With all the changes that have occurred in the contact center space over the past 20 years, there is something quite reassuring about the constant that is the agent headset.
From the move to the cloud, to the birth of chatbots, to the pandemic-induced rise in remote working – the headset has seen it all.
Of course, that isn’t to say that agents are still using the same old bulky, ear-crushing models of yesteryear.
These days, the top tier offerings are ergonomic pieces of kit that boast AI-powered features and capabilities.
One of the major contact center headset retailers in the sector is Cyber Acoustics.
Having come from a strong background in the education sector, the pandemic – and subsequent increase in remote working – provided Cyber Acoustics with an avenue into the contact center space.
Thor Mitskog, CEO of Cyber Acoustics, explained how once the company gained an understanding of the contact center sector it realized that it was a “perfect fit” for what they do.
“It's been tremendously eye-opening to us, because we saw all the issues and problems within the call center arena were mainly related to acoustics.”
“And we quickly identified things that we could bring in to help solve these problems.”
The Power of Noise-Cancellation
Whether it's traffic, lawnmowers, or excitable pets when working remotely, or background chatter when in a contact center environment, the number one problem that Cyber Acoustics identified for its customers was a lack of effective noise cancellation solutions.
In particular, Mitskog and his team felt that too many contact centers were overly reliant on software for their noise-cancellation, rather than the headsets themselves.
The company firmly believes that contact centers and CX departments do not need to burden their IT people with more software to manage and install when there are hardware solutions that can do a better job of solving the problem.
“We feel it's important to avoid having to deploy software because it's another layer that these call center and IT people have to manage,” Mitskog explained.
"We do everything in hardware, no drivers, and it's all controlled by the IT people on what features they want to deploy within that hardware.”
When it comes to the hardware, Cyber Acoustics’ headsets are equiped with an AI-powered DSP solution, which is embedded directly into the headsets.
The AI algorithm actively learns and filters out external noises, ensuring that once a distracting sound – such as a nearby conversation – is identified, it will not bleed through in subsequent calls.
This tech was used in the company’s first AI-powered headset, the AC-304, which launched in early 2024.