VoiceSensor

VoiceSense, an Israeli company, focuses on the use of voice analysis to provide companies with real-time personal and customer intelligence. Their patented VoiceSensor is an automatic system for monitoring customer dissatisfaction in call centers. This technology highlights behavioral profiles, temperament, and mood changes that are reflected in human speech patterns during these calls. VoiceSensor can turn data from customer interactions in call centers into useful information that will help businesses enhance their sales outcomes as well as their customer retention, loyalty, and satisfaction. Organizations that explore the use of VoiceSensor in their call centers can gain a competitive advantage in their industry, as they will be better equipped to recognize and therefore to handle dissatisfaction with customer service that are often not expressed by the customer.

VoiceSensor’s technology is based on a patent-pending speech analysis system that reveals customer dissatisfaction by detecting emotions in telephone calls. It integrates the examination of speech acoustic parameters with techniques that capture dialog dynamics, as well as analyzing the prosodic parameters of speech (e.g. intonation, speech patterns) during conversations between customers and their service representatives. By doing so, this system detects negative customer emotions and then uses the collected data to warn organizations when customers are dissatisfied with the service that they are receiving.

The key to VoiceSensor’s ability to function for the customer service sector is that its signal processing does not need to learn individual voice characteristics in order to measure emotion. In simple terms, VoiceSensor serves its purpose because it can read the emotions from any customer, and is not only able to analyze pre-programmed voices.

There are many advantages for organizations that choose to use this technology once it becomes available. Customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention are the most important goals of today’s businesses. Since call centers are the main communications channels between businesses and their customers, companies will benefit from the voice analysis that VoiceSensor provides, as it will enable them to improve customer service and to provide customers with a more personalized and enjoyable experience. VoiceSensor’s functions will allow its corporate users to gain a competitive advantage in their industry, as managers are notified in real-time when their customers are dissatisfied. With these real-time notifications, managers can deal with dissatisfaction promptly so that it does not destroy the possibility for future business dealings with that particular customer. Most importantly, VoiceSensor enables organizations to improve their customer service policies because it automatically brings recurring service issues to management’s attention via the continuous reports and updates that it sends to them. VoiceSensor’s functions will therefore allow any company who uses it to gain a competitive advantage in the customer service sector, because they will be able to offer enhanced “intelligent” customer service that other companies will not have access to.

Although VoiceSensor's capabilities will truly give a “leg up” to its users, it seems as though VoiceSensor is the type of service that users can become dependent on to find, to solve, and to fix their customer service issues. This dependence on technology may cause employees to have a more lackadaisical attitude towards their jobs and therefore become fully dependent on VoiceSensor. In other words, call center representatives may lose their connection with the customer. Their attitudes may become one of “why bother dealing with the issues that arise, VoiceSensor can handle it!” this possible dependence on technology rather than the human touch may actually lessen customer satisfaction in the long run and counteract VoiceSensor’s benefits.

Sources:

Retrieved
October 1, 2007
Web site:
http://www.voicesense.com/index.html

Bar-Sadeh, U. (2000). Invitation for Technological Cooperation.
Retrieved
October 1, 2007, from Matimop
Web site:
http://www.matimop.org.il/newrdinf/company/c6701.htm

(2007). Canadian Patents Database.
Retrieved
October 1, 2007, from Canadian Intellectual Property Office
Web site:
http://patents1.ic.gc.ca/details?patent_number=2456625