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Is it possible to measure if an Agent is really listening to a Consumer?

Question asked by shawnfeaser

on Jun 20, 2018
Latest reply on Jun 29, 2018 by shawnfeaser

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We at encore have been passing this question around for thought and discussion, now I will put it out there to get the EO community thoughts.

How would you approach capturing if an agent is listening to a consumer?

We are interested in delivering coaching to migrate from a linear interaction to more of a conversational interaction. We all have heard those agents who sound like they are just reading a script or interviewing a consumer. I would like to isolate those instances where we are actually listening to a consumer and having a genuine conversation.

I would love to hear other's thoughts and perspective.

Shawn

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23 Replies

pulkitjain Jun 26, 2018 12:14 PM
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Hi Shawn Feaser,

Sorry Let me break the ice...

Agent asking to repeat the consumer.
Placing call on hold straight after objection or question?

CallMiner stopped processing noise which could have given us more power on listening skills of agent.

Regards,
Pulkit Jain
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richardbritt Jun 26, 2018 2:36 PM
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I spoke to Shawn Feaser directly, and we need your help, what a massive thorny question....

we spit ball 10 ideas probably none are right, love to see what else is out there....
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annedawson Jun 26, 2018 4:23 PM
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Hi Shawn:

Great question. I was thinking you would create a Category (possibly named Active Listening) that captures when agents state things like:

"Let me make sure I understand you.."
"To summarize.."
"To recap.."
"What I'm hearing is..."

or to Pulkit Jain's point, when they repeat exactly what the customer said. For example:
Customer: "The account balance you guys have in your system is incorrect, you need to fix it."
Agent: "you need us to correct the amount displayed for your account balance?"

Conrad Liburd & Kyler Briscoe may have some ideas too.
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- shawnfeaser @ annedawson on Jun 26, 2018 6:18 PM
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  I like where you are going Anne Dawson does the agent use the information the customer gave them? The customer provides a "golden nugget" like "I want to clean up my credit" then does the agent use this information elsewhere in the interaction, like "why is credit important to you?"
  
  I think part of the trick is, who introduced the "golden nugget" the customer or did the agent lead them there?
  
  Shawn
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conradliburd Jun 26, 2018 4:47 PM
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Hi everyone,

So my take on this is, if an agent is engaged they are going to do two things, ask a lot of questions, and acknowledge the customers statements. There are two categories that will be available on the Xchange with language that should captures both of these events:
- Investigative Questions
- Acknowledgement
Investigative Questions

Captures language where there are questions asked, like "how often", "where did", "How will", "did you" etc..

Acknowledgment

Captures language where the agent is responding to what the customer has said, like "i get it now", "that makes sense", "i completely understand" etc..

Using those two categories together should bring back calls of agent interaction. They will work best if there is speaker separation where we can target the agents channel.
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- shawnfeaser @ conradliburd on Jun 26, 2018 6:28 PM
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  Conrad Liburd I like that you describe these as "events". Maybe a third event could be deep dive with statements like:
  "you mentioned..."
  "tell me more about..."
  "I want to go back to something you said..."
  "what did you mean when you said..."
  
  I am trying to break past the "transaction, scripted" interaction and recognize the more "conversational" interactions. When an agent asks a questions if the customer does not "really" answer it, does the agent move on or dig deeper? Are they really listening to the words, emotions and sentiment?
  
  Shawn
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  - pulkitjain @ shawnfeaser on Jun 27, 2018 9:45 AM
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    Hi Shawn Feaser, Conrad Liburd, Anne Dawson, Richard Britt,
    
    Let me ask a question on top this amazing question.
    
    In case of real conversation, How many times Agent/person replies with a statement to showcase he/she is listening?
    
    My guess would 20% statement and 80% verbal nods. Because when I am in conversation with some one generally I would use verbal nods. Thus, using categories with words would help me on 20% of calls.
    
    Regards,
    Pulkit Jain
    
    encore
    
    Sasa Kuzmanovic
    Tomas Federico
    Cristina Villalobos
    Mike Hull
    Mayank Nanda
    Monika Zutshi
    Yeliana Liman
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    - richardbritt @ pulkitjain on Jun 27, 2018 9:55 AM
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      If we assume that the above is accurate, and say 20% of a conversation there is a verbal queue. (although I doubt you nod as much on a phone call, so lets say 30% verbal queue on a phone call). Wouldn't this then be the base line of an actively listener in a call/conversation anything less than that is sub-optimal. Ergo 20% verbal become 100% of the goal, and anything above or at that is optimal, as a baseline, below that I would be sub optimal correct?
      
      Or have Mr Yoo install cameras, and look for non verbals, which he has been eager to do.
      
      R.
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    - annedawson @ pulkitjain on Jun 27, 2018 10:22 AM
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      I think on phone calls most agents should be aware that their nods won't come through on the phone. So perhaps looking for multiple breaks in the conversation where the agent interjects with things like "yeah" and "mmm hmm" to confirm they are listening and understanding what the customer is saying?
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      - shawnfeaser @ annedawson on Jun 27, 2018 11:01 AM
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        You bring a new twist into this Anne Dawson. Is there a difference between "confirmational listening" the affirmative sounds (yeah, uh huh) or even the casual "I understand" or "I see" and "engaged listening like "tell me why you feel that way" or "what caused you to feel..."?
        
        Shawn
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        christinegonzalez @ shawnfeaser on Jun 29, 2018 11:48 AM
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        Shawn Feaser, perhaps even the possibility that an agent will instinctively say "yeah, uh huh" but not really pay any attention to what was even said can distinguish between "confirmational listening". I have heard agents that will use such phrases out of habit, but then end up asking the customer to repeat the information provided, which is not helpful. If we train agents to just fill in the silence without actually paying attention to what the customer needs, that is a flawed behavior that we are encouraging, because it isn't so much having little silence as much as accurately deciphering how to help the customer in an efficient manner.
        
        Thoughts?
        Christine Gonzalez
        
        homeserve
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        richardbritt @ christinegonzalez on Jun 29, 2018 12:27 PM
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        Christine Gonzalez
        
        Your reply opens a wonderful can of worms. Which is "intent". Let me postulate a real devil. In some geographies, I have found that the agents lack context for the call, have a basic linguistic struggle, and admitting lack of understanding is culturally frowned upon. Actual conversation,
        
        Customer: "I'm a long haul driver I'm in Iowa right now"
        Agent: "Excellent, I see"
        Customer: "I cant take care of that right now, but can when I'm back in Louisiana"
        Agent: "So you are working right now"
        Customer: "Im on the road, i'm a long haul driver, i'm in Iowa"
        Agent: Okay i see, so you will be home tonight from work?"
        Customer: "NO IM A LONG HAUL DRIVER, I'M IN IOWA, I WONT BE HOME FOR A WEEK"
        Agent: "Oh yes, I understand, so you live in Iowa, should I change your address?"
        
        What is the complexity we find here? I think we also have to contemplate actual listening and understanding queries. It's complex for certain. We have found with an AI model in a very few calls we can begin prediction of similar scenarios. ergo does "fake listening" has an individualized commonality".
        
        the-machine-learning-okey-dokey-hypothesis
        
        It's possible to do I think, but once we find "Not Listening" "Fake Listening" and "Listening but not understanding" what do we do with it?
        
        R.
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        shawnfeaser @ richardbritt on Jun 29, 2018 12:55 PM
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        Christine Gonzalez it is funny that you bring that up, we are thinking of creating profiles for our agents and I would label that agent as an interviewer. We hear calls where the agent asks a question the consumer answers and the agent says "okay" as a verbal pause. Once you have several of these transitional words between each question, you can really hear that the agents are just having a transactional interaction instead of a conversational interaction, hence the interview without really listening to the answer.
        
        This is where we are attempting to understand what we do with the "listening" evaluation, build agent profiles. I suspect effective agents listen, explore and attempt to discover information from the consumer instead of going headstrong to their objective (making a sale or collecting $). If we think of the phase of the call where questions are asked as a discovery phase, then active listening is a huge part. We are looking to identify the "golden nuggets" the consumer gives during that phase and attempting to measure if the agents are using those valuable pieces of information to understand who the consumer really is and their goals and desires.
        
        Shawn
        
        Richard Britt can you repeat that, "I was concentrating on the bee"! The BOTs are a great example of agents not listening if they are not able to detect the AI forces used against them.
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        christinegonzalez @ richardbritt on Jun 29, 2018 1:21 PM
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        Richard Britt, quite fascinating isn't it? Yes, I have seen that type of conversation occur as well and it is quite painful because the agent does't want to disclose that they don't understand the context, when the customer can always pick up on when they don't comprehend the statement or question.
        
        To address your question about what to do with the categories once established, we can look at the trends of how long it takes to address a customer's question: Create a category called Customer Confirmation for phrases such as "thank you for your help", "you helped me greatly", "yes|yup you are correct", "yes that's what I'm asking", etc. indicating that the agent is handling their query), how long the call lasted (indicates how long it took to resolve/understand the question and provide a resolution), and possibly consider any mention of the category for "supervisor". If the agent doesn't fully understand how to help the customer, he or she may phone their superior to address the issue/statement (or what they perceive it to be).
        
        Shawn Feaser, well I'm certainly glad I chimed in! Yes, I have found that scenario as well. Just asking the customer numerous questions without providing answers or resolutions can make the customer question the agent's knowledge, skill set and even adequacy to do their job. I heard a call where a customer had called in multiple times and the agent followed the normal protocol then "hit a wall" and couldn't address the customer's issue. That customer then became upset and said she had been through the scenario before with someone else. I don't know if this happens in your industry, but I have found that another turn off sign would be if the agent suggests to transfer the call to someone else. Since our call center has quite a number of departments, often times our skill sets are broken down by their department "circle". Which leads me to if this is an Ownership issue as well.
        
        Hahaha, I've heard those bots before and the bee one got me laughing so hard.
        
        Great ideas generating here, gentlemen!
        
        Christine Gonzalez
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        richardbritt @ christinegonzalez on Jun 29, 2018 2:03 PM
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        Christine Gonzalez. Shawn Feaser
        
        So fake listening is not bad, unless you get caught it seems. The thought of coaching some one to listen to everything on every call exhausts me. And accusing someone of fake listening, or out of context understanding, when not getting caught is distasteful.
        
        I think this crew is bright enough to find it, but not many operations are savvy enough to fix it.
        
        I might offer categorize it and use it s a building block of other behaviors or outcome predictions, ergo correlate it in the background.
        
        R.
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        christinegonzalez @ richardbritt on Jun 29, 2018 2:16 PM
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        Richard Britt - perhaps, but if fake listening is used on various different calls, the agent is bound to get caught. (Kind of like telling someone not to take any cookies from the cookie jar... and they get away once. Eventually they will get caught). It is a difficult conundrum if the agent eventually discovered what the customer wanted while not fully listening, but it is this "zoning out" that leads to longer calls and is a poor behavior at its root. Hence, the problem with relationships in general. A spouse may often accuse the other of not listening to them talking, which may ignite some anger or resentment toward them. In the same way, no one likes to be ignored.
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        richardbritt @ christinegonzalez on Jun 29, 2018 2:19 PM
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        if there was a SpouseMiner I'd be a dead man.
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        shawnfeaser @ richardbritt on Jun 29, 2018 2:41 PM
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        Oh Richard Britt, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I agree operational adoption of change is a challenge and I don't propose coaching the exhaustive listening that you refer, but if we can start with the valuable gold pieces that the consumers give us and that we mine for, then that it is a admirable beginning. I actually propose starting this paradigm shift with initial agent training through the use of our robotic call simulator to begin to condition agents to pick up on those valuable cues.
        
        You know us, nothing is impossible!
        
        Shawn
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        christinegonzalez @ shawnfeaser on Jun 29, 2018 2:59 PM
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        I have to agree with Shawn on this one, Richard Britt. It is truly about a paradigm shift, not trying to force some new "religion" down the agents' throats. Once they see the value in shifting the perspective, everything else falls into place.
        
        Christine
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        shawnfeaser @ christinegonzalez on Jun 29, 2018 2:07 PM
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        Christine Gonzalez I am glad you chimed in too. 577 views on the post from EO users and I am sure there are a lot of other thoughts and ideas out there, would love to hear them.
        
        When I think of other discussions about measuring agent effectiveness, listening could be an interesting add along with the Ownership aspect that you mentioned. I honestly believe that with a sound strategical vision on when, how and why events happen in the interactions, Eureka can be leveraged more effectively to provide visibility to make significant operational/marketing/decision science shifts to improve consumer contacts and increase ROI.
        
        Not to get off this path, but I have a new perspective on interactions after hearing Heather Hansen presentation on the latest webinar https://learn.callminer.com/webinars/webinar-gain-insights-on-sentiment-through-speech-analytics on Callminer.com. During that presentation, she recommended the book " Never Split the Difference" by Chris Voss which is an interest perspective on understand human interactions from a former FBI hostage negotiator. I would recommend reading this book as it may add to crafting a new direction on influencing how you approach you consumer interactions.
        
        This is why I highly encourage participating in all CallMiner's webinars, there is always a new perspective to digest
        
        Shawn
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        christinegonzalez @ shawnfeaser on Jun 29, 2018 2:24 PM
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        Hey Shawn Feaser,
        Wow!! Look at you guys at Encore, making your presence well known here. Haha. I am 100% in agreement with your hypothesis. Even just diving into the psychology of calls can help corporations better communicate with their customers, identify ways to motivate and keep their employees happy, ensure that protocols are efficient and product the results you're mentioning there.
        
        Oh wow, that sounds like a very fascinating webinar. I'll be checking that out, for sure! Hmmmm influence tends to be the word of the day today. You're very correct, we all have different perspectives, view points, and strong suits, that can help assist each other with our own pursuits. Even if you are knowledgeable about a particular topic, there may be an aspect or avenue you have not considered or utilized it for yet. Good stuff!
        
        Christine Gonzalez
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        shawnfeaser @ christinegonzalez on Jun 29, 2018 4:21 PM
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        One last comment for today that I heard that seems to fit this initiative
        
        "Edison didn't make the light bulb by improving the candle"
        
        Shawn
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umaariel Jun 28, 2018 9:11 AM
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Silence is one of the greatest indicators of not listening (but also not understanding) in call center scenarios. Silence sometimes delivers the message the agent doesn't want to deal with the situation.
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Is it possible to measure if an Agent is really listening to a Consumer?

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