Most of the contact centers are very noisy. The noise usually contains human voices like the speech of agents sitting in the background or the voice of the supervisor giving instructions. Apart from being a nuisance does this noise have an impact on performance and can ROI be improved by eliminating this noise? In this post we will discuss few implications of this noise and their impact on the overall performance of the call center.

Average Handle Time

AHT is one of the most important measurable parameters in call centers. How does the noise influence the AHT? According to this case study once the noise has been removed the AHT was reduced by 2%. The main reasons supporting the AHT reduction are: eliminating the need for repetitions and also reducing distractions that might be caused when, for example, the customer overhears other conversations in the call center.

Customer Experience

When a customer talks to an agent in the call center he or she expects to hear the voice of this agent only. When the customer overhears other agents talking it reduces the experience from the call. The damage is even worse when we analyze outbound sales calls in which the agent is disturbing the customer and the noise gives the customer the feeling of a market or a bazaar. The next question is does CX have any correlation with ROI? The answer is positive and there are many studies showing this. For example, studies indicate that “the correlation between CX and repurchasing is very high (Pearson correlation= 0.82)”.

Voice Analytics

More and more call centers deploy speech analytic technologies like speech to text and emotion detection. The accuracy of these analytics is reduced when the voice of the primary agent is incorporated with other voices like the supervisor shouting in the background. Such reduction in the accuracy of the analytics reduces the quality of any other marketing or operational decision that is based on it and therefore causing an overall reduction in the performance of the call center.

I’ll have what she’s having…

When a customer overhears other agents talking he or she is exposed to private or sensitive information. For example, the customer might overhear a commercial offer or a discount that is now being given to another customer. In such case the customer will not hesitate to ask for the same commercial terms… in such scenarios the noise not only have a bad impact on the honesty of the organization, it also have a negative impact on the bottom line.

Conclusion

If you manage a call center and suffer from noise, do not consider this as a nuisance only since this noise has a direct impact on the performance of your call center. Take control over the noise and improve your ROI. You can start by mapping the source of noise in your call centers and contact the experts to help you remove it.