• The Washington Post, Thursday, October 19, 2006 12:45 PM

Call centers are increasingly using "speech analytic" and "emotion detection" systems that record and transcribe phone calls and categorize them by words and phrases. The technology--developed originally for eavesdropping--allows marketers to analyze millions of phone conversations between customer service agents and consumers in an effort to better digest and organize what customers are saying.

It can, for example, make it easier for marketers to figure out if a complaint is isolated, or part of a systemic problem. And more subtle systems are designed to understand that "this is the last straw" means the caller wants to bolt, allowing a supervisor to step in.

Companies want to dig deeper into calls in response to the "super-empowered angry customer," says Keith Dawson, editorial director of Call Center magazine. "The Internet ... is evening out the playing field, and some companies are getting caught short," he says.

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