The promise of a recorded call being made for “quality purposes” is a reassuring one, but for millions of South Africans, this assurance comes with a caveat – the majority of conversations happen in languages other than English, yet automated quality assurance tools are often limited to English calls. This is where Botlhale AI comes in, offering a suite of natural language processing (NLP) tools to help call centres transcribe, analyze, and extract insights from customer interactions in multiple African languages.
Challenges Faced by Call Centres in South Africa
South Africa has 12 official languages, yet most call centre technologies and quality assurance systems have historically prioritised English. This creates a significant challenge for businesses, as up to 70% of calls happen in languages other than English. Manual review is often necessary, and even then, critical information may be missed, compliance failures can go undetected, and vulnerable customers may not receive the support they need.
- Up to 70% of calls are in languages other than English, but automated quality assurance tools can only process English calls.
- Manual review is often necessary, leading to missed information and compliance failures.
- Vulnerable customers may not receive the support they need due to language barriers.
Thapelo Nthite, cofounder of Botlhale AI, notes that this creates a “huge blind spot” for businesses, particularly in the South African market. He argues that the lack of support for African languages in call centre technologies is a significant risk for companies, as it can lead to regulator fines, brand damage, and denied claims.
Botlhale AI’s Solution
Botlhale AI operates on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, where clients pay per license or based on consumption. The company claims to translate 11 South African languages and others spoken in neighbouring countries, making it easy to enter new markets. Botlhale AI’s core offering includes speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and language understanding models that help call centres transcribe, analyze, and extract insights from customer interactions.
| Service | Description |
|---|---|
| Speech-to-text | Converts spoken words into text, allowing call centres to transcribe customer interactions. |
| Text-to-speech | Converts text into spoken words, enabling call centres to play back customer interactions. |
| Language understanding models | Analyzes customer interactions to extract insights and provide actionable feedback to call centres. |
Expansion Strategy
Botlhale AI’s expansion strategy is to follow its clients into new territories, such as Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria. The company is heavily invested in speech technology, and Nthite notes that AI adoption in Africa will see significant growth over the next five years, particularly in language processing tasks like translation, transcription, and text-to-speech.
- Botlhale AI is focused on augmenting quality assurance processes, but also anticipating future needs.
- The company is looking to release its transcription models soon through APIs, making them accessible to third-party developers.
- Botlhale AI aims to scale its impact by opening access to its technology, allowing developers to build innovative solutions.
Big Bets and Future Plans
Nthite highlights that African languages will soon be supported at a high level of quality by language technologies. Botlhale AI is heavily invested in speech technology and is focused on augmenting quality assurance processes. The company is also thinking ahead to the future of call centres in a multilingual, AI-driven world.
“We have heavily invested in speech technology in the customer service space because we see a huge potential. For instance, call centres are already beginning to automate or augment parts of their operations, and we are tailoring our products to solve today’s challenges while anticipating future needs.”
— Thapelo Nthite, cofounder of Botlhale AI
Preserving African Languages
Nthite argues that African languages could be preserved through digitisation and development of language models. Botlhale AI is committed to supporting the preservation of African languages and is working to develop language models that can accurately translate and transcribe these languages.
Conclusion
Botlhale AI is revolutionising the way call centres operate in South Africa and beyond. By providing a suite of NLP tools that support multiple African languages, the company is helping businesses to improve their customer experience and reduce the risk of missed information and compliance failures.
