1. Tell us about your role. What do you do, and what challenges does it bring?

Being part of the consulting team within Davies, I analyse data from various clients to measure performance and uncover ways to improve the business based on what the data is telling us. Looking particularly at speech analytics and Voice of the Customer survey data, I draw insight from the data to help organisations improve their customer experience (CX). I find being in this position quite empowering.

2. What drew you to work in the analytics industry, specifically in speech analytics?

I fell into the analytics world very naturally. After studying linguistics at university, I went on to complete a diploma in Business Management to become more knowledgeable in business. Afterwards, I stepped into the banking industry where I got my first opportunity to share everything I had learned. This was a great opportunity as I could take my knowledge and interests and apply them to the technologies the business was adopting, such as speech analytics. I was able to take the things I was interested in and apply it to my job, and it just stuck!

3. What developments do you expect to see within the analytics industry in the next 12-months?

The analytics industry is fast paced, and technology is always changing. I think we’ll see more technological enhancements in certain areas to overcome infrastructural challenges, as legacy systems are costly to replace. I expect development to be around the technologies that enhance what you already have instead of doing a structural change for speech analytics. For example, trying to get noise reduction software involved to boost your speech recognition and make your qualitative analysis more accurate.

4. In a world where well being is at the forefront of employers’ minds how would a speech analytics support this?

You can look at this question from both perspectives, the employees as well as the greater business which is customer focused. Interaction analytics can show you the customers vulnerabilities or grievances. But it’s a two-way street. You can see where the customer needs help, but you can also see where someone on the phone needs help. An employee may not know how to handle a situation, or something might trigger them. You can analyse what your employees are saying and at which point they begin to disengage.

5. What was the most rewarding project you’ve worked on and why?

The team at Davies were recently a go-between for a client working with a new interaction analytics vendor. This was a cool dialogue to have because we were trusted from both sides to give insight and were able to influence both the vendor and client based on how the software works. We were also able to suggest enhancements to make it more user-friendly. It allowed us to be creative rather than the run-of-the-mill analysis. This was especially rewarding as not only was it new and exciting, but we received a positive result from both ends. We have seen improvements been pushed through to the software already!

6. What challenges do you face in your role? And how do you overcome these?

Within speech analytics, a common challenge that I face is mono recordings. This is when a call is recorded with a lack of speaker separation. Voices are recorded alongside one another and in the same channel, resulting in the speech recognition being inaccurate. This makes it harder to differentiate the speakers and tailor your solution towards the customer and employees. There are exciting solutions available to overcome these challenges, such as targeted speaker separation, and rule-based programming to separate the speakers but these solutions aren’t yet the silver bullet. I think they’ll get better over time which will be exciting as it will help with infrastructural constraints.

7. If you could give your younger self one piece of advice. What would it be?

Be brave and go after what you desire. If you don’t try, you’ll never know and if you don’t try then you’ll regret not trying. It’s better to have no regrets as opposed to not trying it all. Be brave in your ability. Also, it’s ok to not know certain things and ask questions. Don’t be afraid of saying you don’t know how to do something.

Connect with Natalie
LinkedIn