The Hidden Cost of Ignoring Your Customer Conversations

Not using conversation analytics software to listen to your customers — really listen — could be costing you more than you realize. 

In the endless bustle of contact center activity, every “hold please” and frustrated sigh carries more than customer irritation — it signals a hidden cost or an untapped opportunity. For companies handling tens of thousands of contact center calls each year on average and up to millions on the high end, at $2.70 to $5.60 a pop, the stakes are high…Yet for all the money spent on customer experience (CX), most businesses still miss what’s right in front of them: the conversation.

But there’s a newer type of contact center analytics software that’s changing things. With conversational intelligence software like Speech Analytics and Text Analytics, companies are finally able to hear what their customers have been saying all along. And this next-level listening is a game changer. 

At last, brands have the insights they need to take action to reduce calls (and texts, emails, live chat sessions, and in-person and social media outreach), saving the organization and the customer in a major way. 

They also know the exact moments when customers are raising their hands and saying “Hey, I want to spend more money with you” and what teams can do to successfully make that happen as these customer conversations are unfolding.

Here’s how.

The Rise of Conversational Intelligence

Since the early days of customer experience, CX teams have had to rely on imperfect tools to understand what’s happening for customers. 

They’ve used things like surveys, which most customers aren’t actually interested in filling out. (Hint: That’s why survey rates are declining.)

Unable to dedicate countless staff hours to manually transcribe and analyze every customer conversation, these teams have sampled select recorded customer service calls to see what’s working and what’s not. 

But these tactics, unsurprisingly and unhelpfully, result in an incomplete picture of what’s really going on. 

Conversational Intelligence is the answer to this problem. 

Powered by AI, these text and speech analytics solutions use natural language understanding to instantly analyze customer conversations across channels (and languages) at scale. These conversational analytics capabilities are able to automatically review billions of phone calls, emails, live chat sessions, text messages, social media interactions, surveys, online reviews, agent notes, and more. 

Plus, they actually make sense of the data by detecting key themes, sentiment, and scores for important CX KPIs, and help teams take the best next steps by delivering action-oriented insights. Speech analytics work across voice formats and offer acoustic analysis to analyze sentiment, silence, overtalk, clarity, emotion, script compliance, impact scores, and more from customer conversation data.  

By using conversational intelligence to mine contact center interactions for patterns, friction points, and revenue cues, companies are not just reducing call and contact volumes — they’re recovering six figures in costs, unlocking new sales, and rebuilding loyalty. From resolving confirmation email failures to training agents to catch upgrade signals in real time, the power of listening is no longer just good service — it’s good business.

The Results of Using Conversational Analytics, in Real Dollars

The ROI of Conversation Intelligence is tangible: Companies are saving hundreds of thousands of dollars by addressing the root cause of the issues that lead to high (aka costly and unnecessary) contact center volumes and by capitalizing on revenue opportunities hidden within their customer conversations. According to Medallia’s analysis, the average enterprise-scale organization could: 

• Save $150,000 — and lower their call volume by 30,000 — by fixing simple glitches, such as errors that are preventing confirmation emails from being sent to customers
• Save $200,000 by stopping confusing phone call routing loops from happening 

Uncover $250,000 in new upsell revenue by listening in when customers signal the intent to upgrade in their conversations and teaching agents to recognize and respond to these buying signals mid-conversation 

These aren’t abstract metrics or vanity KPIs — they’re concrete outcomes made possible by turning everyday support interactions into strategic assets. As organizations begin to connect the dots between what customers say and what the business needs to hear, a new CX imperative emerges: Listen closely, act quickly, and let the data speak for itself.

Every Customer Conversation Has the Power to Save — and Make — You More Money

Businesses across industries are under greater pressure to cut costs and drive revenue. High-growth companies are betting on AI to make a difference, and it’s already paying off, according to Medallia Market Research’s 2024 study, Beyond the Hype: What CX Practitioners Really Think of AI.

But companies need to invest in the right AI to achieve the greatest impact. 

That’s the potential of Conversational Intelligence. It helps brands cut costs — the cost to serve, the cost of churn, the cost of missed referral opportunities, and the cost of not solving the root cause of issues in the first place — and accelerate revenue by surfacing overlooked sales and upselling opportunities.

Want to see what industry-leading conversation analytics software like Medallia’s Conversational Intelligence can do for your business? Get your copy of our new guide: CX That Pays Off: How Every Call Converts to Cash.