Real-time Speech Analytics for Contact Center Agent Assistance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Contact center agents face challenges in efficiently handling customer interactions due to the lack of real-time access to relevant information, leading to increased operational costs and reduced customer satisfaction.
Innovation Solution
Integration of real-time call monitoring with speech analytics using phonetically based speech analysis techniques to identify key phrases in live audio streams, allowing for the presentation of relevant knowledge articles to agents during interactions, and enabling supervisors to review and participate in conversations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If real-time speech analysis is implemented to identify key phrases in live audio streams, then agent efficiency and customer satisfaction are improved, but system complexity and processing requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a speech analytics engine as an intermediary component that processes live audio streams and extracts key phrases. This engine acts as a mediator between the audio input and the knowledge article retrieval system, transforming unstructured speech into structured data that can be used for real-time agent assistance. The intermediary handles the complexity of speech processing internally, presenting a simplified interface to the rest of the system.
Solution Approach 2:
The system extracts only the most relevant key phrases from the full audio stream using phonetic-based speech analysis. Instead of processing entire conversations, the system identifies and extracts specific key phrases that trigger knowledge article retrieval. This extraction approach reduces processing requirements while maintaining effectiveness in improving agent efficiency.
2Loss of time
If knowledge articles are presented to agents during ongoing interactions, then handling time is reduced, but information processing load on agents increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-processing and indexing knowledge articles before they are needed during customer interactions. When key phrases are identified in live audio, the system quickly retrieves pre-processed knowledge articles rather than searching in real-time. This preliminary preparation significantly reduces handling time while presenting only relevant, pre-filtered information to agents.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies local quality by providing different types of information support to agents based on the specific context and needs of each interaction. The system analyzes the conversation context and delivers targeted knowledge articles relevant to the specific issue being discussed, rather than presenting generic or overwhelming amounts of information. This contextualized approach reduces agent cognitive load while maintaining effectiveness.
3Speed
If phonetically based speech analysis is used to process live audio streams, then real-time key phrase identification is achieved, but computational resources and processing power increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts only essential phonetic features from the audio stream rather than processing the complete audio signal. By focusing on key phonetic patterns and characteristics that identify specific key phrases, the system achieves real-time processing speed while significantly reducing computational resource requirements compared to full-spectrum audio analysis.
4Measurement precision
If multiple knowledge articles are selectively presented based on relevance scoring, then information accuracy is improved, but selection processing time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies partial action by retrieving and scoring only a limited subset of potentially relevant knowledge articles rather than evaluating all available articles. The relevance scoring mechanism quickly filters articles based on key phrase matching and contextual relevance, presenting the top few most relevant articles to the agent. This approach maintains high information accuracy while minimizing selection processing time.
Data Source
AI summary
Some general aspects of the invention relate to systems and methods for improving contact center agent performance, for instance, by integrating real-time call monitoring with speech analytics to present agents with information useful to the handling of the current calls. In some implementations, phonetically based speech analysis techniques are applied to process live audio streams to identify key words and/or phrases of relevance, based on which knowledge articles can be selectively presented to agents to drive more efficient business processes.