The Impact of Noise in Contact Centres

Cliff Cibelli at Vonage explores the types of noise in the contact centre, the financial impact of noise, and how to reduce background noise.

While many analysts have predicted the decline of the voice channel in customer service, data indicates that it’s on the rise.

In a recent blog article, 81% of service professionals indicated that phone is a preferred channel for more complex issues. What’s more? This is an increase from 76% in 2020.

Self-service and chatbots are gaining traction as sources of first contact, solving easier issues. However, more complex issues may require escalation to an agent.

Voice is still the overwhelmingly preferred channel, but call centre background noise or noise on the caller’s side of the conversation can have negative impacts on the ability to resolve issues quickly.

Types of Noise in Contact Centres

Agents that support voice calls generally work within one of two environments. They may sit alongside other agents in a physical call centre or remotely. In general, call centre acoustics are designed to try and minimize the impact of surrounding agents talking.

While agents may wear noise-cancelling headsets to better hear remote callers, microphones pick up that background noise and can make it difficult for the end user to hear what the agent is saying.

Agents working hybrid or remote have become more common and have reduced background noise. However, there is still the possibility of background noise from barking dogs, family members, or other factors.

An additional factor for background noise is from the customer-side of a call. Customers may not always be able to control the amount of noise in the background of their calls to service agents, which can cause additional issues.

Impact of Noise on Productivity

Whether inbound or outbound noise, there is an impact to productivity as both agents and customers have to concentrate very hard to hear the conversation.

While this can be a minor issue for an end user on a single call, for agents this can be a significant cause of frustration, particularly for the agent who handles many calls each day.

Additionally, with the increase of off-shore contact centres, agent accent comprehension can impact voice quality and understanding.

The “US Contact Centres 2023-2027: The State of the Industry” report by analyst firm ContactBabel analysed the impact of noise in contact centre settings.

29% of survey respondents over the age of 65 reported that they “very often” had problems hearing or understanding the agent or that they had been asked to repeat themselves.

Not only that, 60% of the youngest cohort (18-34) reported experiencing these same issues either “very often” or “fairly often.”

Financial Impact of Noise

Let’s consider the financial impact of noise. ContactBabel estimates the industry-wide cost of factors like mishearing or needing to repeat is $1.34 billion per year.

How does this apply to a typical contact centre? Let’s look at the numbers, using a 250-seat contact centre with a 21% repetition level as an example:

• The average calls per agent per year is 12,688, and 2,664 of them require repetition.
• Assume the increased length of each call due to repetition is 15 seconds.
• The average call duration is 7 minutes 22 seconds (442 total seconds) — therefore, 3.4% of the call is repetition.
• The mean average cost per inbound call is $6.91.
• So, the cost of time spent on repetition is 23.5 cents per call.
• And that represents a $156,510 total cost of repetition for our typical call centre.

How to Reduce Background Noise in a Call Centre

One way to reduce the impact of noise is through the use of high-quality noise-cancelling headsets, which can remove background noise for agents in an office workplace.

One drawback with this solution is having to replace broken headsets or purchasing new ones when there is agent turnover.

AI-enabled voice isolation can intelligently remove background noise from both sides of the conversation, both in real-time to assist the smooth and accurate flow of the conversation and in recordings to improve post-call analytics and voice-to-text transcription.

Why It Matters

Voice Channel

Despite the rise of digital channels, voice calls continue to be a popular channel for customer interactions. Voice calls are often valued for their ability to facilitate first contact resolution, minimize customer effort, and solve complex issues.

AI-Powered Technology

Using AI-powered technology can eliminate communication barriers including repetition and help deliver next-level customer experiences.

Analytics

Clearer conversations will make for better recordings, which means cleaner transcriptions. Together, this can enable better contact centre analytics, which in turn help drive self-service and knowledge based interactions.

Improved KPIs

Reducing noise on either side of the conversation not only enhances call clarity, but can also lead to improved Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) scores, reduced Average Handling Time (AHT), and provide for more satisfied customers and better business outcomes.

Agent Experience

Improve agent experiences by eliminating noisy distractions, reducing accent barriers, and ending repetitive sentences.

This leads to more streamlined customer interactions and reduces agent stress and frustration. Having happier agents can also lead to reduced turnover in contact centres.

Reviewed by: Jo Robinson