Identity theft is a serious concern for everyone these days, and companies must do what they can to protect their customers’ personal information. Security and fraud have become major concerns for businesses in all industries. Voice biometrics can help provide secure and authentic customer service through your call center by improving authentication processes.

Speech recognition and voice biometrics are sometimes confused. The two are not the same. Speech recognition technology can tell what you are saying but not who is saying it. Voice biometrics are the personal characteristics each person has in their voice. No two voices are the same. There are three main ways your voice identifies you:

  1. What you say (identified by speech recognition).
  2. How you say it (speech patterns, accents, etc.)
  3. Sound waves created by your vocal tract which includes your larynx, mouth, and nose.

Voice biometrics are only concerned with the sound waves your voice makes. Sound waves are very hard to change and are independent of what you say and how you say it, even if you are speaking another language. Using voice biometrics in your business can benefit you by providing increased caller validation, improving your costs, and creating more positive customer interactions.

Increased Caller Validation

It's important for call centers to be proactive when it comes to cyber security. With the use of voice biometrics call centers no longer need to ask a gamut of questions in order to verify a caller’s identity. With voice biometrics, there is no mistaking who is calling - yet it's estimated that 10 to 25% of callers incorrectly answer verification questions. By using voice biometrics in your call center, there is no longer the chance of mistaken identity when verifying a caller is who they say they are. Using voice biometrics in your call center increases security by improving your caller validation process.

Improved Costs

By reducing the steps required for caller verification, call centers are effectively reducing the time it takes to handle customer calls. Reducing the time spent per call significantly reduces the costs associated with each call. Improving call efficiency has the added benefit of also improving call center costs.

Better Customer Interactions

Improving caller verification processes through the use of voice biometrics has benefits for your customers as well. Without having to answer several challenge questions, your customers will have a much more pleasant experience with your call center. Optimizing your call center customer experience means that customers will be more likely to say good things about their experience with your company. Voice biometrics make the authentication process easier and more efficient for your customers as well as your call center agents.

If you're looking for more ways to improve your business processes check out our solutions to optimize your workforce. KOVA's Enterprise Workforce Optimization Solutions help organizations boost employee performance and customer service in their organization. KOVA Corp has a long-standing history of excellent customer service. To learn more about how we can help you optimize your business processes, contact us today.

A customer experience map can help provide a number of insights into the experiences your contact center is providing for your customers. Business is gained by controlling your customer’s experiences with your organization. In order to control your customer’s experience, you must first have a thorough understanding of what that experience is. Here’s a four-step plan for mapping successful customer experiences in your contact center.

Step 1: Actions and Tasks

The first step in creating a customer experience map is to take note of all the things your customers do when interacting with your company. At the very minimum, you must map the beginning, middle, and end of their experience with you. What are the actions and tasks they are completing during the beginning, middle, and end of their experience with your company?

One way to find out is by investing in enterprise feedback management software. Enterprise feedback management software will tell you which tasks a customer completes when engaging with your company and provide you valuable insights into those experiences. You’ll need those insights for Step 2 of the customer experience mapping process.

Step 2: Thoughts and Feelings

One of the keys to improving customer experience feedback is to make sure you’re asking the right questions. Asking the right questions can help you attach customers’ thoughts and feelings to the actions noted in Step 1. Here’s where you note what your customers thought about their experience with your call center and how it made them feel.

Step 3: Touchpoints

A touchpoint is any interaction with your customer. This can be face-to-face, online, in the store, etc. You want to make sure all the interactions your customer had with your company are included on your customer experience map so you can get a complete picture of what your customer is experiencing. Be sure to note things like who in your call center the customer interacted with and what the result of their interaction was. If the customer purchased something at any point in their experience, how did they pay? You want to record all these details in your customer experience map.

Step 4: Stages

Now that you have mapped your customers’ actions, tasks, thoughts, feelings, and touchpoints, you will likely see some definite stages emerge in relation to your customers’ interactions with your call center. Here’s an example: Stage 1 - Initial Contact with Call Center, Stage 2 - Explanation of Reason for the Call, Stage 3 - Resolution or Escalation of Call. Creating stages allows you to identify if there are any opportunities for improvement at any stage.

Mapping your customers’ complete experience with your call center can provide a number of insights, especially as you are analyzing the stages they go through. This will give you an idea of where you need to improve your call center processes to make your customer experience even better.

KOVA provides enterprise workforce optimization solutions, including Customer Experience Survey software, that can help you when mapping successful customer experiences in your contact center. To learn more about how KOVA’s software solutions can help you with customer experience mapping, contact us today.

Live chat used to be the fastest growing method of communication with customers, but that position is now being held by chatbots. It seems like more and more tasks are becoming automated these days. This includes contact center activity - but are customers willing to accept this? Here’s everything you need to know about live chat and chatbots in your contact center, so you can make the best decision for your operation.

Live Chat

A 2014 British customer satisfaction survey by eDigital showed that the majority of customers preferred live chat over email, social media, apps, SMS, and telephone when communicating with call centers. When done properly, live chat can improve customer interactions. There are a number of benefits live chat interactions provide for the company as well.

Experienced agents are able to handle three or four live chats at the same time, which increases their efficiency when compared to telephone conversations. Live chat also allows agents to be able to paste their answers from a variety of pre-typed answers in order to respond to the most frequent customer concerns as quickly as possible. Live chat also costs less compared to telephone conversations.

Chatbots

Chatbots take cost savings even further than live chat. They also have the ability to fully automate the contact center experience by using artificial intelligence (AI) to carry on conversations with your customers. A common example of a chatbot is a dialogue box that pops up when you arrive at a website and asks what it can help you with today. Bots create cost savings in your call center by answering hundreds of thousands of service requests at a time.

In order to make the best use of chatbots, there are four crucial tips for integrating chatbots into your call center.

  1. Chatbots are most effective when they are used alongside human call center agents, not as a replacement for them.
  2. Start implementing chatbots sooner rather than later to benefit the most from this new technology. Prepare to invest in them and learn as much as you can about how to use them to your advantage.
  3. Make sure the chatbot you choose can handle many different call center scenarios. You don’t want your customers to be able to tell when they are chatting with a bot.
  4. Develop your own team of resources to help you launch and maintain your chatbots. Your call center should have a team of employees whose responsibility is the optimal functioning of the bots.

Whether deciding on live chat, chatbots, or a combination of the two, you’ll want to make sure your customers approve. Many customers would rather chat with a real person than a bot. If you’re not sure what your customers think, you can survey them using KOVA’s Verint Media Recorder Customer Feedback. Verint Media Recorder Customer Feedback can help you gather valuable information from your customers through IVR or email surveys. KOVA has a long history of providing outstanding customer service and expert software solutions. To learn more about how we can help you improve your contact center experience, contact us today.

 

Public safety is an industry where keeping up with the latest trends and information is very  important. Thankfully, there is no shortage of conferences you can attend to glean the latest and greatest information. Whether you are on the frontlines as an EMS provider or working the phone lines as a 9-1-1 operator, here are some of the best public safety conferences coming up in 2018.

2018 IPSA Conference

The International Public Safety Association is presenting training for all public safety officials and first responders in Tempe, Arizona, February 21 to 23. The event is open to US and international EMS, law enforcement, fire, telecommunications, emergency management, and allied emergency responders. The agenda includes topics such as working through violence, mass casualty incident workshops, no cost tools and services, and how to effectively respond to calls when tensions escalate.

National Security and Public Safety Summit

Learn to be prepared for the unknown through geographic information systems (GIS) technology at the National Security and Public Safety Summit at the Esri User Conference at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront, July 7 - 10. Learn how GIS is being used by public safety and national security professionals around the world to protect communities against unpredictable threats.

APCO Conference and Expo

APCO’s Conference and Expo is the number one event for public safety communications professionals. The event includes networking and education on a variety of topics including frontline communications, leadership development, and communication center management. Takes place August 5 - 8, Las Vegas, NV.

National Sheriffs’ Association Conference and Exposition

The NSA Conference and Expo is one of the largest of its kind. Exhibitors play a large role in the conference’s success, displaying equipment for every facet of police work including jails, prisoner transport, and courtroom security. The NSA conference and expo includes over 60 workshops and seminars including topics such as law enforcement, jail operations, service of process, and court and judicial security. June 15 - 19, New Orleans, LA.

EMS Pro Expo

The EMS Pro Expo connects the EMS community by providing the latest information on EMS technology, best practices, and the best tools of the trade. Networking activities include a golf tournament, comedy show, and performances from the rock band Mullett. Takes place May 30 - June 2, Mohegan Sun’s Convention Center, Uncasville, CT.

Vision Zero Advocate Conference

Taking place at the Delta Toronto Hotel, February 28 to March 2, 2018, the Vision Zero Advocate Conference is the place to be if you work in traffic safety and have the goal of zero traffic-related fatalities and injuries. The conference will focus on diverse perspectives for implementing the Vision Zero initiative.

KOVA hopes to see you at an event this year, but if that’s not possible, check out our public safety solutions online. We offer solutions to help with everything from physical security information management to recording and quality assurance systems to situation management support. To learn more about our public safety software solutions, contact us today.

Over the last few years, businesses have gone from trying to provide customer service everywhere - from phones to chat to email to Facebook to Twitter and on and on - to focusing on a few strategic channels. Many companies who have been focusing on the omnichannel approach for several years have done so with only mediocre results. Because of this, this omnichannel approach is beginning to fall by the wayside.

So, what comes after omnichannel? The next step seems to be the adoption of a strategic, integrated approach that focuses on consumers and how companies can be relevant and different in consumers’ eyes.

What is an integrated approach?

By trying to be everywhere, companies have lost touch with what it is their customers want. Integration involves getting back to the fundamentals of your consumers’ behavior and then choosing channels based on what your consumers want. The integrated approach involves selecting the most efficient channels based on demonstrated consumer behavior. This will be different for every company and it’s certainly not about trying to be everywhere. It’s about getting focused on your target customers and determining which channels they are using and for what purposes they are using the channel.

How can you be relevant?

Being relevant is all about meeting your customers’ needs. In the eyes of your customer, if you have the best solution to their problem, then your solution is the most relevant to that customer and you will earn their business. The best way to find out if you are meeting your customers’ needs better than your competition is to ask your customers. What problems do they have? How are the products or services you are offering solving those problems? It doesn’t hurt to ask consumers about your competition too. You can learn a lot by finding out how well your competition is meeting the needs of consumers.

How can you be different?

Customers care about the experiences they have with companies, not necessarily the channel used to achieve that experience. Your customer service experience is one way you can differentiate yourself from your competition. If you can optimize your company’s customer service experience, you will be miles ahead of your competitors.

Whether or not you choose to stick with your omnichannel strategy or try a fully integrated approach, your customer service should span both the physical and virtual worlds in order to be the most effective. Enterprise Feedback Management Software from KOVA helps your company get a complete view into what people think about your company, your products and your services. To learn more about how Enterprise Feedback Management can help you improve your sales, contact us today.

Technology enables us to capture more data than we ever have before, but the key to taking advantage of so much data is knowing how to analyze it and apply that analysis in a useful way. Public safety agencies can use data capture programs to analyze data in order to find patterns that will enable them to prevent disasters before they happen.

There are four main ways public safety agencies use data: social media monitoring, drawing connections between cases, creating crime prediction models, and cybersecurity. In order to see how data analytics help prevent disasters, it’s important to also understand what data capture programs and analytics are.

Data Capture Programs

Data capture programs record data in the form of videos, photos, and sound on your smartphone. Once you have the data on your phone, the data capture program allows you to quickly label, categorize, store, and transmit the data securely and easily.

This is important in the public safety industry because emergency workers don’t always have the time to get back to the office before they’re called out to the next emergency. A data capture program that allows them to upload and securely send photos or videos while still at the scene of an accident is a huge time saver.

Data Analytics

Data analytics involves taking the data that’s been captured and cataloged and giving it structure. The data is analyzed to find patterns by sorting it, searching it, and making it more usable. The key to obtaining actionable data is knowing what you want to use the data for. Applying data analytics can help keep us safe from threats, but the key is knowing what to do with the results of the analysis and then taking action.

How Data Capture and Data Analytics Transform Business

Data analytics has the potential to transform businesses by finding patterns in large volumes of data. A good example of this is credit card fraud. By detecting patterns in the data and observing how rampant identity theft was in the form of credit card fraud, the banking industry implemented PIN and chip technology as well as new ways of identifying fraudulent charges.

By providing more information to businesses, data capture and analytics allows for more informed and better decision making when it comes to making policies and protecting the public but nothing changes if no action is taken so make sure you have a plan.

Data capture programs can completely revolutionize the way your public safety employees do their jobs. It will make them more efficient and provide better and more accurate data that can be used for future decision making.

KOVA’s public safety solutions allow emergency responders to share vital information quickly and easily, making it possible to record and analyze data gathered. The Silent Partner App is cell phone and mobile recording software that can capture text messages, video, phone, and photos as well as catalog and upload them easily and efficiently.

Silent Partner will truly change the way your team does their jobs. To learn more about how KOVA can help you implement a data capture program in your public safety agency, contact us today.

Public safety is a big concern to everyone. Technology plays a major role in keeping public safety workers and citizens safe. Whether it’s an app on your phone that keeps you safe while you are walking alone at night or data encryption on your computer to protect your personal information, technology works hard for you everyday.

Technology continues to grow by leaps and bounds and this is no different in the public safety sector. Some of the latest developments in public safety technology are focusing on things like data analytics, cybercrime, and Ambient UX. Here’s what’s happening in public safety tech in 2018.

Data Analytics

Technology has made it relatively easy to obtain information on just about anything. An important consideration in public safety is how to use this information to prevent or solve crimes. One way of doing this is to ensure public safety solutions include embedded analytics that provide proactive alerts based on real-time data. By being proactive rather than reactive, more crimes and emergencies will be prevented before they happen. Crimes and emergencies that aren’t prevented will be solved and responded to faster.

Cybercrime

The down side of technological advances is that they allow individuals with ill intentions to progress as well. As a result, cybercrime is a very real concern and new ways of committing cybercrime increase as fast as technology. Public safety agencies will need to come up with new ways of dealing with data theft and data manipulation. As a result, public safety agencies need to make sure their staff are trained to deal with cybercrimes. Having a cybercrime expert in-house is also very beneficial.

Ambient UX

Ambient UX is all about timing. It’s a design approach that allows the user to access the data they need when they need it. It’s not uncommon for employees to access several devices while on the job. This includes smartphones, cameras, desktops, radios, and notebooks, to name a few. With Ambient UX technology, all devices become linked and employees become more efficient. Patterns in the data are detected that enhance job-related skills, improve situational analysis, and solve problems in new ways.

The aim of design technologies like Ambient UX is to keep user safety at the forefront of public safety solutions by considering all emerging technologies in the design process. Whether you’re a public safety professional or just an advocate for public safety technology, it’s important to recognize the role technology plays in the latest public safety trends.

If you’re a public safety professional, the Silent Partner app by KOVA will change the way you work. Silent Partner is a data capture app that lets you to securely take pictures, record video or voice, and send your files wherever you need them to go. It even includes speech analytics and case management features to help you perform tasks more efficiently. If you’re interested in increasing your productivity on the job with KOVA’s Silent Partner app, contact us today.

Technology has enabled consumers to be connected to their various devices 24/7 if they choose to be. Smartphones can do almost every task that was once only available to owners of PC’s. With the invention of apps, smartphone users are able to stay connected to social media, the internet, and email wherever they go. In the age of the connected consumer, businesses risk losing customers by not keeping up with their connectivity.

To provide optimal customer service in 2018, the age of the connected consumer, businesses need to consider all the ways customers are connected. Good and bad experiences can spread very quickly when consumers have so many methods of communication at their fingertips. There are three things businesses need to keep in mind when dealing with connected consumers.

Personal Touch

Connected consumers still want a personal touch even though they aren’t dealing with you face-to-face. This can be achieved through personal offers based on consumers’ past buying or browsing history. In order to provide personal experiences for your consumers, you must have reliable and relevant data on which to base the offers. You can use data to obtain actionable intelligence.

Need for Immediate Attention

When you are connected 24/7, you get used to instant gratification. Companies need to prepare their customer contact centers for this by intermingling the channels through which their customers can find them. Integrate social media into your customer service center offerings, for example. Connected consumers have higher expectations of timely interactions and social media is a convenient way of connecting to your consumers quickly.

Connected consumers don’t like to wait for a response from the customer contact center. They are also more likely to leave a review because they are so connected. Aim to make their experience a positive one by applying measures to make contact center response time as quick as possible.

Attention to Detail

Customers like it when you focus on their needs rather than your desire to make a sale. A connected consumer has likely done a lot of research regarding their purchases simply because they are connected and it’s easy. This doesn’t mean they don’t need further information. The five stages of listening can also be applied to conversations that don’t involve speaking. Receive the information, understand and remember it, then evaluate and respond.

When providing the best customer service in the age of the connected consumer, you need to make sure you pay attention to what the customer’s wants and needs are, respond to them as quickly as possible and provide service that is as customized to their needs as possible.

If you’re not sure how consumers feel about the customer experience you are providing, check out KOVA’s Customer Experience Survey Software. With a longstanding history of excellent customer service and expert applications of systems and software, KOVA can help with customer experience and retention. Our Customer Experience Survey Software lets you know what customers truly believe about their experience with your company. To learn more about how you can gather valuable feedback from your customers, contact us today.

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