Use of Profanity by Customers in the Contact Center is On the Rise and That’s Bad for Business

New CallMiner data shows calls from consumers are angrier, more profane, and lasting longer, adversely impacting operations and the bottom line.

CallMiner, the leading provider of speech and customer engagement analytics solutions, today unveiled the findings of new data analysis on consumers’ use of profanity when they call the contact center. In a review of more than 82 million calls, the data indicates that callers are becoming more frustrated with issue resolution and are using profane language to verbalize their displeasure.

In a new infographic entitled, What the %!#* is Going On, CallMiner outlines the critical issues related to customers using profanity when calling the contact center. Key findings from the analysis include:

• 87% of calls with customers using profanity contain profanity throughout the duration of the call.
• Calls with consumer profanity usage are on average 8.3 minutes longer than those without.
• The top 5 reasons callers are angry include: long wait times, having to repeat themselves from one contact channel to the next, failure to have their issue resolved on the first call, long messages before being routed to the right person, and calls that are misrouted after speaking to a call center employee.

“Customers using profanity when calling the contact center isn’t just rude, it’s a strong indicator that some part of your operation is falling short,” said Jeff Gallino, founder and chief technology officer at CallMiner. “Consumer use of profanity in the contact center is a key behavior worth tracking as it is a measure of customer experience and client sentiment, and negatively impacts the working environment for your agents. Any way you slice it, when profanity becomes prevalent, your business is impacted.”

Direct customer interactions are extremely valuable to a company’s bottom line and when customers use profanity in contact centers it hurts performance, client relationships and accelerates agent churn. Contact center agents need to be able to de-escalate volatile situations – assisting consumers more efficiently and proactively. Speech analytics technology provides the insights companies need to track patterns of customers using profanity and to identify areas for training and improvement.

To view the CallMiner profanity infographic, visit callminer.com/infographic/contact-center-excessive-profanity/