Sutherland Global leverages Speech Analytics from Verint to improve compliance in collections processes
The Verint Speech Analytics analyzes millions of customer interactions in a near real time basis and provides valuable insights. These actionable insights help identify opportunities to simplify processes and to understand better ways of handling customer interactions to meet required business outcomes. These insights help Sutherland deliver best in class customer experience while also driving internal processes’ efficiencies.
Sutherland leverages continuous improvement framework to ensure these insights are shared with the service delivery teams and upstream functions such as hiring and training so that they continue to hire better, train better and deliver better. Sutherland also shares this intelligence with its clients to help them improve their products, policies and end-to-end processes to allow for a seamless delivery of service to the end customers. Sutherland has deployed Verint speech analytics for several large clients that are serviced from multiple sites in in US, Jamaica, India and Philippines.
Verint speech analytics has helped drive significant improvements in three key areas
#1 Improvement in Compliance in Collections Processes
Collections team at Sutherland, working for an American bank, incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties as consultants were inconsistent to update the dialer and CRM records when customers requested for “Do not Call” option.
Verint speech analytics now scans 100% calls to identify customers who request ‘Do Not Call’. Mapping these customers against dialer and CRM records helps identify errors which are handled through exception management process to ensure 100% compliance. Sutherland has had Zero penalties since the new process has been deployed.
#2 Improvement in Sales
To enable sales, it is important that customer service consultants offer the right products to the customers. ‘Offer Rate’ therefore has been a key performance metric for consultants. Detailed analysis of these sales calls using Verint speech analytics provided a critical insight. The propensity to sell is not just a factor of being able to offer a product but is driven by the ability to offer the right product as per customers’ needs and situations. To be able to offer the right product, it is important that the consultants ask the right discovery questions.
Post speech analytics deployment, Sutherland changed its operational processes and performance metrics to ensure consultants asked the right discovery questions before offering a product. This operational change has helped a Sutherland site to become the number one (1) sales site in the entire client network
#3 Improvement in Customer Retention
Analysis of calls of customers who call in to disconnect a service provided useful insights around reasons for disconnection, competitor landscape, and the best way to handle those interactions that enable customer retention.
On implementing speech analytics, Anurag Avlash, Vice President and Global Head of Customer Experience at Sutherland Global has to say, “When deploying speech analytics, organizations must not view it purely as a cost optimization tool. Speech analytics is a business enablement tool that should be leveraged to obtain answers to unanswered business questions. These answers, based on analysis of 100% customer interactions provide solid business intelligence around key business problems. This intelligence helps us understand – evolving customers needs, operational practices that help meet those needs and ways to improve internal process efficiencies. The return on investment from this tool is best calculated on improved sales, reduced churn, improved NPS/CSAT, reduced handle times and improved compliance. Successful speech analytics deployment is an iterative cycle that begins with objectively framing a business question, obtaining insights, actioning insights, gaining improvements, and then framing the next set of business questions. It truly drives the philosophy of continuous process improvement”
Partnering with Sutherland Global, Anil Chawla, MD Customer Engagement Solutions, Verint said “We are proud to be the agents of change for Sutherland’s global contact centers. We look forward to further strengthen Sutherland’s customer engagement play by combining technology people and Knowledge Management.”
