How call centres are increasing ROI with background noise cancellation

A look at how investing in a noise cancelling app like IRIS Clarity can help deliver ROI and value for your call centre through improved CX, AX, and AHT.

4 Sept '24

The cost of doing business continues to rise worldwide. With inflation hitting bottom lines hard, call centres are increasingly required to find higher ROI in the investments that they make.

Couple these budgetary squeezes with growing customer expectations (88% of customers expect more from companies than in previous years), and those call centres who have applied a numbers-led, practical assessment of their conversational exchanges are winning in terms of the bottom line.

Furthermore, 50% of customers across all age groups still prefer to talk over the phone instead of other means of communication, so it comes as no surprise that technology designed to deliver clearer, higher-quality conversations is still top of mind for most organisations.

A great example of this is background noise cancelling technology (like IRIS Clarity). By removing background noise on both ends of a call through AI, brands can continue to deliver a brilliant customer experience to match these growing expectations. But how can they prove that investment in noise cancellation apps isn’t just another expense, but can actually deliver worthwhile ROI?

The quick-wins of voice isolation

Call length

The first and most obvious benefit of removing background noise through AI noise cancellation is the improvement in call duration. Call centres are noisy places, as are the places customers call from. In fact our research found that 89% of agents believe background noise impacts their conversations and consequently the time-to-resolution.

Whether it’s the agent or the customer mishearing the other, needing to repeat themselves, or correcting each other, it’s all time wasted on calls. This could be as simple as a ‘can you repeat that’ or needing to repeat an entire 16-digit debit card number, but that’s a 5-second increase and those seconds add up.

Let’s go with this 5-second improvement estimate as an example. At the lowest average cost per hour for an agent (£15/hr), a 200-agent call centre could be cutting out 69 hours of wasted call time per week — saving them around £12,000 a year. If any of these numbers are larger, the savings can rack up very quickly. In fact, the estimated cost to the industry is $2.5bn/year. Meanwhile, with a price point similar to our own IRIS Clarity (which you can try for free for 7 days), the ROI of a voice isolation tool is 4:1 with upfront costs paid back in less than 3 months.

Headset cost reduction

A secondary direct saving from noise cancellation apps is a reduced spend on headsets. Clear Voice Capture (cVc) headsets can be extremely expensive compared to active or passive noise cancelling pairs — not to mention the cost of breakage, replacements, and theft.

Call centres with noise cancellation only need to worry about removing the noise around the agent for the agent (as the AI takes care of the rest), so they can buy cheaper headsets that only provide active (ANC) or passive noise cancellation (PNC). If you’re saving 50% on the cost of each pair, savings will build quickly over time as headsets inevitably need to be replaced.

Physical environment soundproofing saving

Another significant benefit of AI noise cancellation: no longer needing to spend exorbitant amounts on noise-absorbing partitions, panels, or other furniture. These methods can be costly, require reorganising entire call centres, and they frankly leave a lot to be desired with their actual effectiveness.

It also means call centres don’t need to limit the number of agents they employ per physical location. By removing all the background noise in a call centre via simple software on each agent’s machine, the amount of actual noise in the call centre becomes much less disruptive - making space for more agents and unlocking further savings on real estate.

(Side note: this is where the ANC or PNC headsets come in handy. Paired with noise cancellation tools, the headsets then eliminate noise around the agents for the agents, while the technology eliminates noise around the agents for the customers, and around the customers for the agents. A true noise-free bubble.)

Between the savings in time, headsets, and physical soundproofing, you can see how investing in noise cancellation can quickly impact your bottom line.

The best part: these apps have a number of more long-term financial benefits, too.

The hidden ROI opportunities

Improved customer experience

A satisfied customer is an asset to any business, with the potential to refer others to the company or provide positive reviews. A dissatisfied customer, on the other hand, is costly.

Whilst customers’ desire to talk is strong, the frustrations met due to poor call centre experiences are significant. We asked 1,000 customers if they’ve ever been on a call with a customer service agent where it was hard to hear them because of noise around them such as ringing phones or other agents talking — 77% responded with a resounding yes.

Obstacles caused by background noise like repetition and loss of conversational thrust leave customers feeling let down: what starts as an active desire to interact is quickly turned into a negative experience. Considering:

  • 90% of consumers say quality of customer service helps to drive their buying decisions
  • 80% say they are willing to pay more money for a superior customer service
  • 72% of customers who have a positive customer service experience will refer your company to others
  • 71% cited poor customer service as their reason for leaving a brand

You can quickly see how improved customer experience through clearer audio can drive long-term ROI via better customer loyalty, higher lifetime value, and reduced customer churn.

Improved agent experience

Our research found background noise plays an important part in the agent experience - 69% of agents claim noise had a negative impact on their wellbeing. In fact background noise in general is a growing issue for everyone’s health: a 2011 study found that households in ambient noise-heavy areas such as flight paths and traffic were considerably more likely to take medication used to treat hypertension (high blood pressure) - you can see how it can impact call centre agents in the office.

The call centre industry has a particularly unhealthy relationship with background noise and staff wellbeing - and it shows. 74% of call centre agents are at risk of burnout, and the call centre industry has the highest turnover rate of all, at 30-45%, and even higher in some markets.

By empowering agents to deliver a better customer experience without the stress of background noise impacting their customer conversations on either side, you can increase agent satisfaction, reduce employee turnover, and save money in onboarding costs — not to mention that happier agents are known to increase productivity, too.

The correlation between noise cancellation apps and ROI

In a nutshell, noise cancellation apps like IRIS Clarity drive ROI for call centres in both the short-term and long-term.

For users looking to champion these tools in their own call centres, there are quick wins in improved call times and savings on alternate (and often less efficient) noise-cancelling methods.

There are also tangible long-term benefits, such as happier customers and happier agents, which in turn lead to happier KPIs.

To find out more about IRIS Clarity and arrange your personally tailored ROI session, get in touch at https://iris.audio/ or start a 7 day free trial.

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