Speech Analytics in Banking

Speech Analytics Could Have Saved Banks Millions on PPI Pay-outs

Banks could have been in a better position to identify costly PPI (Payment Protection Insurance) mis-selling mistakes by using new live speech analytics, saving them hundreds of millions, if not billions of pounds on customer pay-outs.

New, emerging live speech analytics technology can help any organisation, and in particular highly regulated banks, be in a position to know exactly what is being said, or sold, during or straight after every phone call handled by their call centre agents.

Analysing calls

Analysing all calls as they are occurring gives supervisors the ability to identify errors or omissions and help agents rectify calls to protect the customer, and at the same time save the company millions in regulatory fines or customer compensation.

New Live Speech Analytics can identify mis-selling: innocent or otherwise
Speech analytics solutions have been around for a number of years, providing post-call trend analysis for call centres. Due to limitations in processing speed and prohibitive costs, only a selection of all voice recordings were actually analysed to provide valuable insight into customer and agent behaviour.

Identify mis-selling

Now a new generation of speech analytics technology is emerging via specialist vendors which is taking ‘first call resolution’ to the next level, enabling companies to avoid any risk of mis-selling earlier, to recover quickly from mistakes, or at worst detect them. New speech analytics solutions include the ability to analyse every call as it is happening, in turn triggering live prompts to an agent’s or supervisor’s screen.

Any keyword or phrase can be searched for. Any question and answer combination can be used as a trigger to prompt an agent to change the course of their conversation during a call. And all the time supervisors can see a real-time picture of what is being said in their call centre without having to physically listen to calls.

Future enhancements will even see speech analytics identifying different customer emotions, giving supervisors the ability to flag up angry or distressed customers or agents in real-time.

Applying new live speech analytics technology could have helped identify the most inappropriate sales of PPI, giving agents the chance to rectify a mis-sell, thus saving the banks an embarrassing apology and hundreds of million of pounds worth of pay-outs.

Compliance is paramount in avoiding fines and compensation

Mis-selling is just one of the many issues around compliance affecting banks, insurance companies and financial enterprises. Such companies need to demonstrate to the Financial Services Authority (FSA) that they are trading compliantly including voice recording calls made and received over traditional landlines, and in some cases mobile phones.

Live speech analytics can ensure 100% compliance on every phone call handled by every call centre agent in a cost effective way that does not require expensive professional services or costly integration with existing voice recording equipment. Indeed the Return on Investment (ROI) of deploying such a solution can be realised, in some cases, in less than a year!