On the heels of Google announcing half a billion people talk to its voice assistant every month and the rise of business voice apps like Alexa for Business and Oracle AI Voice, there is now a global surge towards voice in the workplace. In Australia last month, Telstra signed a deal with ASX listed voice AI platform Dubber enabling business customers to monitor calls across any device, joining Optus, Cisco Webex calling and over 100 global telcos offering customers this AI monitoring service.

However, data privacy concerns remain high around voice assistants, with Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft all apologising and backtracking on their use of voice data in late 2019. Now, new research of more than 3,000 workers in Dubber’s Big Voice report has found that less than half (46%) of Australians are happy for their employer to be analysing their conversations in real-time, even if it helps to provide business insights, well below more advanced markets like the UK (56%) and the US (53%).

When asked about their views on recent news Apple and Skype employees listen to people's Siri and Skype conversations to, as they claim, “improve their product”, the majority of respondents (62%) said they are totally against anyone listening to their conversations without their prior knowledge or consent. In contrast, 60% of global business workers believe voice technology will become more prevalent in their work life and are seeking automated features like the ability to identify instructions on phone calls to automatically schedule meetings, save phone numbers or set reminders and share notes.

Dubber CEO, Steve McGovern, said: “More than 1000 voice recordings captured by Google Assistant were leaked without users’ knowledge, each one allegedly containing personal data, private conversations and identifying features about the voices thereon.” 

“Google’s case has cast a spotlight on the security of voice recording storage and access protocols across the world. Voice recordings are becoming increasingly integral to business operations today - whether you’re capturing voice data for regulatory reasons, to track down an incident or breach in contract, or to build AI applications and measure your customer sentiment. But while capturing human conversation has never been more essential, it can be detrimental if it finds its way into the wrong hands.” 

New research from Australia’s Dubber has revealed that despite nearly nine in ten (86%) Aussie business workers reporting that applying insights from voice data would be helpful across their business, over three in five companies are not doing so, missing the opportunity to enhance their operations.

Voice data capture allows business phone conversations across the entire business to be recorded and transcribed (voice-to-text), unlocking new streams of business intelligence - from compliance and quality assurance to sentiment analysis and alerts for customer service and dispute resolution.

McGovern believes the industry is starting to see the game-changing benefits that voice data analysis can provide for businesses big and small, but many are yet to actually start capturing and applying insights:

“We are only at the tip of the iceberg of what voice data capture can provide at scale. Speech intelligence is a new field of analytics and is the final frontier of data to be mobilised for strategic purposes. It can unlock detailed information on consumer sentiment, issues management, call outcomes and many other variables, helping drive better customer service, improving knowledge of client needs and ultimately increasing business performance.

“Our platform is opening up a new world of insights for businesses across the globe with the ability to record not only contact centre calls but also calls taking place across the organisation.”

Pain points

Dubber’s Big Voice Data Report 2019 surveyed 2500 business workers across Australia, UK and US (850 in Australia) and revealed more than half of Aussie managers (51%) had experienced miscommunications with a colleague or client due to a lack of an information trail. Similar proportion (49%) said they’d lost or forgotten important information because it wasn’t captured.  This was the biggest issue for those across the regions working in legal services (59.1%) and the financial services & insurance (57%) industries.

Of those who thought it would be useful to capture their business’ voice data, over half of Australian business professionals (56%) said it would help to reduce risk, monitor processes and eliminate errors in details and communication within the office environment while a two fifths (44%) said it would be helpful to easily search past phone calls for keywords.

A similar proportion (45%) said it would be helpful to have discussions on record to help with dispute resolution. Similarly, a quarter of those surveyed said capturing voice data would be useful for regulatory and compliance matters, and to reduce the risk of fraud.

Aussie’s love a yarn, but do they want them on record?

Two-fifths of those surveyed (46%) are happy for their work phone to be recording and analysing their conversations to assist in making immediate decisions. Over half (58%) also think voice technology will become more prevalent in work life and think it would be helpful if their phone could identify instructions and automatically schedule meetings, save phone numbers and key details or enter addresses into maps.

Outside of work, Australians reported they are generally comfortable with having their phone calls recorded, particularly for fraud reduction reasons (78%), ahead of improving customer service (74%), helping a business improve operations (67%) and for training purposes (64%).

“There is so much potential, yet voice data is often excluded from conversations around transformation and big data. As Industry 4.0's technologies advance, businesses need to advance with it and begin to capture valuable insights through their business conversations,” added McGovern.