Cyber fraud has seen a 55 percent year-on-year increase in the UK in recent years with criminals successfully stealing £1.2 billion through fraud and scams in 2018. The world of telecommunications is far from immune, with 170m fraudulent calls blocked globally in 2018.
Due to this, personal data has become an ever more sensitive topic as governments try to combat the rising tide of technology-based crime. This in turn has led to more regulatory legislation, such as GDPR, to try and minimise the risks posed by fraudsters.
This has been coupled with a desire for an improvement in call quality, especially following high profiled cases of like the PPI scandal.
Call centre managers want to be able to see how well their agents deal with customers and cater to their needs and ascertain the comparative value of their agents more now than ever before.
The cost of compliance
With the increases in regulation and the desire for a higher standard of service, compliance has become an increasingly hot topic in the call centre industry. Strict compliance procedures are now the norm for many call centre operations and by virtue of that fact, so are auditing procedures.
Auditing calls to maintain adherence to regulations is a costly endeavour for call centres. It is a huge drain on centres resources as they take the time and cost to transcribe recorded calls for audit.
For a start, regulation across Europe tends to require a large proportion of calls are recorded – and though this does vary by industry it is still a substantial endeavour in a call centre that can often have 200 to 250 agents. This also means that many companies using manual auditing procedures, audit at random and so not all calls are monitored which can lead to increased fines for BPO’s.
Once these calls have been transcribed, the sample texts, along with the corresponding calls go to the internal audit team, a group of highly skilled and experienced industry professionals which varies in size according to the type of business and the scale of the audit task required.
Therefore, this is not only a cost to the business but also affects operations as it reduces the call taking capacity of the company as calls are passed across. It’s a double hit to the company as costs increase and revenue is reduced putting huge pressure on the margins for the business.
A digital reprieve
Previously the analogue nature of compliance meant that the costs associated were large. However, in the digital era it is possible to automate many of the steps needed to complete these procedures.
Automated compliance monitoring allows businesses to combat the increased costs associated with call monitoring. This type of technology automatically checks call adherence to the corresponding script and flags any deviations. This means that only calls that have deviations need to be checked and within those, the software highlights the areas of concern for the auditor.
The Benefits of Automated Compliance Monitoring
Automated compliance monitoring reduces the time needed to audit calls, lowering costs and increasing the value of employees for the call centres. Reduced auditing times also benefits employees as the time that they spend on repetitive auditing tasks can be reduced too.
This means that a high level of motivation is easier to maintain as employees can focus on more cognitively rewarding tasks. Other benefits include:
- Reducing costs, improving margin and making Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) call centres more competitive
The time spent monitoring calls is minimised due to the efficiency of automating the process. Fewer staff are required thus substantially reducing costs and for BPO’s this means they can expand their business more easily.
- Better use of time
AI-driven solutions are able to screen calls quicker and more effectively than humans and can also do this 24/7. This means that the process of compliance is more efficient and is able to give managers a better picture of the business in real-time.
- Better accuracy
The improved quality of recorded calls in the digital era also means that solutions that have adapted recognition engine models to audio patterns are actually able to recognise the content of the audio easier than human ears could. This makes them not only faster than their human counterparts, but also more accurate as well.
This level of accuracy is particularly important in the BPO contact centre setting, where compliance failures can be met with penalties that threaten the overall margin levels of the business.
Greater accuracy in the compliance process can reduce the risk of such failures and can even be used as a selling point when engaging with businesses who are keen to ensure their chosen BPO is able to guarantee high levels of compliance and quality control when speaking to their customers.
Automated compliance monitoring is part of a wider range of technologies that are helping to reduce the burden on our call centre professionals, brought by such necessary but mundane tasks. They free up employees to focus on customer-facing, more engaging work.
Employee satisfaction is raised whilst reducing costs and improving sales figures. Managers and business owners are provided with a more detailed and up-to-date view of the company, helping to improve overall productivity and profitability.