FurstPerson Releases Interactive Hiring Simulation

FurstPerson, a provider of pre-employment hiring solutions to the contact center industry, today released CC Audition Talk & Note, which uses interactive speech technologies to create a simulation of the contact center job

Talk & Note incorporates speech and advanced call documentation to create an assessment that closely resembles actual job requirements. By capturing actual candidate speech during the assessment, FurstPerson’s Talk & Note creates a more engaging simulation that closely resembles the actual contact center job.

The Web-based Talk & Note application takes job candidates through a series of simulated calls into a call center. Candidates play the part of the agent and the application gives them a number of scenarios to which they must respond. Speech recognition technology provided by LumenVox collects the responses and the speech engine then pulls the subsequent prompts based on those responses.

“The candidate speaks into a microphone and then we record and analyze [the audio inputs] to see if the speaker said what she was supposed to say,” says Jeff Furst, president and CEO of FurstPerson.

“It’s an interactive experience with fake customers and gives [the job applicant] choices to select which one the application goes through,” Furst explains.

The process, which takes 10-15 minutes to complete, measures the candidate’s overall performance, computer and communications skills, accuracy, and ability to multitask, and serves as a gauge for average call handling time, call quality, and customer satisfaction, according to Furst.

FurstPerson has conducted analysis to show that job candidates who score well on Talk & Note perform better on the job – and this higher performance equates to cost savings and revenue enhancement.  Specifically, those hires who score well on CC Audition Talk & Note will perform better on AHT (average handle time), while also delivering higher call satisfaction.  
According to Furst, the application is another example of the growing use of speech applications in the contact center industry. “From a call center perspective, I’m not aware of any other tool that incorporates speech in this way,” he says. “I’m excited about the simple application of speech to make this tool more interactive and useful.”

Furst notes that though Talk & Note could be used alone, it is part of the larger CC Audition suite of products which, when combined, “give an accurate view of the candidate.” Other pieces of the total CC Audition package include CC Audition Sales and CC Audition Service.