Call centres process thousands of conversations every day, but how do you make sense of all the data and information from them? That’s where call analytics can help.

What is call analytics? In short, it’s the process of compiling and interpreting data from calls to uncover insights, which is extremely valuable for call centres.

However, although call analytics are incredibly useful, the challenge is that many organisations and call agents still confuse key elements of call analytics, like tags, categories, and metrics.

This can make reporting less effective and insights harder to act on. But it doesn’t need to be this way.

In this blog, we’ll explain what call analytics really is, break down the differences between tags, categories, and metrics, and show how tools like Sense make these insights clear and actionable.

So, what is call analytics? Often using an AI-powered tool, call analytics gathers, processes, and interprets customer call data. These insights are recorded in real time during the call, allowing call agents to fully engage in the conversation and respond effectively to customers and take immediate action once the call has ended.

For call centres, there are significant benefits to utilising call analytics, such as:

• Improved Customer Experience: With note-taking and data capture automated, agents can give customers their full attention, leading to higher satisfaction and stronger relationships.

• Reduced Costs & Boosted Productivity: By automating time-consuming tasks, call analytics frees up resources and allows call centre teams to focus on higher-value activities and tasks.

• Better Training & Quality Assurance: Accurate, automated insights provide managers with a clear picture of performance, making it easier to coach agents and maintain high standards.

SystemX’s Sense platform brings these advantages to life. It empowers call agents by delivering accurate insights and turning them into actionable tasks. The result? Agents perform better, services run more smoothly, and customers have a better experience.

That’s why call analytics are a crucial tool for every call centre.

But how are call centres using analytics? With AI-powered programs like Sense, managers can uncover critical insights across several key areas:

• Tracking Customer Sentiment: In the past, managers would need to sit through hours of recordings to gauge customer tone. Now, AI assesses the words, tone, and cues in the conversation, assigning a positive, neutral, or negative score. This gives teams a clear picture of where improvements are needed.

• Identifying Recurring Issues: By tagging and categorising calls, analytics tools can highlight common problems, such as billing errors or delivery delays. Spotting these trends early helps organisations resolve root causes, reduce repeat calls, and improve overall customer satisfaction.

• Training & Performance Management: Call analytics can showcase how well agents handle different types of calls, including resolution rates and call handling times. Managers can then use these data points to mentor employees with precision, reinforcing strengths and addressing weaknesses with targeted training.

• Improving Compliance & Reducing Risk: In regulated industries, it’s vital that agents meet strict disclosure requirements. Call analytics automatically flag non-compliant language or missed mandatory statements, reducing the risk of fines, disputes, and reputational damage.

As you can see, tools like Sense give call centres powerful capabilities. But to unlock their full potential, it’s essential that managers and agents need to fully understand the difference between tags, categories, and metrics.

Tags

Tags are simple identifiers that can be applied to calls to help classify and quickly filter through data. This also aids with reporting and conducting trend analysis.

Tags could be used by a supervisor to review all calls tagged as ‘complaint’, or for a sales representative to respond to calls tagged as ‘sales enquiry’. Tags provide the building blocks for more structured insights.

Categories

Categories are broader groups that cluster similar or related tags together. For example, structured insight like dates, destinations, and budget can form different categories.

This allows managers to see patterns across multiple calls, enabling marketing insights, sales targeting, and operations planning.

Metrics

Tags and categories are often mistaken for metrics. But while tags and categories are qualitative, metrics are quantitative, the numbers behind performance.

Metrics track data points such as:

• Call volumes

• Average durations

• Average call scores

• Specific audio events, e.g., laughter, shouting

• Compliance scores

• Customer experience scores (CXS)

• Client behaviour analysis

• Sentiment analysis

When tags, categories, and metrics are confused, reporting becomes inconsistent and insights unreliable. By understanding the differences, managers and agents can improve training, make smarter decisions, and deliver a stronger customer experience.

That’s where Sense comes in: organising these core elements logically and turning them into actionable insights. The result: greater efficiency, higher productivity, and better outcomes for both teams and customers.

AI-powered call analytics tools such as Sense act as a bridge between raw call data and actionable insights.

As we’ve seen, tags, categories, and metrics are essential building blocks of call analytics. With Sense, these indicators are easy to apply, simple to understand, and deliver real value for call centres.

With built-in metrics and intuitive dashboards, Sense turns complex data into clear insights that drive better business outcomes.

Ready to see how it works? Book a demo today and explore how Sense can transform your call centre reporting and empower your teams with actionable intelligence.