Why stereo transcription matters when evaluating call quality
How agent-customer channel separation improves transcription accuracy and quality analysis in AI Call Reports.
The mono transcription problem
When a phone call is recorded on a standard PBX, both sides of the conversation — agent and customer — end up in a single audio file. Listening works fine. Automatic transcription, not so much.
Why? Because transcription has to do two things simultaneously: convert speech to text and guess who’s speaking. The speaker identification process introduces errors — especially when people interrupt each other, talk simultaneously, or have similar voices.
The solution: separate channels
AI Call Reports solves this through separate channel processing. The PBXTools agent configures the PBX to save two independent audio tracks: one with the agent’s voice, one with the customer’s voice. Each track is transcribed separately, with the correct label from the start.
What this means in practice
The AI report knows with certainty what the agent said and what the customer said. When the analysis evaluates response quality, tone, empathy — it knows exactly who it’s evaluating. No confusion between speakers.
The audio player in the portal also allows separate listening: you can hear just the agent, just the customer, or both. Useful when you want to evaluate a call and hear exactly how the agent responded, without the noise of overlapping conversation.
Recommendation
If your PBX doesn’t support separate recording, the system works on standard audio too — but we recommend configuring separate channels whenever possible. The accuracy difference is significant.