- 2x is the first speech recognition and training software that decodes the black box of sales and service calls in real time through the application of artificial intelligence
- Sales and service staff gain an advantage over computers with i2x – artificial intelligence is a supporter, not a competitor
- Five million euros in seed funding: investors include Germany’s largest venture capitalist Holtzbrinck Ventures and Michael Brehm
With i2x, technology entrepreneur Michael Brehm launches the world’s first speech recognition and training software of its kind. Through i2x, the quality of sales and service phone calls is raised to a new level. The use of artificial intelligence enables self-employed professionals and company employees to evaluate complex speech parameters of a customer conversation in real time. Parameters include words and phrases, emotions, pauses in speech, speech rate, speaker share and the dynamics of the conversation. In this way, users are automatically trained to communicate better on the phone. With i2x, employee skills continuously evolve and the brand experience of end customers is improved.
Companies often have little to no insight into the content of their employees’ sales and service calls. Often, only hard factors such as call attempts and call duration can be measured. In contrast, the complex call parameters that are significant to the success of a customer call are rarely analyzed. The potential to improve customer experiences on the phone through data-based insights remains untapped for companies.
i2x optimizes human communication
Users can have telephone conversations (German and English) transcribed with the cloud-based, specially developed speech recognition technology, analyze speech patterns, parts of sentences and expressions, and thus examine complex human communication with a combination of machine learning algorithms, Big Data and the knowledge of communication experts. This involves evaluating various speech parameters in real time, including: Volume, pitch, proportion of phone users speaking, pauses in speech, words and phrases, and rate of speech, as well as emotions and the dynamics of the conversation. The data provides insights into the actual behavior and perception of those on the phone. Users can derive recommendations for action from the data that will professionalize their conversations and make them more successful.
Optionally, the user can receive fully automated individual feedback from i2x̅ during or directly after the conversation. This enables the continuous optimization of communication, increases the conversion rate in sales and customer satisfaction. Both companies and individual entrepreneurs can configure the software with specific terms so that each user can be trained individually according to personal needs and requirements. The “blacklist” function recognizes words and phrases that should be avoided and alerts employees to them during the conversation to reduce their use in the future. The latter thus has the opportunity to improve from call to call and to react immediately to new requirements. Company-specific best practices can also be derived from the complex analyses and used for personalized employee training. Furthermore, i2x̅ offers the “winning words” function. Users can enter desired talking points themselves or at the suggestion of the software, such as mentioning product features, brand names or asking at the end of a customer service phone call whether the issue was resolved satisfactorily. A positive customer experience with every call, higher sales figures, more efficient processing of inquiries and sustainably satisfied customers, are the consequences of using i2x̅. By combining automated real-time conversation analysis with human ratio and empathy, i2x̅ creates a competitive advantage over purely digital systems and employees or individual entrepreneurs in the sales and service area who are not supported by artificial intelligence. i2x is a software-as-a-service and is billed based on usage. Customers pay a fixed fee per user per month. For individual users, i2x is initially available free of charge.
“Artificial intelligence will change the stable society we know, because it will drastically increase unemployment in certain industries. Therefore, I believe that we need to apply artificial intelligence in a way that helps people, especially in training and quality improvement of human communication. i2x̅is a useful tool here at work, for example in call centers.” “At i2x, the focus is on people and their job satisfaction. Artificial intelligence is not used to replace jobs with machines and save costs. On the contrary, it is used to preserve jobs.”
Michael Brehm, Founder and CEO of i2x
The idea for i2x
A team led by Michael Brehm has been working on the i2x technology since 2015. The more than 30 experts at i2x come from various fields, including data science, machine learning, software development, psychology, training and sales. The goal is to double the number of employees by the end of the year. Together, they want to change the way people communicate with each other in the future.
Michael Brehm had the idea to found i2x̅ back in 2010, when he was founder and CEO at Rebate Networks, a company focused on fast-growing e-commerce platforms. Within two years, Rebate Networks was active in more than 30 countries and had hired 10,000 people – 2,500 of whom worked in telemarketing and customer service. The challenges were that sales trainers could not provide individualized training to employees, nor could they respond flexibly to the changing needs of Rebate Networks’ customers – that was the birth of i2x.
About i2x
i2x is an innovative trainer based on proprietary speech recognition technology for the German and English languages. Users can analyze complex conversations in real time with the use of artificial intelligence. i2x automatically generates training units for the user that are tailored to individual areas of development in order to optimize sales and service conversations. This makes i2x̅ the first speech recognition and training technology of its kind in the world. Employees and self-employed professionals can use the speech recognition technology to transcribe phone calls and evaluate voices, moods and speech patterns of the conversations, with the help of machine learning. i2x helps sales and service employees improve their conversion rate, increase customer satisfaction and reduce training time. i2x is based in Berlin. Founder and CEO is technology entrepreneur Michael Brehm. i2x currently has over 30 employees. For more information, visit www.i2x.ai
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