Invoca embeds IBM’s Watson so call centers can better understand their customers

IBM’s Watson supercomputing service is adding yet another job skill to his resume.

This week, Invoca announced that it will offer a version of its call intelligence platform that embeds Watson’s cognitive computing capability, via the Watson Speech to Text API. The companies said this is Watson’s first job in marketing-focused call intelligence, and it represents yet another instance of artificial intelligence becoming interwoven with marketing tools.

Invoca’s non-Watson platform already offers speech-to-text processing and text analysis of calls coming into a contact center, so that an operator or a manager can see specific keywords in the conversation to better route or respond to calls. The software hides sensitive information in the transcription, such as credit card numbers.

Invoca points to one of its clients, Frontier Communications, which uses the analyzed conversation to determine such things as whether terms like “confirmation number” or “installation date” were used, in which case the call can be traced back to the mobile click-to-call ad that led to this sale.

But, Invoca SVP Kyle Christensen told me, this capability takes at least a few minutes to generate a transcription for automated text analysis. With Watson, it is now handled in real time, improving the ability to quickly channel calls. Here’s a Watson-assisted screen:

Christensen noted that the bigger difference is down the road, when Watson can learn what certain kinds of signals mean.

For instance, the supercomputer might notice a pattern of certain word choices by those callers who are most likely to cancel their subscriptions. Christensen says he envisions Watson getting to the point where he can say, in effect, “these are the things you should be looking for,” in order to determine which callers are churn risks.

Additionally, Watson will have access to Invoca’s data behind the call, such as the fact that the user had clicked-to-call from an ad resulting from a given mobile search. Watson could provide insights about what kind of search results led to what kinds of calls, and what kinds of agent responses were most successful.

Christensen noted that Invoca is placing a great deal of emphasis on working with large platforms. This year alone, he said, the company has integrated its platform with Adobe’s Marketing Cloud, Facebook, Salesforce (as the first voice intelligence partner), and now Watson.