OI-Q Cohort Mode

What it's for

Many of the most valuable questions are about the group, not individual calls. Some examples:

• "What's driving the rise in account access calls?"
• "What do our best agents do differently?"

Previously, the only way to answer these was to run questions one interaction at a time and then summarise the answers. Cohort Mode goes straight to the answer. It works from the transcripts themselves rather than summaries of summaries, so it keeps more of the nuance in the original conversations.

Cohort Mode has memory on by default. You can ask follow-up questions and OI-Q remembers what you've already asked and what it found, so you can dig deeper, narrow in or change the output without starting over.

Not sure which OI-Q mode you need? Cohort Mode gives you one answer for the whole group - good for themes, summaries and drafting. If you want one answer per interaction instead - for checking, tagging or counting, see OI-Q Interaction Mode.

How to use it

1. Select interactions in Transcript View (click, or shift-click for a range).
2. Click Assess in OI-Q and choose Cohort Mode.

3. Check Analysis Capacity. It shows the number of interactions selected, the percentage of capacity used, and a progress bar:

   • Blue (0–75%) - plenty of room
   • Orange (75–95%) - getting close
   • Red (95–100%) - at the limit

   Capacity depends on how long the transcripts are, not just how many you select - a thousand short chats may fit where 150 long phone calls won't. If you're over capacity, reduce the number of records, narrow your filters or shorten the date range.

4. Ask your question. OI-Q reads the whole selection and returns one response.
5. Follow up - ask OI-Q to refine, expand or reformat its answer. It remembers the conversation so far.
6. Copy the output using the copy option. Cohort Mode responses aren't appended to the transcript table.
7. Start a New Chat to begin a fresh conversation on the same selection.

When your selection is too large

If the interactions you've selected are more than OI-Q can read in one go, Cohort Mode tells you as soon as it opens - the capacity bar turns red and shows more than 100% used (for example, "101% of context used"), with the message: "Your input exceeds my capacity." You can't run a question until the selection fits. Two ways to fix it:

• Fix it for me - OI-Q automatically removes interactions from your selection until it fits within capacity. The quickest option when you don't mind exactly which interactions are analysed.
• Let me choose - you go back to Transcript View and deselect interactions yourself until the selection fits. Choose this when it matters which interactions stay in, for example to keep a particular agent's calls, a specific date range or the red-banded interactions you picked out.

Use cases

Finding out what customers struggle with when making a payment

Your payments team wants to hear, in customers' own words, which parts of the payment process are hard to use. You want the main pain points and real quotes to support them.

1. Find the inquiry. In the classification filter bar, click Inquiries and find I want to make a payment. Set the date range you want to review.
2. Open Transcript View. Hover over the I want to make a payment bar and click View Transcripts. The table is scoped to that inquiry and your current filters, with the most confidently classified interactions first.
3. Select 100 interactions. Set Records to show to 100. Click the first row, then shift-click the last row to select them all.
4. Run OI-Q in Cohort Mode. Click Assess in OI-Q and choose Cohort Mode.
5. Check Analysis Capacity. The bar at the top shows how much of OI-Q's capacity your 100 interactions use. If it's red, deselect some interactions before running.

6. Enter your prompt:

   "Review these interactions and identify the parts of the payment process that customers find difficult, confusing or frustrating. Group the difficulties into themes. For each theme, give a short name for the theme, a one-sentence description of what customers are struggling with, and 2-3 direct customer quotes that show the problem. Only use the customer's exact words for quotes, not the agent's. Do not paraphrase or invent quotes. If a theme has no clear customer quote, say so."

   OI-Q reads all 100 interactions together and returns one response: a set of pain-point themes, each backed by customer quotes.

7. Dig deeper with follow-up questions. Cohort Mode remembers the conversation, so you can keep asking in the same chat - for example, "For the [theme name] theme, which step in the payment process does it happen at, and what did the agent have to do to get the customer through it?" or "Turn these themes into a short summary for the payments team, with one quote each."
8. Copy the response. Use the copy option to save it before leaving OI-Q. Cohort Mode responses aren't added to the transcript table, and the chat isn't saved when you leave OI-Q.
9. Check the quotes. Close OI-Q, search the transcript table for a distinctive phrase from a few of the quotes, and open the matching interactions to confirm the wording.
10. Share. Paste the checked response into an email, slide or report for the payments team.

Tip: to show how widespread a theme is, use Transcript View search rather than asking OI-Q to count. Search for a keyword tied to the theme, such as "BPAY" or "declined," and the results count shows how many interactions mention it - for example, 23 of 100 interactions.

Interaction Mode or Cohort Mode?

Good to know: chats aren't saved when you leave OI-Q or start a New Chat, and you'll see a warning before you exit. Copy anything you want to keep first - chat storage is on the feature roadmap.

Want to see more? 

See the Insights #14 module in OI University.