Invoca Inc., a maker of artificial intelligence-based software that enables companies to analyze contact center representatives’ conversations with shoppers, today announced a new cloud service that spots missed sale conversion opportunities when prospective customers abandon a call because they fail to reach a live agent.

The company targets businesses in complex industries such as health insurance and automotive retailing in which customers typically speak at length to live agents. The company said its internal research shows that 26% of inbound customer calls in such scenarios go unanswered or are abandoned by customers because of long hold times.

Invoca’s new Lost Sales Recovery service analyzes what it calls “voice energy” to determine customer actions and applies it to recordings of inbound calls. “We categorize voice mail, answer-by-human and no answer and report that back to marketers or call center managers,” said Chief Executive Gregg Johnson. The data can then be integrated with call center systems to queue up promising customers for a quick call back as well as to target them in marketing and advertising programs.

Lost Sales Recovery has particular value for businesses like automotive manufacturers who sell through large dealer networks, Johnson said. Individual dealers often don’t have the resources to take all inbound calls, meaning that sales are lost without the manufacturer even knowing about them.

“A lot of our customers take hundreds of thousands or even millions of calls a year, so they can now do an automated follow-up at scale,” he said. Invoca cited the example of an unnamed tire and automotive repair that discovered it was missing 8,000 calls per month across its national network and was able to recapture more than $16 million in revenue by identifying high-intent interactions and returning calls quickly. Marketers can also use the data to customize re-engagement programs by targeting unanswered phone leads.

Lost Sales Recovery is included in Invoca’s conversation intelligence and call-tracking analytics subscription service, which starts at $12,000 per year.

Photo: Invoca