Good write up I think. A call-centre worker. One local bank...

Good write up I think.


A call-centre worker. One local bank spends $3m a month on recording and archiving its calls.Source: Getty Images

WHEN call centre customers are told their call may be recorded for quality and training purposes, the chances are the enterprise is being liberal with the truth.

True, the conversation probably has been taped, but the chances are the recording has been stored on a far-flung server that, in practical terms, is impossible to locate. To date, there has also been little scope to analyse the calls for useful customer or staff behaviour.

In the latest case of “cloud” disruption, the Melbourne-based Dubber lists tomorrow via the shell of former West African explorer Crucible Gold, having raised $4.7 million in an oversubscribed offer.

Dubber co-founder and CEO Steve McGovern says call recording may be unexciting, yet it is a multi-billion sector globally. In a not unusual example, one local bank spends $3m a month on recording and archiving its calls.

Depending on the country, recording calls is mandatory for many industries. Stockbrokers in the UK and the US are required to do so, but Mr McGovern was surprised to learn that two-thirds of local brokers don’t due to costs.

Like other cloud offerings, Dubber obviates the need for upfront capex, and instead operates on a pay-as-you go subscription basis.

As part of its “audio asset management’’ charter, Dubber extracts metadata and uses biometrics (voice analysing) to analyse and classify the calls.

“This is a classic cloud transformation of a traditional industry,’’ he said. “We can do some really interesting bespoke things.’’

One tailored tweaking relates to storing customers’ credit card details imparted over the phone. Technically, preserving the conversation is illegal but in pre-Dubber times companies had no way of sifting through the tapes to delete the stored numbers.

Call recording is at present provided by a handful of offshore providers, including Verint, NICE and CTI Group.

Mr McGovern said Dubber planned to forge alliances with telco providers, rather than going it alone and persuade companies to shelve their legacy systems and start from scratch.

In December, Dubber struck a distribution agreement with Japan’s Nippon Telegraph & Telephone, to access the company’s 120 large corporate customers. Mr McGovern expected more alliances to be announced post listing.

On relisting, Dubber will have 54 million shares on offer, valuing the entity at $11m. A further 21.4 million “contingent shares’’ are issuable to the vendors and management, subject to performance hurdles.

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  Cheers all