Quality rules

When it comes to conversation quality, everything hinges on the quality of your audio. If your audio is poor, the chances of a satisfactory call outcome drop dramatically. We’ve all been there; trouble hearing a support advisor, audio delays and echoes, chunks of conversations dropping altogether. If we’re honest, poor audio has made us all want to throw our devices against the wall at one point or another. You don’t want this to be your customers’ experience with your service. This is where voice quality testing comes in.

Why test?

We are living in a time of exponential virtual and remote communications growth, where businesses are becoming increasingly reliant on Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technologies to remain effective and relevant. And this trend shows no signs of abating, with the global market for VoIP services estimated to reach US$ 194.5 billion by the end of 2024.

As transformative as VoIP is, it is not without its caveats, chief among them the imperative never to neglect audio quality.  

VoIP quality testing is the only guarantee you have that your call audio is up to par. If you don’t have a regular voice quality testing protocol in place, the likelihood is that the first you’ll hear about drops in voice quality is from your customers and by then it may be too late to repair the reputational damage. 

Talk the talk

If you haven’t experienced the reality of your customers’ journey with your service firsthand, how can you be sure that your audio quality is optimal? Answer; you can’t!

Voice quality testing, like our own voice quality testing service, should enable you to benchmark your audio against objective PESQ audio quality scores. Armed with these irrefutable, ITU recognized, scientific test results, you can make any necessary improvements to your audio, hold carriers to SLAs, and make more informed routing and carrier-sourcing choices in the future.   

How it works

At Spearline, we have developed a comprehensive, always on and on-demand, automated audio quality testing service that fully tests your customers’ call journey, quickly pinpointing any audio quality issues that could affect customer experience (CX).  Our Voice Assure tool can test your customers’ call journeys from any USA or Canadian state, or from over 80 countries worldwide. 

Here’s how we do it:

• An in-country, Spearline server dials your VOIP or legacy contact numbers using standard phone lines with ISDN signaling.
• The server sends a series of DTMF tones that your IVR can understand 
• Your IVR connects the call to a pre-loaded audio (WAV) file. The WAV file is played back over the line, recorded on the Spearline server and then analyzed to generate an audio quality score.

You have complete control over the scheduling and frequency of the testing process and can relax in the knowledge that, should any issues arise, you will be notified immediately. Our powerful reporting and analysis features will enable you to get to the root of the issue quickly and help to prevent a recurrence of the problem. 

And not just that, our Voice Assure Realtime, on-demand call testing tool now comes with Provider Selection included, which allows you to choose which mobile network operators and fixed line providers you want to test when calling your in-country phone numbers, providing you with a window into the behavior of your numbers across multiple voice carriers and locations.

End of the line

Voice quality is a mission critical component in the success of any enterprise that relies on VoIP communications. Voice quality testing provides you with invaluable insights into your customers’ experiences with your voice channels, enabling you to shore up your communications defenses, eliminate blind-spots, and ensure optimal CX for your business. 

Spearline’s Voice Assure Voice quality testing tools can help you to understand how your audio stacks up against our benchmark indicators and your historical data. Providing voice quality test outcomes to your customers reassures them that you are making every effort to rectify any problems, which builds relationships of trust with your client base and confidence in the integrity of your service.