Dubber Selected for BroadSoft Business Unified Communications

The rise of Big Data has shown just how valuable information is to businesses today. Insight into consumers and their behaviour is showing companies how to improve their business practices in order to retain their existing customers and attract new ones. Voice data has previously been excluded from the Big Data conversation but technology is now able to interpret speech, enabling companies to mine their calls for valuable information. With customers continuing to pick up the phone for assistance, access to this data is an important breakthrough creating a new field of analytics: speech intelligence.

Speech intelligence was initially only affordable for larger enterprises that could invest the CapEx required to install proprietary solutions but the introduction of software as a service (SaaS) solutions, deployed through service providers, has democratised speech intelligence.

The advantages of speech intelligence

Speech intelligence software most commonly transcribes audio into text to enable searches, and can even go beyond the words themselves to identify the mood of the caller through tone of voice and speech patterns. The searches and automated processes that can be implemented through speech intelligence open up limitless potential for business development, particularly in customer service. By combining processing techniques used in Big Data with speech analytics, companies can uncover important insights into their customers.

Introducing Zoe

Zoe is a collection of speech intelligence modules that includes Smart Search, which will be followed by Keywords and Sentiment at the end of 2017. Zoe can analyse and evaluate recorded conversations to establish the emotion of the caller, and search calls for specific words, phrases, or characteristics. This functionality can be used to identify recurring issues and opportunities for business development, and can track trends in customer behaviour.

Zoe has democratised speech intelligence and made it accessible to small businesses, and even single users, with an affordable monthly subscription. Zoe is deployed through Dubber’s API, allowing it to be easily integrated with a variety of other applications. Through the API, users can create their own custom applications of the functionality to realise limitless use cases.

Smart Search

Smart Search allows users to search their recorded calls using a variety of metrics from date and location to specific words, phrases, or sentiment. Any calls can be searched, regardless of whether they were originally recorded with Dubber, so Smart Search can be implemented as a stand-alone service.

Keywords – due for release late 2017

Keywords enables users to track specific words and phrases across their captured communications and jump to the point in a call when the word or phrase was spoken. These words can be tagged to be automatically highlighted in future recordings and automate actions in other applications through Dubber’s open API – opening up limitless potential use cases.

Sentiment – due for release late 2017

Sentiment identifies the emotions of speakers through a recorded conversation by measuring speech characteristics such as tone of voice, speed of speech, pauses, interruptions, and certain phrases that express emotion. These indicators create a detailed understanding of a caller’s mood throughout the conversation and enable Sentiment to provide users with a report that assigns the call with a positive or negative score.

Integration

At the core of Dubber is an open API, which allows Zoe’s features to be managed through the Dubber portal, a custom portal, or directly through the API. Zoe’s deployment through Dubber’s open API allows it to integrate easily with other applications, such as CRM systems, enabling data to be automatically transferred to third party applications such as Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics.

Zoe has democratised speech intelligence with its open API and availability as a subscription-based service. Where once only large enterprises would be able to invest in speech intelligence, businesses of any size can now benefit from the insight that Zoe can provide. Zoe’s deployment as native cloud SaaS makes it a flexible solution that can adapt to businesses of any size, without the need for any additional hardware or software installation. With calls stored in the cloud, they can be quickly and easily processed.

Previously excluded from the Big Data conversation, Zoe’s analysis of voice data opens up a world of insight that can be gained from the study of recorded calls. Now companies can truly listen to their customers.

Dubber Connect On-Net Recording for End Users

Dubber Signs Agreement with AT&T

VoIP calling has been steadily replacing traditional telephony due to its reliability and efficiency, achieved through its use of data connection instead of fixed lines. The chart below shows the reasons for moving to VoIP from landlines given by SMBs. The data connection that enables VoIP calls is quicker and cheaper as it takes advantage of the existing IP infrastructure of interconnected routers. Recording VoIP calls presents a challenge due to the difference in the way audio is transmitted in VoIP calls compared to traditional telephony. VoIP call recording requires data to be ‘sniffed’, which is a process of real-time monitoring of data flow through a computer network by a software program or a hardware device containing this sniffing software or firmware. Sniffers copy the data without altering it and can only intercept data from networks that their host computer is connected to.

Survey by Software Advice

Depending on your requirements for call recording, and how you intend to use the captured conversations, and your business telephony network (or lack thereof), the VoIP call recording solution that is right for you may vary.

What will you use your recorded calls for?

When deciding on the call recording solution that is best for you, it is important to consider how you will be using your recorded calls. If you are a journalist who records their phone interviews, you will need calls to be stored in a format that can be easily replayed, but you might not need to keep the calls for years after you have filed your copy. You might have a podcast and need to be able to access your calls as files that can be edited to form part of a finished episode. A solution such as Dubber’s Playback, designed for individuals, is an easy-to-use communication capture service that allows you to decide which of your calls are saved and allows you to download and share them as easy-to-edit audio files.

Financial institutions require their communication with customers to be recorded in order to stay compliant with the latest regulations. Call records are generally required to be stored for up to five years, so businesses will need to ensure the solution they choose has the flexibility and security needed to safely archive their conversations. A cloud-based solution, such as Dubber, has the scalability required to hold unlimited calls and is not restricted by the storage hardware limitations of legacy solutions. True cloud storage also has the added security of encryption and the redundancy that accompanies multiple storage locations, for added reassurance.

Businesses that require call recording for compliance will most often need call recording that is compatible with a unified communications (UC) solution. Modern working life spans multiple methods of communication and our mobile phones allow us to make traditional calls as well as VoIP calls, send text messages, and have conversations over instant messenger. To ensure that all of these communications are captured accurately, call recording must be able to integrate with UC solutions.

Larger businesses that have contact centres often use call recording in order to improve their customer service and business practices through analysing their captured conversations. A solution that offers speech intelligence, such as Dubber’s Zoe, will allows a business to search their calls and automate processes to make their business more efficient and gain a detailed insight into their customers. Recording with Dubber can also record conversations between extensions, ensuring recording continues if a call is transferred internally.

When considering VoIP recording options, it is important to plan for the future as well as the present. Choosing a flexible call recording solution that can adapt as your business grows and changes is vital. Expansion into different locations, sudden changes in call volume, and regulation reforms could affect your call recording needs so the solution you choose must offer you the reassurance that these eventualities can be accommodated.

Redcentric Records with Dubber

As the big telecom providers phase out traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN) functionality, businesses are looking for a modern solution to their telephony needs. A SIP trunk allows business telephone systems to operate using an internet connection rather than a traditional phone line. Session initiation protocol (SIP) is essentially a language that allows phones and other telephony devices to talk to each other. It is a standard communications protocol for initiating interactive multimedia sessions across a data network. This protocol is used for creating, modifying, and terminating sessions. A trunk is a line or connection that is able to transmit multiple signals simultaneously. A SIP trunk is able to combine data, voice, and video in one connection.

With Verizon planning to shut down its integrated services digital network (ISDN) in the USA and Germany also phasing out ISDN by 2018, and BT announcing that from 2020 ISDN and PSTN circuits will no longer be available to purchase, moving to an internet telephony service will soon be essential. Instead of traditional PSTN, calls operate through voice over internet protocol (VoIP) through one point of entry – the internet connection. SIP trunking occurs between a private domain, connected to your network, and the public domain, which is the responsibility of your internet telephony service provider (ITSP). This interconnection allows for VoIP and media streaming to take place.

A manual telephone switchboard.

Often there is no physical hardware required for a SIP trunk connection although, depending on how the trunk is presented, a private branch exchange (PBX) or session border controller (SBC) may be required. Installation uses a business’s existing internet connection, removing the need for traditional phone lines and the costs associated with maintaining them. As the telephony service is not bound to a physical phone line, you can easily move offices and keep your phone number.

Multiple phone lines can be replaced by one SIP trunk, which allows for scalability that can adapt to the growth of a company. VoIP is also more reliable than traditional phone lines as the quick and easy forwarding of calls to mobile phones provides insurance in case of system failures.

When looking at SIP trunking for your business, additional benefits such as number provision and call recording should be considered as well as cost. With SIP trunking, features such as multiple phone numbers and call forwarding that aren’t available through a traditional telephone line can be added easily.

SIPREC

Traditionally, call recording through PSTN captured voice conversations as audio files on the trunk side of a network infrastructure – the telco-facing portion on the outside of the internal phone system. Session initiation protocol recording (SIPREC) is a way of allowing calls to be recorded securely, without interception. SIPREC defines the architecture of call recording, including the call flows and metadata associated with it.

The internet engineering task force IETF has created a framework for SIPREC that identifies the two parties involved in call recording: the session recording client (SRC) and the session recording server (SRS). SIPREC occurs through the session border controller, which is a device that sits between businesses and their network provider. A SIP invite contains specific metadata for processing call recording that contains information about the call and participants.

Where traditional call recording would use hardware to tap into a dedicated line in order to capture the communications, no such equipment is required for SIPREC as the devices that handle the SIP trunk can also enable recording through SIPREC. Using SIP trunks enables SIPREC to be implemented quickly and easily, allowing a call recording solution such as Dubber to capture communications.

With online interaction dominating the modern world, a phone call feels special. Phone calls are reserved for the important stuff – for the decision that needs to be made, for the question that we want answering urgently – we pick up the phone when we just need to get things done.

Listening in

We can see this idea reflected in how customers contact companies when they need assistance: research by eConsultancy found that a phone call was the most commonly chosen method of communication at 61%. When looking for online assistance, 71% of customers wanted help within 5 minutes or less (see chart below). The majority of customers looking to buy also choose to call a company rather than contacting them online. Both Google and xAd, two of the leading digital advertising networks, found that a click-to-call option on ads was highly successful – with 51-62% of users choosing this option.

Source: eConsultancy

On top of the immediacy offered by a phone call, there is science behind why verbal communication is so effective: hearing is the fastest sense, with sound taking only 10 milliseconds to reach the brain compared to 13-80 milliseconds for sight, according to researchers at MIT,

With customers 11 times more likely to complain over the phone than via the internet, according to research from Arizona State University, these phone calls are a valuable opportunity to turn a negative experience into an improved relationship. Customer interactions that take place over the phone create a much better opportunity for a meaningful connection. Your customer is right there, willing to speak to you, and you can answer any questions they might have immediately. Up-selling and cross-selling also comes much more naturally over the phone. Only a face-to-face conversation could possibly be better.

Reading between the lines

Written communication can be open to interpretation. It’s the very reason for the enduring magic of books, but it can result in misunderstandings in the corporate world of hurried emails. Without the indicators of tone and meaning, simple sentences can be misconstrued to drastic effect. When clarification is needed over the phone, you can get an answer immediately. Complex technical queries are always best discussed with a call as the instant feedback can alleviate confusion quickly, whereas a series of emails might only further complicate things.

With a phone call, you can hear the emotion of the speaker’s voice – their intonation and volume of speech can often say more than their words. Customer service agents can tell if a customer isn’t fully happy with the resolution of their complaint, while sales agents can get a better sense of how to entice a new client.

Measuring the success of phone calls

The importance of phone calls is clear, and because of this customer service agents who excel at building relationships with customers are more valuable than ever. However, contact centre workers can feel like they lack objectives and that their work can’t be measured. In order to provide customer service agents with reports on their success, a call intelligence solution such as Dubber’s Zoe can be utilised to conduct sentiment analysis of calls and measure the customer’s experience throughout the conversation. Not only does this give workers valuable feedback on their work and progress, their supervisors receive an insight into their interactions with customers and can use this information to improve their work practices and train new members of staff effectively.

The benefits of email and instant messaging are the paper trail that they leave behind. With a call recording solution, such as Dubber, that provides transcripts of your conversations, you can have all the benefits of phone calls with the reassurance that you can track and record your communications.

Dubber and Macquarie Telecom Sign Call Recording MSA

Dubber Annual Report 30 June 2017