Jeff Gallino, CTO, Chairman and Co-founder of CallMiner (News - Alert), recently took the time to answer some of my questions about speech analytics, Customer-call data and the direction the Call Center industry is taking.

 

CallMiner is the leading provider of speech analytics solutions that deliver near real-time customer intelligence from Call Center recordings. CallMiner's advanced suite of applications enables managers and executives to gain insight into why customers call, what they are saying, and how agents are responding.

 

What has been your company’s biggest achievement in 2008 so far?

 

Successfully completing a Speech Analytics implementation at the world’s largest company and winning the Speech Analytics contract for the largest call center system in North America.

 

What can we expect to see for from your company for the next 12 months?

 

The next 12 months, CallMiner will be improving Eureka!’s Integration layer, Automatic Discovery capabilities and Speed to Results, additionally we will be adding multi-model interaction analysis.

How do you see the communications market evolving?

 

Companies now realize that they need to make listening to their customers a part of the organization’s DNA or risk becoming irrelevant. Contact centers are moving to the center of the communication and customer strategies for most Enterprises. Therefore the demand for a complete, accurate, scalable, proven, integrate-able speech analytics solution is growing by leaps and bounds.    

 

What company made the biggest contribution to communications this year?

 

The US government, by legalizing warrantless wire-tapping, they have opened a flood gate of possibilities for ad-based/surveillance technologies in communications.

 

 

Google hasn't changed the markets. They are an ad revenue company that enjoys an over-hyped status.

 

Even asking this question is a little offensive. Apple is a SMALL hardware company that doesn’t really play in the communications space with the exception of one (2?) phones. Please don’t buy into the hype machine.

 

What mobile phone(s) do you use?

Blackberry.

 

 

Rim will win because it is simple, always works and isn’t tied to just one carrier. Just sit in first class on a business flight and you will see 20 blackberries and almost no iPhones. An iPhone (News - Alert) is a toy not a business-class phone.

 

What do you think the communications market might look like in five years?

 

The communications market will be very focused on converged multi-modality, putting more power into fewer devices.

 

 

Attendees will learn the quantifiable value of speech analytics, how it can be leveraged to enhance customer satisfaction, what features and functionality companies should be looking for in a speech analytics solution, how speech analytics solutions can tie into other enterprise systems to provide a holistic, actionable view of each customer, and more.

What type of attendees do you think should come to your session?

 

Ideal session attendees include those involved with or caring about the improvement of any of the following company initiatives:

Customer satisfaction

Customer retention

Agent quality and lifecycle management

Contact center operational efficiency

Sales and collections performance

Legislation and policy compliance

 

Why should customers choose your company’s solutions?

 

CallMiner Eureka! is the only speech analytics solution that analyzes 100 percent of all recorded customer conversations to leverage that business intelligence across all aspects of an enterprise. Out of the box, CallMiner Eureka! automatically captures what is being said, how it is being said and the context in which it is being said, ensuring you will realize value from day one. CallMiner Eureka! transitions call centers into profit centers, connects the front office to the back office, links strategy to operations and entire organizations to their customers’ needs and preferences.

 

 

Unified communications will leap from the enterprise use into personal use. A smart vendor, probably MSFT, will start offering a fully unified platform for personal use market.