents, customers, processes, call categories, competitors and the emotional elements of agent/customer interactions. Most of the speech analytics solutions can analyze agent and customer conversations separately. (The automatic call distributor (ACD) must be able to support this capability.) This adds an additional dimension to the process, and boosts the business validity of speech analytics output. Some of the speech analytics solutions also perform emotion detection. The technology and techniques for this analysis vary; however, they typically fall into one of two categories: the speech analytics solutions that identify emotion based DMG Consulting LLC

8 on linguistic events, i.e., the presence or absence of certain words, which is the most prevalent method; and other applications that identify emotion based on volume, pitch and the rate of speech. 3. Maximizing the Return from a Speech Analytics Investment Speech analytics is a very a compelling and powerful tool. These solutions capture, structure, analyze, categorize and use customer conversations to achieve many objectives, including improving service quality, minimizing risk and reducing operating expenses. These are 3 of the top goals for virtually all contact centers around the world. Speech analytics has caught on in the market because senior executives and contact center leaders understand that it gives their organization information and insights that were impossible to obtain in the past. However, enterprises continue to struggle to realize the promised and expected return on investment from their speech analytics solutions, most commonly because they are not applying the findings properly. Here are best practices to help maximize the return from a speech analytics initiative and drive positive change. These 10 best practices, combined with support from senior management, will help to drive the success of a speech analytics implementation, as will having a technology partner who can provide expertise, guidance and support throughout the process. 1. Find a senior sponsor for the speech analytics initiative ideally, choose an influential leader who does not work in the contact center. 2. Emphasize the enterprise-wide benefits of speech analytics, and put together a cross-functional team of influencers to participate in a speech analytics steering committee. (This may require significant up-front politicking to convince non-contact-center leaders to participate.) 3. Communicate the uses of speech analytics to all internal departments that can benefit from its findings, to get their buy-in and support for the new solution. 4. Assemble a dedicated team of business analysts that is not part of the contact center to manage the speech analytics process. (This will help to make it an enterprise application.) 5. Staff the speech analytics team with resources who understand the business, not quality assurance people or contact center supervisors DMG Consulting LLC

9 6. Set up a formal speech analytics reporting process and organization that enables findings to be shared with senior management and other departments throughout the enterprise on a timely basis. 7. Determine the KPIs to be measured and included in the speech analytics reporting package. 8. Create a mechanism for tracking and reporting the progress of each issue, KPI and department on a monthly basis. (The reporting should be set up so that it is shared with all relevant departments and senior managers.) 9. Empower the speech analytics team to hold department managers responsible for justifying or addressing the issues identified by the speech analytics application; department managers must be required to communicate how and when they are going to fix each of the highlighted issues. 10. Create a closed-loop process that measures improvements on an ongoing basis; managers should be recognized and rewarded for tackling and correcting the issues identified by speech analytics. 4. Market Activity Figure 2 presents market activity, number of customers and seats for the contact center speech analytics market in 2013 (along with the first 5 months of 2014.) This chart shows the activity for the 15 best-known competitors in the contact center speech analytics market. Other vendors from all over the world are reflected in the Other category. As of the end of May 2014, there were 2,194 companies worldwide using speech analytics, accounting for 2,889,031 seats. This averages to 1,317 seats per implementation. In fact, there are a few very large speech analytics implementations: a couple with 20,000 seats, many with a few thousand seats, and then there are smaller implementations. However, most speech analytics solutions have been installed in contact centers with more than 500 seats, although this is starting to come down, primarily due to the availability speech analytics in the cloud. NICE was the speech analytics market share leader in 2013 (and the first 5 months of 2014), accounting for a 30% share of all seats. Verint was in second place, responsible for 24.5% of the seats. HP/Autonomy is estimated to have been in third place with a 13.1% market share. CallMiner came in fourth place with 10.7% of all seats. Nexidia is estimated to have been in fifth place with 8.7% of the seats, as of May (DMG estimated Nexidia s activity.) Genesys was in sixth place with a 4.2% market share DMG Consulting LLC

10 Figure 2: Speech Analytics Activity, as of May 2014 Total Vendor Customers Seats Seats Mkt. Share NICE , % Verint , % HP/Autonomy 2, , % CallMiner , % Nexidia 2, , % Genesys (UTOPY) , % Avaya (Aurix) , % Mattersight 50 50, % Uptivity 84 18, % Calabrio 47 17, % Aspect 2, , % Interactive Intelligence 86 13, % Castel 2, , % CTI Group , % OnviSource 22 3, % Other , % Subtotal 2,283 2,954,031 N/A Less: Double Count 10 (89) (65,000) (2.2%) Total 11 2,194 2,889, % Notes: 1. Based on company guidance and DMG Consulting estimates. 2. DMG Consulting estimate. 3. HP/Autonomy s numbers are estimates. Autonomy sells speech analytics, typically as part of an enterprise search deal, but it is not a priority application for the company. 4. Nexidia s market activity is estimated for 2013 and In prior years, Nexidia shared this data with DMG. Nexidia s approach for counting seats has been different from other vendors. In 2014, DMG changed its method of counting Nexidia s seats to align with the approach used by the other competitors, which accounts for the major increase. 5. Genesys acquired UTOPY in January Avaya acquired Aurix, a phonetics-based speech analytics engine, in Avaya has continued to sell this engine to third-party vendors, and they recently started to compete more aggressively on a direct basis. More than 90% of Avaya s speech analytics seats are sold through their partner network. 7. All Aspect activity is double counted because they sell third-party speech analytics solutions. In prior years, Aspect shared their market activity with DMG. 8. In prior years, Castel shared their market activity with DMG. 9. Other is estimated to be 5% of the named vendor total. 10. A number of vendors partner and/or OEM their solution. The double count for the duplicated activity has been removed. 11. Rounding errors may occur. Source: DMG Consulting LLC, August DMG Consulting LLC

11 Figure 3 is a chart that shows speech analytics market share, based on seats, as of the end of May NICE and Verint, the two leading WFO vendors, remained the market leaders for sales of speech analytics. These two vendors accounted for 54.5% of all speech analytics seats. NICE and Verint continue to be highly effective in selling speech analytics when they sell a WFO suite. In some cases, they are selling speech analytics for QA purposes, as part of analytics-enabled QA solutions, but in most cases they are providing the full application. Figure 3: Speech Analytics Market Share Based on Agents, as of May 2014 Source: DMG Consulting LLC, August DMG Consulting LLC

12 About NICE NICE Systems (NASDAQ: NICE), is the worldwide leader of intent-based solutions that capture and analyze interactions and transactions, realize intent, and extract and leverage insights to deliver impact in real time. Driven by cross-channel and multi-sensor analytics, NICE solutions enable organizations to improve business performance, increase operational efficiency, prevent financial crime, ensure compliance, and enhance safety and security. NICE serves over 25,000 organizations in the enterprise and security sectors, representing a variety of sizes and industries in more than 150 countries, and including over 80 of the Fortune 100 companies. NICE s offerings for the enterprise and security sectors serve three main needs: improving business performance, decreasing financial risk, and enhancing safety and security. NICE solutions capture interactions, transactions and video surveillance from multiple sources, including telephones, CCTV video feed, emergency services radio communications, s, chat, social media, and more. They provide valuable insight about the business or security situation by applying real-time, cross-channel analytics to realize the intent of customers, criminals and terrorists, or fraudsters, to enable proactive response for real-time impact. About DMG Consulting DMG Consulting LLC is a leading independent research, advisory and consulting firm specializing in contact centers, back-office and real-time analytics. DMG provides insight and strategic guidance and tactical advice to end users, vendors and the financial community. Each year, DMG devotes more than 10,000 hours to producing primary research on IT sectors, including workforce optimization (quality management/liability recording), speech analytics, workforce management, performance management, desktop analytics, surveying/voice of the customer, text analytics, cloud-based contact center infrastructure, dialing, interactive voice response systems and proactive customer care. Our actionable solutions are proven to deliver a lasting competitive advantage, and often pay for themselves in as little as three months. This reprint is excerpted from the Speech Analytics Product and Market Report, which was released in August 2014 with the permission of DMG Consulting LLC. More information about this Report and DMG Consulting is available at DMG Consulting LLC

13 2014 DMG Consulting LLC. All rights reserved. This Report is protected by United States copyright law. The reproduction, transmission or distribution of this Report in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of DMG Consulting LLC is strictly prohibited. You may not alter or remove any copyright, trademark or other notice from this Report. This Report contains data, materials, information and analysis that is proprietary to and the confidential information of DMG Consulting LLC and is provided for solely to purchasers of this Report for their internal use. THIS REPORT AND ANY DATA, MATERIALS, INFORMATION AND ANALYSIS CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT BE DISCLOSED TO OR USED BY ANY OTHER PERSON OR ENTITY WITHOUT THE EXPRESS PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENT OF DMG CONSULTING LLC. Substantial effort went into verifying and validating the accuracy of the information contained within this Report, however, DMG Consulting LLC disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy or completeness of this information. DMG Consulting LLC shall not be liable for any errors or omissions in the information contained herein or for any losses or damages arising from use hereof DMG Consulting LLC