Pennine has secured a partnership agreement with leading European artificial intelligence (AI) voice analytics software developer, Xdroid. The new deal will give UK contact centres access to a powerful AI-driven automated speech and emotion analytics solution through the Bury-headquartered communications, data and networking specialist.

The solution automatically processes customer interactions and detects differing emotional responses, speech patterns, hold music and void periods. This data can then inform process enhancements to increase productivity, customer satisfaction and retention.

The technology is already in use within the finance, insurance and utility sectors where clients have reported performance enhancements delivering a return on investment within 12-24 months.

Commenting on the new partnership, Pennine’s sales director Steve Watts said: “The Xdroid analytics solution is a game-changer, an immensely powerful and cost-effective performance management tool. Available as a cloud or on-premise solution it gives both enterprise and SMB’s the ability to harness the power of artificial intelligence to refine and enhance their contact centre operations.”

Xdroid’s Managing Director, Gerry de Graaf, welcomed the deal with Pennine, saying: “Pennine is an important addition to our European partner network. The company has both an impressive skill-set and reach, serving a contact centre client base which spans SMEs through to international Blue Chips.

“This partnership will provide Pennine with a much stronger proposition for the contact centre market as a whole and enhance its existing clients’ customer communications capabilities.”

The Xdroid solution employs content-independent algorithms to detect emotions such as displeasure, happiness and uncertainty. These are visualised on the solutions dashboard to enable managers to more quickly and easily assess single call, operator and call centre performance.

The provision of such objective and consistent data can then inform refinement and enhancement of processes, helping eliminate unnecessary on-hold periods, minimise call times and increase customer satisfaction. In addition managers can use the data to introduce customised training programmes.

It can also be combined with Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) data to inform more sophisticated customer retention strategies.