Allianz Partners
Opportunity
Owned by Allianz, one of the world’s largest property and casualty insurers, Allianz
Partners is a leading provider of travel insurance, corporate assistance, and concierge
services. In the U.S., products also include insurance for event tickets, registration protection,Solutionsand tuition.

Verint® Speech Analytics™

In today’s global economy, tools and techniques to help brands and customers communicate
more effectively across time zones and around the world are highly valued. Accents of contact
center associates can present a barrier to understanding, which can cause customer frustrationand dissatisfaction.

Verint Call Recording™
Verint Quality Management™
Verint Workforce Management™
Verint Desktop and Process
Analytics™

While Allianz Partners has been using a host of Verint® products within its contact center operations
for a number of years, it instituted a new and innovative way to use Verint Speech Analytics™
to address this specific business challenge. Leveraging the software as the foundation of anaccent neutralization initiative, the company aimed to help associates speak in a clearer andmore understandable manner to better connect with callers and, in turn, improve the customer
experience.

IndustrySolution

Insurance

Allianz Partners has some 800 associates who assist customers with general benefits inquiries,
first notice of loss, policy cancellations, and claim status. It uses Verint Speech Analytics totranscribe approximately 96 percent of these customer calls.

RegionThe company had around 50 “industry-standard” call categories in place for traditional
deep-dive call analysis, which it conducts to understand trends to guide improvement strategies

Americasand associate coaching. A big focus is on mining calls to uncover areas of customer confusion
or frustration.
“From the call analysis we were doing with Verint Speech Analytics, we understood thattranscription accuracy in part was based on how clearly the technology comprehends thevoice of our associates,” says Nate Ford, speech analytics analyst at Allianz Partners.
“We realized we could leverage the software to provide data points to quantify associates’
speech clarity, which can impact customer experience. If agents can’t be understood,
calls can quickly deteriorate.”

Results

To identify a sample of calls to review, Ford worked with contact center managers to• Increased transcription

compile a list of words deemed difficult to pronounce and which are critical to associates’
explanation of insurance coverage and benefits to customers. The list included terms

accuracy by upwards of 5%
by improving associatesuch as determination, limit of liability, payable, physician statement, receipts,

speech clarity through areimbursement, underwriter, uninhabitable, and unintended.

targeted accent
neutralization initiative.
• Enhanced the customer
experience and achieved
higher customer satisfaction
scores.

“ Verint Speech Analytics is an adaptive tool that can be used in so manydifferent ways – from helping understand the big picture in terms of trends
to uncovering opportunities for associate coaching.”– Nate Ford, Speech Analytics Analyst, Allianz Partners

Next, a call category was created to flag calls missing these

Ford matched transcription accuracy rates with post-call survey

terms. The intention was to understand instances where thedata containing customer satisfaction scores. With this data interms where actually spoken by associates but not recognized

hand, the company administered focused accent neutralizationby the speech transcription engine.

coaching to a subset of associates – those who had thegreatest amount of missing words or phrases in their customer

Ford then reviewed and scored random calls from the top andcall transcriptions.

bottom 25 percent of associates. In doing so, he determined
there was a strong correlation between associates he foundThe performance of these associates was then reviewed overdifficult to understand based on his subjective review anda three-month period. Associates who had repeatedly scoredassociates where speech transcription accuracy was poorer.

in the bottom 25 percent reduced missing information in theirtranscriptions by an average of 4.3 percent at the end of theFord also found that transcription accuracy (associatedthree months. With the transcription rate improvement,with accent) was only one of several factors impacting Net

the company also saw a rise in customer satisfaction scores.

Promoter Scores (NPS) and Agent Satisfaction (ASAT) scores,
but that speech clarity had a much greater bearing with

“Verint Speech Analytics is an adaptive tool that can be usedcomplicated call issues.

in so many different ways – from helping understand the big
picture in terms of trends to uncovering opportunities forBenefits

associate coaching,” concludes Ford. “In this case, it gave

While the findings indicated that an accent neutralization

performance and deliver targeted coaching, providing a novel

initiative would be beneficial to customer experience

approach to accent neutralization.”

us an objective data-driven means to evaluate associate

improvement efforts, Allianz Partners recognized associatespeech clarity was one of many factors impacting customer
satisfaction. To this end, the question became to what extent
accent neutralization was needed.
“We employed a data-driven approach to understand how
much emphasis we should place on accent neutralization,”
Ford notes. “We correlated it to our customer satisfaction
goals to pinpoint the appropriate amount of associatecoaching needed.”Americas

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