Newsflash: Customer Experience (CX) is a crucial component of a company’s success and influences customer loyalty, and modern businesses know it is something they must improve. An excellent CX requires the proper balance of people, processes, and technology, but this can be expensive if not approached correctly and the difficult macroeconomic climate is pressuring businesses to cut costs. Because of this, many North American businesses are outsourcing contact center operations to less expensive countries like India and the Philippines. According to Frost & Sullivan’s independent research, this trend has dramatically increased over the past two years. As delivery regions, India and the Philippines exhibited high single-digit revenue growth in 2023, whereas onshore delivery experienced a 3.8% decline in the North American CX management market.
Accents Can Be an Issue in the Contact Center World
Leveraging offshore locations for contact center operations traditionally implies speech understanding issues. The accent differences between North American customers and offshore agents can be considerable, historically leading to resistance from consumers who prefer not to interact with agents they find difficult to understand. This limits the growth and adoption of offshore delivery. Accent neutralization technology improves communication, reduces misunderstandings, and alleviates the stress associated with language barriers. End customers become less frustrated due to agent misunderstandings and are less aggressive. This results in a more positive work environment, higher employee morale, and better customer interactions. The improved employee experience (EX) directly translates into enhanced CX, creating a virtuous cycle of satisfaction and loyalty.
The concentration of contact center operations in large urban centers presents another challenge. While these Tier I cities provide sizeable talent pools, they face high costs and great employee turnover rates. In contrast, smaller Tier II and Tier III cities across India, the Philippines, Latin America, and other Asian countries offer lower costs, attrition, and absenteeism rates, enabling companies to create stronger engagement bonds with contact center agents. Yet, inhabitants of these cities often feature stronger, more pronounced accents, which would traditionally limit their opportunities in the CX space. Given the context, accent translation is becoming increasingly vital as it directly addresses the exclusion of potential employees due to linguistic biases. It also creates a tremendous opportunity for organizations looking to expand further into offshore locations and leverage the associated benefits.
Real-time Accent Translation in Action: Sanas is Changing the Game
Sanas’s innovative Accent Translation technology addresses key market challenges by eliminating strong regional accents without requiring high-end infrastructure. Its technology removes one of the main barriers to offshoring operations, enabling companies to relocate their customer service operations to lower-cost regions without compromising customer interaction quality. This capability is particularly transformative for companies looking to expand their operations in countries where accent barriers have previously limited growth.
Over the years, Sanas has achieved remarkable commercial adoption across various industries, including healthcare, hospitality, and banking, financial services, insurance (BFSI). For example, the company achieved a 99.2% adoption rate among customer service agents in Manila on the first day, which highlights the employee´s appreciation for the technology’s ability to address language barriers. The simplicity of the on/off toggle feature enhances usability, giving agents control and further boosting EX. Customers adopting Sanas’s technology saw impressive improvements in key performance indicators, such as a 36% reduction in employee attrition. This reduced the challenges associated with recruiting and training new staff, ultimately driving to cost optimization.
Sanas’s commitment to improving EX also has significant implications for mental health. As contact center agents are no longer subject to customer aggressiveness, a more positive work environment and higher employee morale reduce stress and improve productivity. Sanas’s mission is to bring its technology to every agent to enhance their mental health and overall job satisfaction. In turn, this will drive better customer interactions and a more successful industry.
The Last Word
The world of CX is changing rapidly, and enabling speech understanding is becoming paramount. As more organizations transition to an AI-based technology environment, future growth opportunities will rely less on labor arbitrage and more on making the most of every customer interaction. Because a significant portion of the customer journey is being automated, the time spent talking to consumers on voice-based communications will be less. Therefore, it will be even more important to turn those moments into opportunities for cross-selling, up-selling, and strengthening customer loyalty. Reducing customer and agent frustration while creating positive, memorable experiences can make all the difference. Organizations that understand this will have the upper hand in tomorrow´s competitive landscape.
