How to Improve Audio Quality in Your Contact Centre

Josh O’Farrell of Spearline promotes the use of monitoring and testing tools to improve contact centre audio quality.

Measure the audio quality of your toll and toll-free numbers…

One of the first questions you may be asking is what are the benefits of number testing overseas?

It’s a good question.

Most, if not all, contact centres have a good appreciation for the sophistication of systems used for telecommunications worldwide. Some will spend a good deal of time and money ensuring their systems have the necessary features in place to deal with failures and downtime.

However, many lack visibility of the precise paths their calls are taking outside of their own infrastructure, and the audio quality of the calls their users experience.

But this can be changed easily using a simple platform.

The Spearline platform first measures the audio quality of the call using in-country servers and an international standard audio quality measurement known as PESQ, which stands for Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Quality.

The audio quality score is then benchmarked against the millions of tests carried out in over 60 countries worldwide. Enterprises like contact centres can then determine the quality score they should and can expect to achieve.

Take the Following Example…

A company has a product that allows users to dial into a meeting using a PSTN or softphone. Many users reported call quality issues. An audio quality test was run to pinpoint the cause of the issue.

During the initial tests, the average audio quality PESQ score was 2.74 (out of a maximum of 4.5).

In addition to an audio quality test, an application was developed specifically to take control of the soundcard of a PC allowing them to send/receive audio to/from the softphone.

Step by step they suggested changes to improve the audio quality and measured the improvement after each step. They were also able to advise the customer to tailor their maintenance schedules to avoid similar problems in the future which had been a factor in the poor audio quality.

The customer saw an increase in the average audio quality from 2.74 up to 3.78 on the PESQ scale, an increase of 38%. Users consequently reported a dramatic improvement in the audio quality of their calls.

The organization has undertaken a development programme of incorporating better quality codecs to increase call quality further. They continue to run scheduled automated tests to report back to the customer on the effectiveness of the solution for the end-user audio quality of the call.

Josh O’Farrell

Typically, these problems arise from a number of different sources and, therefore, the resolution is an ongoing process in what is a dynamic environment with a large number of variables.

Number testing is essential for your contact centre. With stronger lines and faster connectivity, your customers will have a better experience dialling in and connecting with your agents.

For further information, visit: www.spearline.com.

Author: Robyn Coppell