28 May Top Call Center Trends of 2013
We have an obligation to stay at the forefront of current call center trends. It’s one of the reasons that Centrinex is a respected provider in the call center industry. As a call center leader, staying not just on top, but ahead of trends is imperative to our online lender customers’ success.
Call centers and the industry as a whole are experiencing a wide range of innovation. For Centrinex, we’ve taken these outside trends and improved upon them internally to better support our clients’ needs and goals. Understanding the current and upcoming call center trends is a requirement for online or payday loan lenders to improve efficiencies and increase profit, while enhancing customer service.
Speech analytics and fraud detection are both big trends and big concerns for call centers in 2013. And it’s no surprise. The industry is seeking better ways to screen calls for quality control and evaluating performance, along with struggling to combat increasingly sophisticated loan fraud.
Speech Analytics in the Call Center and Financial Industries
Randomly spot-checking recorded calls is typically how call centers evaluate CSR performance. Unless a call center maintains a 1:1 customer service representative (CSR)/manager ratio, it’s impossible to listen in on every call. Call centers performance and profits are put at risk since quality and compliance issues aren’t discovered until it’s too late.
Speech analytics technology is not new, but its application in call center and financial industry scenarios is. Certain words, tone of voice and more can be detected during calls using speech analytics. Quality assurance supervisors are immediately alerted to problems, compliance issues and opportunities. They can jump in at any point and save a call. CSRs can be retrained, redirected or let go. The percentage of missed opportunities and number of QA people decreases, while profits and customer satisfaction rates improve.
Combatting Online and Payday Loan Fraud
The ways in which applicants are fraudulently applying for and obtaining online loans are growing increasingly savvy. We don’t want to encourage copycat crimes by sharing how these criminals are playing the system. However, we have developed and are continually enhancing fraud detection tools that drastically reduce the number of bad loans approved.
Without divulging information that would aid criminals in their efforts, we can tell you that Centrinex’s in-house fraud detection tools are among the best in the industry. The way to combat online loan fraud is to use what you’ve seen and experienced first-hand and build in defenses to your systems and processes. We’ve identified certain patterns common to fraudulent applicants and loans. We’ve adjusted our systems to help identify these traits early in the process, saving time, frustration and our online lending customers a substantial amount of funds.