Automation in the call-centre has, for better or worse, revolutionised the way businesses speak to their customers. Now, even the way businesses train their call centre agents is being computerised, as a project by motoring services group the Automobile Association demonstrates.

In an attempt to reduce the time required to train new call-centre agents and to ensure compliance with regulation from the Financial Services Authority – the AA acts as an insurance broker, so falls under the watchdog’s remit – it has deployed call-centre training programme, developed by Witness Systems.

Using speech analysis technology, customer calls are monitored and automatically analysed. The software analyses patterns of phrases within the calls, and these are used to flag potential issues to call centre supervisors.

The system can help pinpoint gaps in the call handlers’ training, as well as providing tailored e-learning courses to bring operators up to speed and calendar functions that can ensure the training is automatically booked into agents’ schedules.

“We can rapidly create custom e-learning lessons to address the specific development needs of individual agents, as well as topic and process issues that impact our entire agent population,” says Jim Austin, contact centre general manager for the AA. “This has marked a great advancement in our ability to coach and develop our staff and improve customer satisfaction.”