How Do Call Center Transcriptions Work?

Transcriptions are the best way to ensure a reliable, accurate record of every call in your contact center. By converting audio conversations between agents and customers into written text, you have a reliable source to see who was speaking, what they said, and what agreements were made, not to mention valuable information for training and compliance.

As such, call center transcriptions are incredibly important for any organization. So how exactly do contact centers transcribe calls, what are the best practices for transcriptions, and how can you find a contact center provider with a quality transcription service?

Let’s explore.

How Does Call Center Transcribing Work?

Call center transcribing is the process of taking audio from contact center calls (whether from a live call or a recording) and converting it to text, with each speaker clearly noted.

However, several factors contribute to a good transcription solution and are necessary to ensure the transcripts are clear, accessible, and actionable.

Automated transcription (speech-to-text)

Speech-to-text is the core of any transcription solution and it’s what most people think of when talking about transcription solutions. Automated transcriptions use software with speech recognition technology to transcribe calls, either in real time or after the call.

This is far faster than manually transcribing calls. However, automated transcription also relies on the quality of the phone call and the technology powering it, so it may encounter accuracy issues. A high-quality phone system and reliable transcription solution are important for ensuring accurate, reliable transcripts.

Data storage

Once the call is transcribed, the next matter is where the data is stored and accessed. Transcribed data is stored in a database, where it’s then connected to the customer’s profile. This makes it easy to access for future reference, training, and quality assurance.

Transcription analysis

While transcripts are helpful, they don’t do organizations any good sitting untouched on a server. Analyzing transcripts gives contact centers a deeper understanding of agent performance, customer satisfaction, and overall efficiency.

Contact center transcription solutions often use artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing to analyze call transcripts for customer sentiment, important keywords, and script compliance. This provides actionable insights into companies’ customers and agents, empowering them to improve training or identify potential issues quickly.

What Is the Purpose of Call Center Transcription?

Once you have your transcripts, what do you do with them? There are several important uses for call center transcripts that can help your business, including:

Improved agent training

Each transcript records a real call, providing important insights into the agent’s performance, including their strengths and weaknesses. Managers can review the transcripts to see how agents handle their calls and then provide targeted coaching to help those agents grow.

Additionally, transcripts can be used as agent training examples for new hires. If an agent did exceptionally well, or a customer presented a unique challenge, new agents can review the transcripts during onboarding.

Enhanced customer support

Having transcriptions on record allows agents to retrieve and search past conversations quickly. They can use these conversational records to understand previous customer interactions and provide a more personalized service, including responses that factor in the customer’s history and past calls.

Quality assurance

Transcriptions provide a clear, detailed, and accurate record of conversations. Quality assurance teams can review these records to evaluate performance, ensure compliance with company standards, and track KPIs such as first-call resolution and script adherence.

All the insights from these records can help ensure that agents are properly equipped and customers receive the best support experience possible.

Better customer insights

Transcriptions are a valuable data source and can be used to identify common customer issues, pain points, and frequently asked questions. These customer insights are essential for improving customer service.

Organizations can use these insights to improve product offerings or their customer service protocols. Marketing and sales teams can even use these insights to craft copy and refine their pitches based on what customers are looking for.

Compliance and risk management

Many industries must follow strict legal or regulatory requirements, such as TCPA or GDPR. Keeping transcribed records of conversations is crucial for compliance, as they can be referred to when proving compliance or monitoring agents to ensure they remain fully compliant.

Improved call record accuracy

Written transcripts ensure contact centers have an accurate record of everything said during a call. This can help reduce misunderstandings or discrepancies in customer interactions, as well as provide clear records during disputes.

Limitations of Call Center Transcribing

While call center transcriptions are incredibly useful, they’re not without their limits. These are the potential concerns to keep in mind when looking at transcription solutions:

Potential accuracy issues

Automated transcriptions rely on what the speech-to-text software can hear and understand, which means that certain factors can impact their accuracy. Background noise, poor audio quality, and thick accents or dialects can potentially lead to errors in the transcribed text.

Specialized industry jargon or technical terms can also be difficult for call transcription software to transcribe properly unless it’s been trained to recognize those specific terms.

Privacy and security concerns

Transcripts can often contain sensitive customer information. If the data is not properly encrypted and stored, call centers run the risk of privacy breaches.

This is detrimental to any organization but can be particularly devastating to industries subject to strict regulations, such as healthcare or finance.

Loss of context and emotion

Transcripts capture spoken words but not the tone or emotion. This means they might not be able to convey certain nuances, such as sarcasm or reluctance, which makes it harder to assess customer satisfaction from the text alone.

Additional storage requirements

Storing large volumes of transcripts requires significant data storage space. This can lead to increased infrastructure costs, especially for contact centers with a high call volume.

Dependence on audio recording quality

Call transcripts are only as accurate as their recordings. If the recordings are poor quality, the transcriptions will suffer due to background noise or weak connections. This can lead to incomplete or inaccurate texts, which agents will need to fix to the best of their ability.

Best Practices for Using Transcriptions in Contact Centers

When using transcription software in your contact center, there are a few best practices you’ll want to keep in mind. These will help you make the most out of your transcriptions and gain the greatest benefits for your team.

• Look for patterns, not perfection: Transcripts allow you to look at individual calls to see what went right or wrong, but doing so is not productive. It’s more important to identify recurring themes, stumbling blocks, or questions across multiple calls rather than getting caught up in the minutia of individual interactions.
• Embrace the awkward silences: Calls suddenly going quiet can be concerning, but these moments can provide as much information as the conversations. Analyze periods of dead air to identify any knowledge gaps or system inefficiencies that may hold agents back so you can properly address them.
• Decode customer subtext: Transcripts can’t capture nuance or tone. Instead of looking at the literal meanings of each statement, consider the context and emotional undercurrents, as well as any unstated needs that the agents might be missing.
• Track linguistic evolution: Transcriptions help monitor the way customers speak, which is a subtle but important indicator of overall satisfaction and potential issues. Be sure to keep an eye on any changes in customer language and expressions over time to identify any emerging issues or trends you’ll want to be aware of.
• Cultivate “aha” moments: Transcriptions provide insights that can help agents throughout their careers. You can use these insights to create targeted learning opportunities and transform agent weaknesses into strengths, improving the quality of your contact center operations every day.

Work With a Trusted Contact Center Provider Like Nextiva

When you’re looking for a contact center solution, you’ll want one with high-quality, built-in call transcription features. To maximize the benefits and minimize the limitations of transcription tools, look for a trusted contact center service provider.

Nextiva is always a great choice for your contact center needs. Nextiva provides real-time transcriptions and AI-powered call summaries, which turn every customer interaction into an opportunity for growth and empower contact centers to be more efficient and effective.

In addition, Nextiva provides a wide range of powerful contact center features, including:

• Real-time insights, including call volume tracking, performance metrics, and team efficiency
• Customizable reports based on call data and displayed on easy-to-read dashboards
• Call recordings and analytics for quality assurance and training
• Trend analytics that monitor call trends across periods and locations to help guide informed decisions
• Operational optimization features to improve decision-making, reduce churn, and improve the customer service experience through actionable analytics

When you’re looking for a powerful, reliable platform for your contact center, Nextiva is always a good choice.

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