{"id":51263,"date":"2025-03-11T09:27:24","date_gmt":"2025-03-11T16:27:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newrcblog.wpengine.com\/us\/en\/blog\/?p=51263"},"modified":"2025-03-19T13:41:05","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T20:41:05","slug":"benefits-of-speech-analytics-for-contact-centers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/us\/en\/blog\/benefits-of-speech-analytics-for-contact-centers\/","title":{"rendered":"Call center voice analytics: What it is and how you can best use it"},"content":{"rendered":"

In business, data-driven decisions tend to have a far greater chance of success than those based on instinct or intuition. Call or contact center voice analytics\u2014also known as speech analytics\u2014is another tool in your toolbelt to help you leverage the data available to you.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A call or contact center may deal with hundreds or even thousands of customer interactions every day. That\u2019s a potential treasure-trove of information and insights into how they think and feel about your brand. Speech or voice analytics for call centers is how to unlock and make the most of that\u2014all too often\u2014untapped data.<\/span><\/p>\n

With the right call center voice analytics software on hand, your contact center supervisors and managers can better understand operations in a flash. From there, they can help enhance customer experience, improve <\/span>quality assurance<\/span><\/a>, and more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The first step towards achieving those benefits in your contact center is to better understand voice and speech analytics for call centers. So, let\u2019s get started by answering some key questions like what is call center voice analytics, how does it work, and what can you use it for?\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

What is speech analytics in a call center?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Call center speech analytics is the process of documenting and analyzing customer calls, with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, in order to derive actionable insights.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks to the rapid evolution of AI, that analysis can now happen in real-time as well as post-call. That means that the best speech analytics solutions can drill down into word choice, topics, tone of voice, and more to generate impactful reports and even deliver live suggestions to agents.<\/span><\/p>\n

Voice vs speech analytics<\/span><\/h3>\n

You may have noticed that we\u2019re using voice analytics and<\/span> speech analytics synonymously. In general, they are understood to be two names for the same process and concept. However, as is often the case, things aren\u2019t quite that simple, so it is worth digging a little deeper into voice analytics vs speech analytics.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Most call or contact center professionals consider the two terms to mean the same thing. However, some do identify a slight difference between voice analytics and speech analytics.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They consider voice analytics to be the analysis of <\/span>every aspect <\/span><\/i>of a conversation including tone of voice and sentiment, and speech analytics to be simply the analysis of the words exchanged. In that interpretation, then, speech analytics is about <\/span>what is said <\/span><\/i>but voice analytics also includes <\/span>how it\u2019s said<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is a minority opinion, however, and today most of the best tools for analytics in a contact center do account for sentiment and tone. As such, we\u2019ll continue to treat speech and voice analytics synonymously and use both terms throughout this guide.<\/span><\/p>\n

Contact center speech analytics vs call center speech analytics<\/span><\/h3>\n

At this point it\u2019s also worth considering the question \u201cwhat is contact center speech analytics?\u201d, and whether it\u2019s noticeably different from call center speech analytics. The answer is that in practical terms, it\u2019s not.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As you likely know, \u201ccontact center\u201d is a term originally coined to differentiate centers that handled interactions via multiple channels from those that were call-only. Today, there are few phone-only call centers anyway. Given that speech analytics refers specifically to analyzing spoken conversations, too, contact and call center voice analytics can be taken to mean the same thing.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How does AI speech analytics work?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Speech analytics fundamentally relies upon natural language processing (NLP), a field of AI (artificial intelligence) that uses algorithms and machine learning in an effort to interpret human language the way humans do.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Having been trained on vast quantities of conversations, AI-powered speech analytics software can do many things with calls: Identify what\u2019s being discussed, estimate how the participants feel, produce transcriptions with fillers removed, suggest responses, and even generate high-quality translations.<\/span><\/p>\n

AI voice analytics, then, can be an impactful tool for your contact center analytics tool belt. Precisely how, though, can you leverage it in your operation?<\/span><\/p>\n

What are some use cases for call center analytics software?<\/span><\/h2>\n

There are many potential speech analytics benefits to discover, but some are more impactful than others.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here are some of the most beneficial use cases of call center voice analytics software:<\/span><\/p>\n