How Computers Could Make Your Customer-Service Calls More Human

Cogito is one of several companies developing analytics tools that give agents feedback about how conversations with customers are going. Its software measures in real time the tone of an agent's voice, their speech rate, and how much each person is talking, according to Dr. Place. "We measure the conversational dance," he says. That dance is sometimes out of sync, such as when an agent speaks too quickly or too much, cuts a customer off, has extended periods of silence or sounds tired. When the software detects these mistakes, a notification pops up on a window on an agent's screen to coax them to change their strategy.