Cisco Systems Inc. earlier this month unveiled Cisco Unified Customer Interaction Analyzer, a managed service that relies on Behavioral Analytics (BA) software from eLoyalty Corp. in Lake Forest, Ill.

Rather than offering a sample of calls, as some other tools do, the Cisco tool can graphically scan an entire set of calls from a certain time period or for a particular agent to detect problems -- such as whether a customer got angry repeatedly before being transferred to a supervisor or was put on hold for an unacceptably long time, according to demonstrations of the tool by Cisco executives at VoiceCon Spring 2006.

Problem areas in a call are shown as red dots on a horizontal line, and a supervisor can click on one of the red dots to get a brief description of what happened or even hear that portion of the call.

Cisco has five beta customers successfully using the Analyzer service, but none were willing to discuss it, a spokeswoman said. However, one eLoyalty customer, Uniprise, a UnitedHealth Group company, recently described how the BA tool has improved customer service.

'We're very, very pleased with the results so far,' said John Reinke, senior vice president at the Uniprise Innovation Lab in Minnetonka, Minn. The BA software has so far been used by 300 agents since December, he said, and will be rolled out to all 3,000 U.S. agents this year and perhaps to another 1,500 more around the globe, he said.