Conversational Intelligence Guide for Business: How To Convert Callers

Here’s what it takes to convert a caller nowadays: the right information served at the right time before, during, and possibly after the call. No burdensome call queues, no switching between operators, no hoop jumping of any kind – just sheer value.

If you don’t want your callers to look like this

Source: GIPHY

 

I’d suggest using conversational intelligence software to:

• Learn your callers better by interpreting their speech
• Improve call routing and eliminate call queues
• Maximize the performance of your live operators

Seems too good to be true? Then what if I tell you we’ve long been leveraging this type of AI at  Phonexa, helping our clients buy and sell more call leads while ensuring these leads are happy every step of the way until the purchase and after it?

What Is Conversational Intelligence?

Conversational intelligence is AI that interprets spoken language or text into various real-time and strategic insights – for example, personalized conversation suggestions when a sales rep is trying to sell a product to a client.

The key word here is “personalized:” through near-instant speech analytics, AI can make an educated guess about what a particular customer may like.

Here are the most important AI call intelligence features for business:

Improved Call Routing	Sending the caller to the right sales rep by analyzing not only what they say but also their mood and tone
Real-Time Conversational Insights	Interpreting the conversation in real time to issue prompts to the sales rep who handles the call
Strategic Marketing Insights	Post-call customer conversation analytics to reveal client and agent conversational patterns on a general and individual level

Conversation intelligence unlocks the caller’s mood, intent, motivation, and behavior to give them what they need and want for a flawless call experience.

Source: GIPHY

AI Technologies Behind Conversational Intelligence

Even though conversation intelligence software varies ­– some call intelligence solutions might only support post-call analytics, where advanced products also enable real-time call insights – the AI stack behind it is more or less the same.

Here are the backbone conversation and phone call intelligence AI technologies:

Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR)	ASR converts speech into text through several stages:   Initial processing – making the speech recognizable by suppressing background noises, adjusting the volume, and calibrating for specific speech frequencies Conversion – reorganizing speech into manageable data subsets (for example, MFCC) Identifying phonemes – recognizing the smallest speech units Contextualization – evaluating the likelihood of certain words among possible similar words Decoding – constructing the most probable word sequence from the recognized fragments
Natural Language Understanding (NLU)	A sub-type of NLP, Natural Language Understanding allows AI to understand human language by recognizing the speaker’s intent, extracting entities—the same technology is used by GNLP—and analyzing the sentiment and context.   Unlike ASR, which only translates speech into text, NLU tries to make sense of the translated text in relation to the context.
Natural Language Generation (NLG)	Natural Language Generation creates contextualized, human-like responses to the caller. NLG allows businesses to solve some requests without connecting the caller to a live operator.

Conversation intelligence software can also encompass conversation analytics software to combine speech and marketing insights, paving the best possible journey for the caller.

How Does Conversational Intelligence Work?

Advanced conversational intelligence AI unites several technologies so you can get strategiс and real-time caller insights. For example, an NLP-enhanced IVR system can solve some requests on the spot and guide the rest callers to a matching customer support or sales rep.

An important feature of advanced conversational intelligence software is the ability to continuously self-learn and adapt: the more data it receives, the more accurate it becomes (read: the more callers you generate, the higher the conversion rate).

Conversational Intelligence VS Call Tracking Software

Having conversation intelligence and call tracking work in sync is a dream for any tech-savvy business, but let’s draw a line between these tools, so you can see the differences and make sure you need both.

More often than not, call intelligence and call tracking come in a single package to cover call campaigns through and through for multiple industries and types of clients. For example, if you’re buying or selling leads, such a comprehensive system can grow your income exponentially by letting you know the market better than anyone else.

Here’s our comprehensive call intelligence and call tracking product Call Logic:

How To Grow Your Business with Conversational Intelligence

We’ve already figured it out: you can only grow your business if you know your callers well, and call intelligence is one underlying technology for extracting such insights. It is not only a marketing assistant but also a psychologist revealing complex conversational patterns.

Here are some very specific intelligence data you can use to grow call conversions:

Keyword Recognition	You can design the system to highlight specific keywords, for example, customer concerns to get insights into what you can improve for your callers.
Speech Patterns	In addition to keyword-level analysis, you can recognize speech patterns that reflect the caller’s emotional state. For example, phrases like “over and over,” “Why can’t you just,” or “How come” might indicate frustration.
The Pace of a Conversation	Long pauses and overlapping speech are conversation killers. Speech recognition software easily identifies these drawbacks, so you can fill these gaps by training your customer support and sales reps.

Even though every caller conveys a unique story, big data makes it much easier to understand what the call means for a specific client and what you should do to convert them.

1. Personalizing Interactions

Knowing the general behavior patterns (New Mexicans react positively to “cheap home insurance policies”) and personal patterns (callers get upset when they don’t find the right policy), you can build a unique conversation flow for every caller.

Likewise, post-call speech analytics may give you insights into the optimal routing paths for different clients – and this can be effectively coordinated with call tracking:

→   For example, if you know that callers from New York leave call queues after 60 seconds and feel upset even if connected after the waiting, you can route them on to the first available operator. On the contrary, callers who are willing to wait for the best service will likely benefit most from location-based call routing.

The more data you have, the more tweaks you can make for your callers. Sometimes, it might even be better to leave the caller to the IVR altogether if the call queue is too long or the request can be effectively automated (payments, availability checks, confirmations, etc.).

2. Revealing Marketable Pain Points

Every call is unique, but it’s also true that knowing how to address common pain points is a major business advantage.

Take, for example, life insurance. Most clients share the common fear of the inevitability of death and the financial instability of their families. Needless to say, agents who leverage call tracking and are trained to help overcome these psychological barriers will convert more callers.

Source: GIPHY

Digging out such profound insights may require more effort than using conversation intelligence technology — you might consult with professional marketing psychologists—but it’s necessary to stand apart in the ever-toughening battlefield for online customers.

3. Filling in Marketing Gaps

It’s no secret that customer suggestions are a great tool for improving a business, and conversation intelligence gives you a chance to develop a positive feedback loop. Making your customers happy means more profits you can reinvest in call optimization.

Source: GIPHY

Besides identifying common questions and concerns post-call, you can ask for feedback during a call — for example, after a sign-up, check-in, or issue resolution. Likewise, you can customize follow-ups depending on how the client feels during a call: their mood, sentiment, etc.

Did you know 32.3% of callers believe they should never be put on hold? Conversational intelligence AI allows a live operator to retrieve the data immediately without putting the caller on hold.

4. Capitalizing on Market Trends

Skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been! Identifying trends before everyone else can give you a huge advantage, and conversational intelligence software can do it earlier than even the shrewdest human marketers.

Imagine being a large retailer with thousands of goods on the shelves. It’s only natural that you need to be susceptive to shifts in customer priorities. If so, conversation intelligence AI can help you reveal early spikes in discussions.

Source: GIPHY

On top of that, you can combine conversation intelligence insights with predictive modeling software – which comes as one package within Phonexa’s performance marketing software suite – to predict trends and outcomes of your campaigns.

Here’s what I’m talking about:

 

Finally, you can ensure that the next best step in the callers’ journey is offered not only based on what they say but also HOW they say it. Delivering the best possible experiences every step of the way guarantees more conversions than traditional keyword-level tracking.

5. Creating an Ideal Buyer Profile

In the ever-dynamic market, you must constantly hone in on your ideal buyer profile, adjusting it as new data comes in. Changing your strategies according to the market dynamics will put you far ahead of the competition, while data-driven changes will be easier to make.

Conversational AI vs. Conversation Intelligence

There isn’t much difference between conversational AI and conversation intelligence except that the former is a broader concept encompassing a wider range of technologies. However, since conversation intelligence is still an AI system, it can be called conversational AI as well.

Friends Phoebe Buffay GIFfrom Friends GIFs

Source: Tenor

How To Choose a Good Conversation Intelligence Platform

Driving callers to a purchase while analyzing their speech and providing real-time insights to live operators is an extraordinary task that requires a synergy of up-to-date conversation intelligence tools and call tracking software. Not all systems have both components, so make sure to check whether your solution is up to the business task you’re pursuing.

Consider these aspects when choosing a sales call intelligence platform:

Real-Time Speech Processing	Real-time conversation intelligence enables:   Next-best-action suggestions – follow-up suggestions for a conversation (related products or discounts) Sentiment analysis – interpreting the caller’s mood so the rep can adjust their tone and tactics during a call Immediate search for data – instant-retrieving information from a database without putting the caller on hold (the number of available products or factual information about the product) Real-time language translation – translating a foreign language if there’s no native speaker to handle the call
Speech Recognition Accuracy	Recognizing rare languages, dialects, and speech imperfections increases the accuracy of call analytics. The fewer blank spaces are there, the more reliable your marketing data will be, with fewer misinterpretations and misunderstandings.
Contextual Recognitions Accuracy	Some phrases and collocations – for example, “this is sick” – might have an opposite meaning depending on the context.   Another case: imagine a client calling for a hotel to make a reservation and get a standard answer. The booking has been made, but there are still missed opportunities. Had conversational AI been in place, it would’ve matched the booking with the local event nearby and suggested offering a special reservation package for event attendees alongside other upselling and cross-selling opportunities.
Self-Learning and Adaptation	Call intelligence software must quickly internalize emerging needs, trends, new slang, and any other market changes manifested by changes in the caller’s speech.   Here’s why it’s important: imagine a client reporting “weird transactions” from their bank account instead of generally accepted “unauthorized transactions.” AI might misinterpret the intent on the first try and return a general answer about transaction fees. However, if the conversation continues long enough, a flexible call intelligence system will guess the true intent behind “weird transactions” and correct its algorithms for this and similar requests in the future.
Data Privacy Compliance	Call intelligence software must comply with the state and national regulatory framework for the industry and the type of information collected from callers. In the United States, these regulations might include TCPA, HIPAA, FTC guidelines, FCRA, and GDPR for companies serving EU countries.

Get Your All-in-One Conversational Software Suite at Phonexa

Conversation intelligence software alone is a powerful marketing weapon, but much more so when integrated with other vital performance marketing solutions to cover business needs from top to bottom.

And this is exactly what we at Phonexa have done: eight proprietary marketing automation tools within one user-friendly suite starting at $100 a month. You only pay for what you actually use, and you can understand your needs using this online calculator.

Here’s more about the lead acquisition Promised Land you’re about to step into:

Here are the eight solutions you will get at a single price (plans are customizable):

LMS Sync	Lead tracking & distribution software
Call Logic	Call tracking & distribution software
E-Delivery	Email & SMS marketing software
Cloud PBX	Cloud phone system
Lynx	Click tracking software
Opt-Intel	Suppression list management software
HitMetrix	Use behavior recording & analytics software
Books360	Automated accounting software

Build your plan to use a software suite for call and web leads now, or take a product tour to explore the insides.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is conversation intelligence software?

Conversation intelligence software is a mix of AI technologies that can translate human speech into text and analyze it on the fly and strategically to improve your call routine. With conversation intelligence software, you can know what the caller wants even before the call starts and get AI-driven recommendations during the call, among many other features.

What is conversation analytics software?

Conversation analytics software is part of conversation intelligence software – or independent software – that analyzes conversations rather than only translating human speech into text. For example, conversational analytics software can process a large number of calls to reveal common keywords, speech patterns, or agent performance, all for different customizable contexts.

How much is conversation intelligence software?

Cloud-based conversation intelligence software can cost you only around $100 a month if you need basic features like speech-to-text translation. For complete software suites, the price may be higher, but it’s still nothing compared to the business benefits you can obtain.

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