5 Benefits Of An API Integration In Your Contact Center

Business needs are constantly evolving, forcing many contact centers to review their interaction analytics resources to determine if they are acquiring the insight needed to optimize performance.  When it’s time to embark on the journey to implement new technology in your contact center to address a changing environment, there are many questions you, and your IT implementation team, should consider before making a decision.  One question sure to arise is how can we make the new analytics solution meet our specific needs for data integration and presentation?   Is there a standards-supported API available that allows us to cost effectively integrate with our existing systems?

What is an API?

cAn API or application programming interface makes it possible for two different platforms to communicate with one another. A common example is anytime you use an app on your Smartphone, you are utilizing an API. APIs can be used to export information from one interface to another, embed information from one interface to another, or extend functionality.

Contact centers often utilize APIs to create an agent dashboard that combines sales and service information in one central location, introducing gamification initiatives, or sharing valuable call data. Most importantly, APIs allow various departments in a business share information, statistics, and BIG data so they can make improvements where necessary.

Many interaction analytics platforms, those that can analyze speech, text, chat and social,  don’t support API integration or they charge significant fees to open access. At CallMiner, we utilize a standards-based open interface so you can make your data work for you wherever you need it most.   Our open API framework makes it easy to enrich unique customer interaction insight with data you maintain within your corporate systems, manage contact center interaction detail within existing data storage resources, and share customer insight within familiar dashboards and analysis tools

What are benefits of a Customer Interaction API?

When you utilize interaction analytics software with API flexibility, contact centers experience several benefits.

Use data wherever you want

There is no fence holding the data you collect inside your software program, so you can export it wherever you need it most. If you want to combine data with your marketing CRM software  and import it into you data visualization tools to uncover trends in regards to customer satisfaction or identify characteristics of your best customers, you can.

By combining this data with existing corporate intelligence, you increase your understanding of customers’ wants, expectations, and needs. All of which help you create a positive engagements across the customer journey.

Timing for unique insight

Cause and effect has a time dimension that can be difficult to manage if you don’t have the flexibility to integrate data resources from disparate systems.  A classic example is capturing customer interaction data with speech analytics displaying positive or negative sentiment.  Did that result in a sale in some time period after the call terminated?

The CallMiner API makes it easy to combine interaction detail with sales reports located in a CRM or other system tracking customer reports.   Integration with these systems suddenly makes analysis more dynamic by making customer interaction insight a datapoint that can be merged with other detail perhaps disassociated with the time when the interaction occurred.   So for example, integration with the CallMiner API can make it easy to identify the top scoring agents that achieved a sale 1 month after an interaction.   It can also reveal language patterns of agents that are the lowest performing sales generators for that same period.

Verification of survey feedback

Is the customer always right? Survey feedback is not always positive. It would be comforting to know if your contact center agent did everything they could to manage that customer’s expectation.  The CallMiner API can makes this data driven evidence a reality by enabling survey feed acquired pos-call to be combined with interaction detail.

For example, a low scoring survey could be combined with a CallMiner scored agent interaction information associated with that customer providing negative feedback.   The agent score might actually be noteworthy, with transcription detail verifying the agent did everything they were supposed to do to resolve the customer issue including high marks for empathy and politeness.   Without this API-fueled intelligence a well-performing agent might actually be targeted for coaching or worse!

Collect data from mobile apps

If you are utilizing a mobile app to communicate with customers, you can now collect data and transcribe it into the interaction analytics database. This helps you identify why users choose the mobile app and uncover any struggles with the user experience. By accessing this information, you can quickly make adjustments to the interface, so it is more pleasant and easy to use moving forward.

Keep what you info need

Contact centers get a choice in which information they collect and keep and which they can get rid of with an ingestion API. This helps minimize excessive clutter from too much data and makes it easier for managers to review and analyze the captured information.

Automatically request information

Another valuable benefit of API’s is their ability to automatically capture the information you want, when you want it, and deliver it in the way you to want it. For instance, if you want to see a daily report of the top ten calls in regards to performance scores, you can tell the API what, when, and how to deliver this information.

Personalize interactions

Contact centers can create rules in an API that tell it to automatically pull certain information and respond in a certain way. The API can automatically sent clients whose call time was above the target length, a gift apologizing for the lengthy time and improve their satisfaction with your brand as a result.

Not every interaction analytics solution is built the same. Before you make a decision, take the time to research, review, and ask questions. The last thing you want is to invest in a solution, only to be limited in what you are allowed to do with your data. CallMiner’s interaction analytics uses an open interface so you can import, export, and integrate as many software solutions as you need to build a successful business.

CTA: Learn more about the success smart home service provider Vivint has had when they designed and utilized automated speech analytics to extract KPI targeted scores and route those critical insights through an API to their own customized dashboard to track and coach on agent scoring/behaviors.