RESEARCH
It seems that interaction analytics is gradually developing a positive following amongst those using it.
The following chart shows the proportion of survey respondents using analytics for the stated purpose who report that it is“ very useful”, and it is interesting to note that survey respondents’ views of the usefulness of analytics for CX improvements have improved since 2018.
All of the use cases listed have seen a jump in the proportion of companies stating that they are‘ very useful’, with“ identifying business process failures” rising from 40 % in 2018 to 53 % at the end of 2024, and the identification of self-service opportunities being particularly impressive.
Moving beyond predictive analytics, prescriptive analytics will help businesses understand how they are going to remedy a business problem based on the data that has already been collected and analyzed. This is where the adaptability of machine learning comes into play in terms of helping to map out a business’ s next move, including simulating scenarios based on facts and probabilities rather than a business leader’ s instinct.
The next level to analytics is unsupervised clustering powered by machine learning models that learn and uncover hidden patterns without human help, grouping words, questions and phrases with similar meanings. AI-powered anomaly models identify items, events or observations that do not conform to an expected pattern or other items in a dataset.
WHAT SENIOR LEADERS SHOULD CONSIDER DOING
• Reframe the Contact Center as a Strategic Asset AI analytics give the contact center a new role: a real-time barometer of business health and customer sentiment. This should elevate its importance in corporate strategy conversations.
• Break Down Silos Across Departments Insights must flow to product, marketing, IT and operations, not just stay in QA or CX. Consider forming cross-functional insight teams tasked with acting on analytics.
12 CONTACT CENTER PIPELINE
FIGURE 2
CHANGE IN VIEWS OF USEFULNESS OF ANALYTICS FOR IMPROVING CX, 2018 & 2024
• Invest in Actionable Analytics Knowing what happened is not enough: understand not only the“ why” but also what can be done to solve the issue. Seek platforms that offer root cause analysis, anomaly detection and prescriptive insights that directly inform next steps.
• Think Beyond Quality Assurance Most analytics investments start with compliance or performance monitoring. Expand the analytics use case to drive innovation, reduce churn and inform digital transformation.
• Make Sentiment and Emotion Data Work Harder Apply this data to refine coaching, target CSAT surveys, detect fraud and even boost sales conversions by modelling and sharing top-performer behavior.
WITH THE RIGHT TOOLS AND ORGANIZATIONAL MINDSET, AI CAN HELP YOU NOT ONLY HEAR WHAT CUSTOMERS ARE SAYING, BUT TRULY UN- DERSTAND WHAT THEY FEEL AND WANT FROM YOUR ORGANIZATION.
ARE YOU LISTENING OR JUST HEARING?
Customers are speaking to you all the time: are you just hearing them or actually listening?
With the right tools and organizational mindset, AI can help you not only hear what customers are saying, but truly understand what they feel and want from your organization.
It’ s time to make every conversation count.
AI for Business Insights is available for download, free of charge from ContactBabel.
Steve Morrell is the Managing Director of ContactBabel, which was founded in 2001 to provide high-quality research and analysis to the US and UK contact center industries.