Uniphore is keen to work with Telcos to solve critical business problems

With a strong motive to keep customers happy at every service juncture, organizations today are deploying speech analytics software. Speech analytics is at the forefront of the corporate push to make intelligence gained from data not only valuable but actionable in real-time. Speech analytics has the power to create meaningful voice-related data which can help companies improve services, reduce costs, and grow revenue in their contact center and other business areas.

Uniphore Software Systems is one such popular company focused on transforming the consumer service experience through its speech design and deliver technology solutions. The company’s innovative and patented speech analytics solutions harness the power of natural speech to help enterprises address real consumer problems thereby addressing the need to attain customer satisfaction and improved consumer experience.

Samith Ramachandran, Vice President and Head of Professional Services at Uniphore Software Systems, took some time out for interaction with Voice&Data. He explains how speech analytics software is critical for improving customer service experience with specific relation to the telecom industry. Few excerpts:

Voice&Data: Where does the Indian telecom industry stand in terms of deployment of Speech Analytics software?

Samith Ramachandran: Speech Analytics as a technology is now at an inflection point. The technology is being rapidly adopted by enterprises across multiple industries to improve the customer service experience. The telecom industry is on par with the general trends that we have seen across industries globally. The key factors behind deploying conversational Analytics tools are improving customer service by understating customer intent and sentiments and enhancing workforce quality through agent training and coaching.

The awareness on conversational AI and how it can help deliver superior customer experience is changing the outlook towards AI enabled deep tech tools in the Telecom sector.

We would say that the adoption rate is slower in India as compared to the global trends, however, the awareness on conversational AI and how it can help deliver superior customer experience is changing the outlook towards AI enabled deep tech tools in the Telecom sector as well. Compliance, which topped the list of reasons to deploy speech analytics in 2017, has fallen from the top tier, giving way to long-standing drivers with direct impact on customer experience and loyalty in 2018.

Voice&Data: Do you think the telecom industry can turn around its revenue with the deployment of Speech Analytics Software?

Samith Ramachandran: Conversational AI solutions comprising of Conversational Analytics, Assistants and Security has the potential to deliver both top line and bottom line impact by Improving Customer Experience, Retention, Upsell/Cross-sell & Efficiencies and Reduce Fraud & Operational costs.

Sixty percent of companies look at speech analytics as a tool to support marketing initiatives.

Sixty percent of companies look at speech analytics as a tool to support marketing initiatives. Marketing support is tied with quick identification of ‘root cause’ of customer experience failures, reflecting general recognition that analytics play an important role in detecting the words and instances that coincide with a customer’s failure to accomplish her desired task. Hence, the implementation of speech analytics can hold a key role in the turning around of the companies.

Voice&Data: How is Speech recognition technology regarded as a Silo Buster?

Samith Ramachandran: Our own experiences with deploying Speech Analytics and Virtual Assistant solutions with various large to medium enterprises across the globe has shown us that the success of such solutions depends heavily on collaboration across functions such as Customer Service, IT, Business (Sales, Marketing) and Corporate. The KPIs that we drive with our solutions such as Sales Conversion, Collections Performances, NPS, Agent Performance, Persistency, Retention, Churn etc. are larger cross-functional goals requiring teams across functions to work together to design, analyze, extract insights and drive actions.

We have closely worked with well-known telecom service providers to pilot two of our solutions.

Voice&Data: Uniphore has placed 3 speech analytics products in the market. How have these products made inroads into the telecom industry and what difference has it created in the telecom company's revenues?

Samith Ramachandran: Uniphore has made significant advancements in the area and has already added big names to its global clientele. We have closely worked with well-known telecom service providers to pilot two of our solutions namely auMinaTM and akeiraTM for driving key KPIs such as Agent Performance, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Retention, and Operational Efficiency. Our customers have started to reap the benefits of deploying conversational analytics products already.

We are keen to work with Telecoms to solve critical business problems that they are facing today namely, upliftment of ARPU and Customer Experience/Retention. Uniphore’s conversational AI-powered product suite can become the key to unleash better business outcomes.

Uniphore’s conversational AI-powered product suite can become the key to unleash better business outcomes.

Voice&Data: How has Uniphore planned its future to serve the telecom industry?

Samith Ramachandran: Uniphore is working on building Industry/Domain-ready Analytics and Conversations packs for its solutions which will enable Telecos to rapidly deploy our solutions and help them see and reap benefits from day one without having to go through long implementation cycles. We have similar Domain Packs for other industries as well such as BFSI, Hospitality, and BPO.

Voice&Data: How are technologies like AI, VR bringing a change to speech analytics software deployment?

Samith Ramachandran: Uniphore’s solutions are already enriched and armed with Deep Learning & AI components which make the solution faster & smarter in extracting the right actionable insights from conversations. VR is gaining attention and is on the evolutionary roadmap of Conversational Assistants. Integrated with a strong Conversational AI platform like ours it will change the way customers will interact with the business in the future!