St. Louis, MO — Balto, a leader in uniting contact center agents with AI for better conversations, has released a new update to the Balto Real-Time Index, a tool that collates trends, insights, and in-depth analysis for contact centers. The Index provides actionable insights based on trends surveyed from over 200 million guided calls, and currently tracks eight major industries:  B2B Technology, Collections, Health Insurance, Home Improvement, Property & Casualty Insurance, Retail, Utilities, and Financial Services.

In this new edition, the Conversation Excellence Lab updated its data processing methodology to bring increased granularity to its content. Visitors are able to sort data between  “Sales” and “Customer Service” use cases to add further color to the associated findings. 

Some of the high-level findings in this version of the Index include: 

  • “Budget” was one of the most common objections for all eight industries — including the most common objection for Property & Casualty Insurance, Home Improvement and B2B Technology.
  • Consumers are “Shopping Around” and doing a lot of their own research before purchasing. This objection was the hardest to overcome for Property & Casualty Insurance, Home Improvement, Healthcare Insurance, and B2B Technology.
  • Active listening was one of the most underutilized soft skills for all industries.

The data for the index is gathered by Balto’s in-house research team, the Conversation Excellence Lab. The Index includes a methodology and limitations section to further expand on its data processing requirements.

“200 million calls is a gargantuan milestone. Balto is data rich, and we want to provide that value back to the Balto community and beyond. We hope the visualizations in the Balto Real-Time Index provide value to those looking to understand the trends in their industry and what actions they can take as a result. We’re just starting to tap into the power of all of this data,” said Lior Torenberg, Director of Research Content at Balto. 

The Balto Real-Time Index is available for free here and is updated on a regular basis to provide relevant trend tracking and analysis. 

About the Conversation Excellence Lab

The Conversation Excellence Lab is Balto’s hub for academic-level research. The Lab creates thought-leading content with the support of research teams and in-house data. All reports are published online and available for free. Readers can get reports sent directly to their inbox by subscribing to the Conversation Excellence Lab’s newsletter.

About Balto

Balto unites agents with AI to enable better conversations that deliver results. Top-performing contact centers trust Balto’s real-time guidance enterprise solution to prevent missed sales opportunities, costly compliance mistakes, and negative customer experiences. Today, Balto has guided over 200 million calls, provided over 430 million real-time recommendations, and driven millions in increased revenue. Balto.ai