adding value technology to optimize continuity...

Every few months, someone asks me what I enjoy so much about this industry. In truth, there are many aspects of contact center manage-ment that interest me. One of the

most compelling factors, though, is the simple fact that you cannot succeed strategically with a con-tact center unless you fully understand the tactical operation at the deepest level. In other words, there is no such thing as “faking it.”

At the heart of this link between the strategic and the tactical is the issue of time. The phrase “tyranny of the moment” has been used to describe issues as disparate as poverty and the information age, and applies equally as well to the real-time

Ever have a nagging feeling that your center is more vulnerable than you’d like to admit? Odds are, creating or updating that dreaded business continuity/disaster recovery (BC/DR) plan has been on your “to do” list for some time. Today’s technology and service offerings provide new options to address risk reduction and just may change your perspective on (finally) addressing your BC/DR strategy.

Getting the BC/DR Ball Rolling: Look at Scope, Costs and Options The first order of business when preparing and/or assessing your BC/DR plan is to determine how far to go in terms depth and breadth. To do so, you’ll identify relevant risks, the likelihood of their occurrence, and the associated business impact. You’ll consider how long you can reasonably toler-

...p30

LEVERAGING TECHNOLOGY TO OPTIMIZE CONTINUITY AND RECOVERY

People are passionate about their mobile devices, as demonstrated by the long lines that Apple Stores draw days before the debut

of a new iPhone or iPad. Regardless of the brand, the release of each new smartphone model and oper-ating system brings more features and capabilities to support consumers’ on-the-go lifestyles. Mobile technology is advancing at breakneck speed—more rapidly than many companies are prepared for. Yet

the rule for business is adapt and innovate, or lose out to the competition.

Mobile usage among consumers continues to grow, as well. The average American now spends 3.3 hours a day on their smartphone, according to the “2014 Mobile Behavior Report,” from digital marketing firm ExactTarget. Leading-edge businesses are looking for ways to deliver a meaningful experience based on

CUSTOMERS EXPECT CONVENIENCE AND MORE CONTROL OVER THEIR TIME.

ADDING VALUE THROUGH MOBILE

BY MATT MOREY AND KEN BARTON

...p04

...p32

THE HERE AND NOW

BY JAY MINNUCCI

BY SUSAN HASH

www.contactcenterpipeline.com OCT 2014 Follow us on Twitter @ccpipeline @susanhash

Want to see a real hero or two? Just look around your contact center …p10

THE HEROES AMONG US

Phone. Chat. Email. Social Media. Surveys. Customers have more ways than ever to communicate with—and about—your business.

With Verint® Voice of the Customer Analytics® solutions, you can capture their interactions and sentiments, analyze them, then use the results

to surface hidden issues, detect trends, and deliver the kind of experiences that keep customers coming back again and again.

Find out how Verint Voice of the Customer solutions can help make Customer-Inspired ExcellenceTM a reality in your business.

Visit www.verint.com/voca or call 1-800-4VERINT.

© 2014 Verint Systems Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

Speech Analytics | Text Analytics | Enterprise Feedback Management

Do you know what

customersare saying?

you will.With Verint Voice Of The Customer Analytics,

VerintVOCA8.5x11_Pipeline2014®.indd 1 1/21/14 8:03 AM

http://www.verint.com

OCT 2014 ❘ CONTACT CENTER PIPELINE 03

PUBLISHER

Linda [email protected]

EDITOR

Susan [email protected]

FOUNDING ADVISORSLori Bocklund Strategic Contact

Jay Minnucci Service Agility

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARDWilliam Hartline Springs Window Fashions

Tiffany LaReau Human NumbersScott Murphy ERS of Texas

Daniel Ord Omnitouch InternationalVince Pepper BCBS of Michigan

Paul Stockford Saddletree ResearchWillie Tang Broad Vision Consulting

Sue Weaver Jitterbug

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

PIPELINE PUBLISHING GROUP, INCPO Box 3467, Annapolis, MD 21403

(443) 909-6951

Contact Center Pipeline is published 12 times a year by Pipeline Publishing Group.

Subscriptions start at $59 per year.Print and Electronic subscriptions available.

To subscribe or renew subscription, go to www.contactcenterpipeline.com.

Customer Service and Change of Address For service, please call (443) 909-6951 or email

[email protected]. For 24/7 service, visit our website at www.contactcenterpipeline.com.

Publisher is not responsible for the editorial content of Contact Center Pipeline. Views expressed herein are those of the authors and sponsors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the ownership

or management of the newsletter.

Copyright ©2014, Pipeline Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

Reproduction of Contact Center Pipeline in whole or in part is expressly prohibited without prior

written permission from the publisher.

Please recycle all mail packaging.

Printed in USA using paper from responsibly managed forests and recycled plastic.

PUBLISHING GROUP Inc.

Print and Online Advertising Inquiries:[email protected]

(443) 909-6951www.contactcenterpipeline.com

DESIGN DIRECTORMark Knight

[email protected]

TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR, EMERITUSSteve Harden

Cover Illustration by Eric Jackson @ecjaxson

Mike AokiMike BurkeSusan Hash

Janet LeBlancMatt Morey

Paul Stockford

Ken BartonJohn Cray

David HowardJay Minnucci

Kathleen M. PetersonKoren Stucki

CONTACT CENTER PIPELINE DISTRIBUTION PARTNER

For 15 years, Execs in the Know has built a reputation of excellence in the Customer Experience industry and a worldwide community of over 60,000 Customer Experience professionals. We connect people to great industry content, thought leadership, industry development, peer to peer collaboration and networking.

01 FEATUREAdding Value Through Mobile

01 AGILITY FACTOR The Here and Now

01 TECH LINELeveraging Technology to Optimize Continuity and Recovery

10 THE VIEW FROM THE SADDLEThe Heroes Among Us

12 CUSTOMER EXPERIENCECustomer Experience: The Ultimate Innovation

16 INDUSTRY FOCUSBackstage at the Patient Experience: Centralized Appointment Scheduling

20 SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT / IQ ServicesWebRTC Testing for Today’s Contact Centers

22 LEADING THOUGHTSChallenges to Understanding Customer Journeys and Optimizing Engagement

26 PERFORMANCE MATTERS10 Tips to Improve Agent Engagement During New-Hire Training

28 SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT / Volt DeltaThe Anatomy of Delivering Exceptional Multichannel Customer Service

36 INSIDE VIEWHouston 311

38 SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT / Enghouse InteractiveSmart Advice for Utility Companies: Better Meters Require Better Communication Channels

OCTOBER 2014

Phone. Chat. Email. Social Media. Surveys. Customers have more ways than ever to communicate with—and about—your business.

With Verint® Voice of the Customer Analytics® solutions, you can capture their interactions and sentiments, analyze them, then use the results

to surface hidden issues, detect trends, and deliver the kind of experiences that keep customers coming back again and again.

Find out how Verint Voice of the Customer solutions can help make Customer-Inspired ExcellenceTM a reality in your business.

Visit www.verint.com/voca or call 1-800-4VERINT.

© 2014 Verint Systems Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

Speech Analytics | Text Analytics | Enterprise Feedback Management

Do you know what

customersare saying?

you will.With Verint Voice Of The Customer Analytics,

VerintVOCA8.5x11_Pipeline2014®.indd 1 1/21/14 8:03 AM

04 CONTACT CENTER PIPELINE ❘ OCT 2014

FEATURE | ADDING VALUE THROUGH MOBILE

when, where and how customers are using their mobile devices.

Having a mobile presence has become a requirement and not just a nice-to-have, says Jennifer Waite, product marketing manager at inContact. “Customers have gotten to the point where they expect com-panies to be where they are. People aren’t always at home when they make phone calls or sitting in front of a desktop computer while search-ing for information. They’re in their cars, they’re running errands—they’re doing a search while they’re waiting and have a few spare moments.”

For some companies, that may require a 24/7 or follow-the-sun service strategy, she says. At the most basic, companies need to clearly communicate when they are available to customers. “Customers don’t necessarily expect 24/7 ser-vice in the mobile channel, but it’s important to let customers know when you’re not available and when they can expect a response.”

Connecting via MobileHow can companies leverage mobile-enabled channels to add value for customers? The following are a few communication tools that offer considerable opportunities to enhance the mobile service experi-ence. For more insights on how to improve the mobile customer ser-vice experience, see “5 Things You Do That Annoy Your Customers in Today’s Connected World,” on page 9.

CLICK TO TALK AND CLICK TO CHATThe simplest way to incorporate a mobile presence into the contact center is by inserting a click-to-talk or click-to-chat button on the website. This allows customers who access the company’s website from

a mobile device to get instantly con-nected to the contact center to have their issue handled, Waite says.

Some companies are taking it a step further by monitoring the pres-ence of a visitor on their mobile site, she adds. For instance, when a visi-tor lingers too long on a certain web page or keeps returning to the same page, a chat box will pop up with an invitation to connect with an agent.

Since mobile screen space is limited, offering chat as a trans-parent overlay helps to keep the

customer connected to the website with which they’re interacting, says Marina Kalika, director of product marketing for TouchCommerce, a provider of online engagement solutions. Companies can custom-ize chat skins that allow customers to see the brand’s website in the background behind the chat, as well as actions, such as when the agent is typing, to assure customers that the live conversation is still in prog-ress and they haven’t disconnected. TouchCommerce’s mobile chat solu-tion also helps to keep customers engaged in the conversation with its minimized chat mode that offers a scrolling marquee which displays the most recent agent message and an incremental message indicator that displays the number of unread agent messages.

TEXT MESSAGINGText messaging is quickly becom-ing a preferred method for simple service-related tasks. A recent Harris Poll, on behalf of cloud-based busi-ness communications platform pro-vider OneReach, found that 64% of U.S. adults who have text messaging capability say that they would prefer to perform some types of customer service activities through text mes-saging versus over the phone. The types of service activities included checking order status, scheduling/changing appointments, making/confirming reservations, asking questions, finding store locations, refilling orders and resetting pass-words.

Mobile SMS provides an ideal first point of contact since conversations can be captured, which can provide critical insights for the next agent who needs to pick up the interaction, says inContact’s Waite. With contact-aware SMS capability, mobile SMS

BY PROVIDING AGENTS WITH A FULL HISTORY OF SMS MESSAGES, AGENTS DON’T HAVE TO TAKE THREE STEPS BACK IN ORDER TO MOVE FORWARD WITH A CUSTOMER.

JENNIFER WAITE, Product Marketing Manager, inContact

TRANSPARENT BACKGROUND SUPPORT, WHICH ALLOWS THE USER TO SEE THE SITE BEHIND THE CHAT WINDOW, MAKES A SIGNIFICANT IMPACT ON CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT IN LIGHT OF THE SMALLER SCREEN OF A MOBILE DEVICE.

MARINA KALIKA, Director of Product Marketing, TouchCommerce

Continued from page 1

Continued on page 06

Ad #: CALA_3788_Shark_AJob #: CALA_3788Job Name: Kick Status in the QuoDescription: 4C Full-Page Bleed Print Ad

Trim: 8.5” x 11”Bleed: 8.75” x 11.25”Safety: 7.5” x 10”Gutter: None

Client: Calabrio Title: Shark

Doc Name: CALA_3788_Shark_A.inddDoc Path: HA FILES 7-4-12:Volumes:HA FIL...rk_Print_Ad:CALA_3788_Shark_A.indd

First Run Date: September 2014Usage Notes: Buyout and Royalty-Free Stock Photography

Print/Export Time: 9-10-2014 9:58 AM

Fonts:Antenna (Regular), Helvetica Neue (55 Roman), Foro (Light)

Ink Name: Cyan Magenta Yellow Black

Agency: Hunt AdkinsAD: Krista ObryckiAE: n/aCCO: Doug Adkins

CD: Steve MitchellDSGN: n/aCW: Doug AdkinsStudio: Shelley Wicinske

Links:Calabrio_Seal_HR_r1_swop.tif (CMYK; 563 ppi, 564 ppi), CALA_Logo_TM_WHT.ai

Notes: None

PD: NonePM: Mariah BecchettiPhoto/Illstr: J Chapman/Brad PalmPrepress: Unleashed

Issue: October 2014Publication: Contact Center Pipeline

Approval Stock: Fortune McCoy Producto Pub News Supplied Epson Stock: Comm/Gracol Pub/Swop3 News

Epson Color Profile: Gracol Swop News SuppliedLpi:

GRACOL

Client:

Hunt Adkins73241

Kick status in the quo.

© 2© 2© 2©© 2© 2© 2©© 2©©© 0140010140140 CaCCaCaCaaCaC lablablablablablablabbablabbriorioriorioriorioirioriorioiorio

It’s a WFO sea change. Seat yourself atop the food chain at Calabrio.com.

73241_CALA_3788_Shark_A.indd 1 9/11/14 10:44 AM

http://www.calabrio.com


messages can be routed through the universal queue to the appropriate agent, who can interact with the customer in a two-way conversation via mobile text. inContact’s cloud contact center solution captures and routes the full SMS/text history and conversation ensuring a seamless experience across multiple interac-tions for customers. “By providing contact center agents with a full history of all of the SMS messages, agents don’t have to take three steps back in order to move forward with a customer,” she adds.

Waite says that companies are even beginning to advertise SMS as their new method of self-service since simple transactions can be more effectively handled via mobile. For instance, a bank customer who wants to find out his balance can simply text an inquiry. With that keyword and the phone number that is associated with the account, the bank can send him the balance information. It’s a quick, streamlined transaction versus the multiple steps customers typically would have to take to get the same information via IVR or web self-service.

CO-BROWSINGWhile SMS and click-to-talk/chat are the more common types of mobile service interactions that companies are implementing today, also available but not yet widely adopted is mobile co-browsing, in which agents and customers can access the same web pages. Co-browsing capabilities allow orga-nizations to offer enhanced techni-cal support, shopping assistance or real-time help with online forms, just to name a few examples.

Co-browsing can be integrated with workflow technology to provide an easy-to-use communication tool that delivers an interactive workflow experience which is shared with cus-

tomers, says Matt Lautz, president and CIO of cloud communications provider CorvisaCloud. This can be especially helpful during complex transactions in which customers want to have a more interactive experience with the agent. He points to the insurance industry as an example, where calls to help new customers navigate plan options and fill out complex application forms can last as long as an hour. Workflow technology embedded into the CorvisaOne contact center prod-uct suite and platform allows centers to provide an interactive experience by sharing portions of the workflow with the customer.

“Callers can see the steps on their smartphone or tablet, and they can interact with it,” Lautz explains.

“When customers call to talk about insurance options, instead of having the agent read those to them, they can view the information onscreen and walk through the steps in real-time with the agent.”

The ability to both hear and view complex details ensures that callers have a better understanding of the information, and helps to decrease talk time. “The transformation to mobile has powerful benefits not just for the consumer, but when used appropriately, also for the agent and the organization,” Lautz says.

The Mobile Experience Is About ConvenienceConsumers are starting to spend almost as much time using their

smartphones and tablets as they spend watching television (127 minutes per day vs. 168, according to mobile analytics firm Flurry). Or doing both. Analytics firm Nielsen found that 88% of consumers use their tablet or smartphone while watching TV.

That is what makes mobile chan-nels such a strong differentiator for brands like Total Gym Fitness. As a brand that promotes its products through television infomercials, it’s very common for viewers to pick up their smartphone or tablet to look for more information about the products being advertised.“We have realized that our customer’s first touchpoint on mobile is a very important one,” says Vice President of Marketing Joe Crowley.

But purchasing a big-ticket item, such as home gym exercise equip-ment, is not a decision that most consumers make lightly. “Customers will frequently need multiple touch-points with our organization before they ultimately make the decision to try the product in their home,” Crowley says. “Our customers’ expec-tations are that, no matter what device they pick up at any given time, they want to be able to interact with us—24/7, 365 days a year.”

Four years ago, Total Gym part-nered with TouchCommerce to provide live chat for its desktop site, and more recently, added its mobile chat solution to the channel mix. Importantly, the experience is


COBROWSING CAN BE ESPECIALLY HELPFUL DURING COMPLEX TRANSACTIONS IN WHICH CUSTOMERS WANT TO HAVE A MORE INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCE.

MATT LAUTZ,President and CIO, CorvisaCloud



ILLUSTRATION BY FÁBIO TESTA

[email protected] - 866-929-1390

Features Include:

- HTML 5 Interface- 100% Browser-based- Zero Installation- Easy to Use - Drag and Drop Interface- Fast Prototyping- Standard Undo/Redo- Speech Recognition Enabled- On Demand Text-to-Speech- JavaScript Engine- REST/SOAP API Integration Hooks- Powerful Reporting Capabilities- Robust Integrations with 3rd Parties- Fully Integrated with the award-winning Connect First Platform

October CCP Ad.indd 1 9/17/14 3:18 PM

http://www.connectfirst.com


tailored for the mobile device. “The customer who is on a mobile device may have very different types of questions,” Crowley says. “They may be less educated about the prod-uct [than a desktop visitor], so the mobile chat interaction becomes a critical first touchpoint to answer their questions.”

Total Gym’s call center agents are trained to adjust their responses when interacting with customers via mobile chat. While the call center uses a conversational-based sell-ing approach over the phone and via desktop chat, which involves engaging with customers to find

out about their goals and objectives, mobile chat calls for much briefer responses. “Excessive verbiage can look very intimidating on a mobile screen, to the point that potential customers might close the chat and move on,” Crowley says.

Besides providing a convenient and always-accessible channel for customers, the benefits of chat,

overall, have been considerable for Total Gym, Crowley says.

“We get so much information from chat—it’s like having a focus group of your customers telling your agents what they can and cannot find on your website,” he adds. “It allows us to make the improvements that benefit our customers.”


[email protected](206) 552-8831

@SusanHash

Susan Hash is the Editor of Contact Center Pipeline.

@ccpipeline

FOLLOW ON


Total Gym Fitness offers a live chat experience that is tailored for customers using mobile devices.

OCT 2014 ❘ ContactCenterPipeline.com 09

IT’S AN INCREASINGLY CONNECTED WORLD. MORE AND MORE, YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE USING SMARTPHONES—ONE RESEARCH REPORT BY OVUM PREDICTS THAT, BY 2016, 36% OF ALL INBOUND SERVICE CALLS WILL BE MADE ON A SMARTPHONE. WITH ALL OF THE PERMUTATIONS OF THE INTERNET AND AVAILABLE CONTACT CHANNELS DENSELY PACKED INTO A SINGLE HAND-HELD DEVICE, CONSUMERS NOWADAYS RARELY NEED TO MANUALLY PUNCH IN A TELEPHONE NUMBER—THEY TYPICALLY DO SO ONLY WHEN ADDING A NEW CONTACT.

Smartphones allow your customers to talk, text and exchange pictures with their friends and family as they see fit. They also provide another unique feature—time travel.

Despite the powerful technology embedded in smartphones, the moment your customers call your business, they’re taken back to the last century:

1. They typically have to dial your toll-free number digit by digit on the keypad.2. They struggle with complex IVRs, when what they really want is a live agent to quickly resolve

their problem—and what you really want is for them to resolve their problem in the IVR without using a representative’s expensive time.

3. Resigned to waiting for a live agent, your customers can’t do anything but listen to on-hold music, because they’re afraid that they will miss your service representative when he or she picks up the call and then have to start all over again.

4. They have to provide their personal information to your service representative, and explain the reason for their call, often to more than one representative. And if the call gets dropped at any one point, they have to repeat the entire ordeal.

5. If there are any support documents to be exchanged to close the transaction, they have to be faxed separately, with your customer wondering if you received and properly logged them.

Sure, all of this is usually easier and faster than sending a letter, but consumer expectations have changed in a significant way, and the available technology can support much, much more.

People hate waiting. Federal Express was able to succeed with overnight package delivery because “waiting is frustrating, demoralizing, agonizing, aggravating, annoying, time consuming and incred-ibly expensive.”

In the classic service formula, Satisfaction = Perception – Expectation, waiting drives Perception up, and Satisfaction down.

But you can do things differently.

By leveraging your customers’ smart phone, it is possible to improve the inbound service call experience:

1. Offer a “contact us” button, embedded in relevant locations of your mobile app.2. The moment that button is pushed, provide to the contact center all of the information your

mobile app knows about the customer. This could be their profile information, an account number for a database dip, their recent app activities, even a geographic location.

3. Inform them of their estimated wait time and let them go on with their lives, until the representative is available and their smartphone alerts them. Place a lower-cost outbound call to your customer.

4. Better yet, involve your customer by requesting the additional information your representative might need to help them, before that representative comes on the line. Have your customer type it into a chat window or into a custom form, or have them send a photograph of relevant documents.

5. With simultaneous voice and chat, the call may terminate and then be reestablished at any time as needed, helping save time in long transactions and reducing costs on inbound toll-free.

Not many companies do this today. But those who do (Amazon, for example, does most of the above) raise the bar for customer expectations, lowering customer satisfaction for everybody else.

By David Howard

5 Things You Do That Annoy Your Customers in Today’s Connected World

David Howard is Director of Marketing at Bright Pattern, www.brightpattern.com.


THE HEROES AMONG USSometimes even the simplest of acts in the contact center creates an instant hero.

By Paul Stockford, Saddletree Research

THE VIEW FROM THE SADDLE PAUL STOCKFORD

Willie Nelson sang it. I lived it. Not that I grew up on a ranch

or anything, I just always wanted to be a cowboy when I grew up. In some ways I still do.

When I was a kid growing up in Redwood City, Calif., before it became Silicon Valley, we could go to the Fox Theater in downtown Redwood City every Wednesday during the summer and see movies all afternoon for 50 cents. Back in those innocent days, most of the movies we’d see were old Gene Autry and Roy Rogers movies from the ’40s and ’50s. Most were in black and white and, no matter what, the good guys always won. Gene and Roy were my heroes, and they were heroes to generations of kids who dreamed of riding the range.

As we grow older, and more skeptical, finding heroes becomes a bit more difficult. Despite Gene and Roy’s sparkling white teeth, crisply pressed fringed shirts and polished boots with fancy tops, I eventually learned that most cow-boys aren’t like Gene and Roy at all. In reality, most cowboys are day-working drifters who spend most of their lives living and working on large feedlots and commercial ranches for very little money. Most don’t even make enough money to own their own horse.

Today, the cult of celebrity has made faux-heroes out of action movie stars, but once the cameras stop rolling, I don’t think Sly Rocky Rambo is really that much of a hero. On the other hand, I am heartened by the hero status that is bestowed upon active-duty military and military veterans these days. As a veteran of the late Vietnam era, I can tell you that wasn’t always the case.

Sometimes heroes appear where we least expect to find them. Sometimes heroes are ordinary people doing extraordinary things, often below the radar and without fanfare or adulation. Sometimes heroes are right under our noses and we don’t realize it. Sometimes heroes work in contact centers.

Regular readers of this column know that I work under contract as research director for the National Association of Call Centers (NACC) at the University of Southern Mississippi. In that capacity, I am fortunate enough to spend a lot of time talking to contact center profession-als, so much so that last year I started writ-ing a member-focused feature in the NACC’s monthly newsletter. The feature, called “Meet the Members,” focuses on one NACC member each month. I interview them and ask them about their career in customer service, how they got started in customer service, and so on. One of

the things I always ask the featured member is to share one of their most memorable contact center experiences.

For the August issue of the NACC newsletter, called In Queue, I interviewed Diane McCarty who is the Director of Direct Sales and Customer Service at Things Remembered, the nation’s largest retailer of personalized gifts and a name likely familiar to all readers. I asked Diane the usual question about a memorable contact center experience and her answer stopped me in my tracks.

Diane told me about a customer they assisted this summer who had a very special set of needs. The customer was terminally ill and he wanted to purchase engraved gifts for his wife, children and loved ones to be delivered to them over the next 10 years. Diane assigned account specialist Jody Saunders to assist this customer and, over a period of two weeks, Jody helped the customer select anniversary gifts for his wife and birthday gifts for his children to be opened in the future. Jody kept Diane and her team updated on a daily basis while leaning on them for emotional support through the entire heart-wrenching process.

Jody worked with a sense of urgency, providing gift suggestions as well as message inspiration. She was able to maintain her composure as she helped the customer to deliver his final message to loved ones and friends. The customer has since passed away. What Jody did, with the help and emotional support of Diane and her team, is in every way heroic.

Sometimes even the simplest of acts in the contact center creates an instant hero. Maureen Donzuso, who is a Director at AtlantiCare in New Jersey told me about a recent experience in her contact center. You’ve probably read that sev-eral casinos in Atlantic City are closing, leaving

“MY HEROESHAVE ALWAYSBEEN COWBOYS,AND THEYSTILL AREIT SEEMS.”


staffers without work or health care benefits. AtlantiCare received a request from two New Jersey citizen groups for volunteers who could

provide counseling assistance for these newly unemployed workers in navigating the Health Insurance Marketplace, aka Obamacare.

Maureen along with two of her team mem-bers, Milagros (Millie) Rodgiruez and Kimberly Nasseredine, volunteered to help. Turns out that Millie speaks Spanish and Kimberly speaks Arabic, which proved to be critically important in not only helping these recently unemployed workers, but in easing their anxiety and providing a sense of relief in an extremely stressful situa-tion. As Maureen told me, “When Millie and Kim walked up to some of the workers and greeted them with a big hello in their native tongue, the look of relief on their faces was a moment I will not soon forget. In the true spirit of AtlantiCare, they were honoring our culture of serving others.”

I have to admit, I have thought many times about the terminally ill customer at Things Remembered since Diane McCarty told me about him. I asked her what was going through her mind as she, Jody and the rest of her team worked through this unique circumstance. Diane said, “It was primarily a feeling of gratitude, fol-lowed by sadness and wonder at his bravery

in facing his situation. We sometimes become jaded in the day-in, day-out of our work life. This encounter really brought alive the power of

relationships and the true connection we have with our customers and with each other at work.”

I guess I’m fortunate in that I never quite lived the dream of being a real cowboy although these days I live on a small ranch with horses and dogs in the high Sonoran desert of Arizona. Just like Gene and Roy, I wear boots and a hat pretty much every day, but I’ve never been able to pull off the fancy fringed shirt look.

On the other hand, most contact center customer service representatives live like Jody, Diane, Maureen, Millie and Kimberly every day. Want to see a real hero or two? Forget about Sly Rocky Rambo. Just look around your contact center.

Paul Stockford is Chief Analyst at Saddletree Research, which specializes in contact centers & customer service.


@paulstockford

AS WE GROW OLDER, AND MORE SKEPTICAL, FINDING HEROES BECOMES A BIT MORE DIFFICULT. DESPITE GENE AND ROY’S SPARKLING WHITE TEETH, CRISPLY PRESSED FRINGED SHIRTS AND POLISHED BOOTS WITH FANCY TOPS, I EVENTUALLY LEARNED THAT MOST COWBOYS AREN’T LIKE GENE AND ROY AT ALL.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY DAVID PADROSA

SOMETIMES HEROES ARE ORDINARY PEOPLE DOING EXTRAORDINARY THINGS, OFTEN BELOW THE RADAR AND WITHOUT FANFARE OR ADULATION. SOMETIMES HEROES ARE RIGHT UNDER OUR NOSES AND WE DON’T REALIZE IT. SOMETIMES HEROES WORK IN CONTACT CENTERS.

SOMETIMES HEROES APPEAR WHERE WE LEAST EXPECT TO FIND THEM.


CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE JANET LEBLANC

Developing a new product feature and enhancing a service through new technology are standard examples

of innovation. They are also the simplest forms of innovation: Ongoing upgrades and improve-ments are common sense business objectives and yet rarely can they offer a sustainable com-petitive advantage. New products and services are often copied as fast as they are invented.

Compare this to customer experience management, which Jeffrey Phillips, author of Relentless Innovation, characterizes as the “ultimate innovation”—a forward-thinking invest-ment that can distinguish organizations from their competitors and continually drive business results to new heights.

Recognizing that each customer is forming (and likely sharing) opinions about a company in multiple, diverse and ongoing ways, it is critical to consider the impact of the end-to-end customer experience. Is the customer journey mapped out? Is it designed to impress custom-ers so that they crave more of it? Is the customer experience differentiating the company brand, building and strengthening customer loyalty, and earning positive reviews and referrals?

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel provides a truly unique and exceptional customer experience. Walking through the hotel lobby is like a symphony where every employee makes eye contact with a guest when they are 15 feet away and verbally

acknowledges a guest when they are five feet away. This one simple interaction point provides a truly unique experience that is memorable and continues to differentiate The Ritz-Carlton from many hotels around the world.

Unlike the quest for continuous improve-ment through product and service enhance-ments, a differentiated customer experience is remarkably difficult for competitors to replicate. Organizations that design and consistently deliver an innovative and unique customer experience model are better able to attract and retain customers as lifelong advocates who are more willing to choose brand loyalty over price.

Innovating Beyond Customer-Facing ProcessesMany organizations today focus customer expe-rience innovation on process improvement—eliminating non-value-added steps in a process to reduce the effort customers must make to fulfill their task. Years of multiple cost-reduction strategies and efficiency improvements have left many organizations servicing customers based on bare-bones service standards and support. In fact, there are relatively few organizations today that use innovation to focus on customer delight rather than process efficiency.

As another point of interest, most customer experience innovation is channeled into the front line, such as sales, service and retail func-tions. A North American benchmarking study on customer-centricity conducted in 2014 by Janet LeBlanc + Associates Inc., in collaboration with the Peppers & Rogers Group, reported that only 20% of companies indicated an excellent rat-ing on their ability to proactively use customer feedback to improve back-end processes.

In addition, a Deloitte report on customer-centricity stated, “Often, non-customer-facing business units form the greatest obstacle in preventing a company from becoming truly customer-centric. Organizations often do not focus on creating the required mindsets, behav-iors and processes within the back and head office teams.”

Focusing customer feedback strictly on improving customer-facing processes and interactions shows a lack of understanding of the relationship between the front office and back office in delivering exceptional experiences. Back-office or head-office teams are usually so far removed from the customer experience that they have a limited understanding of customer needs and expectations.

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE: THE ULTIMATE INNOVATIONCustomer experience innovation will differentiate your organization from your competitors.

By Janet LeBlanc

Janet LeBlanc + Associates Inc.

@janet_leblanc



CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE JOURNEY MAPPING is an effective method for understanding the end-to-end experience from the customer’s perspective. It is one of the best tools used today for understanding

how customers interact with a company, clearly pinpointing when and where they experience satisfaction, frustration, amazement, disappointment, appreciation or judgment. This method also identifies what motivates customers to move from one stage of the journey to the next.

More specifically, a customer experience journey map is a graphical representation of every interaction a customer has—or could have—with a company and brand (see Figure 1). It uses graphics, pictures and visual cues to illustrate and examine all encounters from a customers’ point of view. The foundation of a customer experience journey map includes the archetypical steps customers travel when going from Point A to Point B of their journey as they attempt to achieve a goal or satisfy a need.

Journey maps provide one of the best methods for understanding how customers interact with an organization by looking at the customer experience, not from an internal

TAKE THE JOURNEY

1

Supplies & Associated Cost

First Injec7on & Managing Side Effects

Pa#ent Customer Experience Journey

Figure 1: Example of a Patient Customer Experience Journey

view, but rather from the customer’s perspective. This important perspective provides a proven framework to uncover moments of truth and opportunities to delight or WOW customers. A customer experience journey map also shows how different departments work together to interact with the customer and reveals the influence of various functions on the inputs and outputs of the end-to-end customer journey.

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning,” says Bill Gates. When done correctly, customer experience journey mapping identifies high-priority barriers and opportunities for a great experience. As the number and complexity of customer interactions increase, the need for experience mapping becomes critical.

Experience mapping provides an opportunity to take a holistic view of the customer’s physical and emotional journey and design ways to differentiate the experience from competitive offerings. It offers a proven framework to uncover moments of truth and key opportunities to bring an experience to life—seamlessly across all touchpoints, with measurable results.


CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE | CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE: THE ULTIMATE INNOVATION


Everyone has the capacity to innovate. However, innovation must be cultivated as a competency throughout an organization and cannot be an occasional occurrence. It must become a sustainable capability of employees who have the necessary skills to progressively create and implement innovative ideas.

4 Steps to Advancing Customer Experience Innovation Brainstorming is only one step in the innova-tion process. Most ideas are developed and constructed through a series of activities and events that form the innovation process. There are four steps to advancing customer experience innovation:

IDENTIFY CHALLENGING ISSUES TO DEFINE EMERGING OPPORTUNITIES

Monitor market trends to uncover future cus-tomer needs. Use market research to identify challenging customer issues that might, in fact, open up new business opportunities if they are solved through innovation. Evaluate emerging social, economic and technological trends to identify the implications of those trends on customers. Use search engine tools such as NowRelevant, which shows you everything on a subject that has been mentioned on the web in the last two weeks, or Trends Buzz, which lists trending topics from Twitter, Wikipedia, Yahoo, Google, The New York Times, Wordtracker and more.

RESEARCH AND UNDERSTAND CUSTOMER NEEDS Explore the end-to-end customer

experience journey to identify customer pain points and challenges. Use customer experi-ence journey mapping (see “Take the Journey”) to understand how customers interact with an organization by looking at the customer expe-rience, not from an internal point-of-view, but rather from the customer’s perspective. Break down complex processes into fundamental steps and group problem areas into themes for ideation.

GENERATE NEW IDEAS AND DISCOVER NEW TECHNOLOGIES

Collect as many ideas as possible by using a variety of methods. Engage all parts of the organization, both front and back office, in the ideation process with a spirit of inclusivity. Rarely will one person develop a winning idea, but more often seeds of ideas will be constructed together through a collaborative approach. Use multiple methods to generate ideas including telephone sessions, in-person ideation work-shops, or intranet suggestion boxes to collect multiple ideas. Create a risk-free environment for brainstorming by deferring judgment on all posted ideas.

SELECT THE BEST SOLUTION TO FULFILL CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS

The fourth step requires evaluation of the ideas in an effort to filter out extraneous information and any ideas that may be out of scope for the project. Be sure to have both employees and customers evaluate the ideas using approved criteria. For example, employee evaluation cri-teria could be based on the feasibility of the

idea, time to market, and likelihood of success. As another example, customer-specific criteria could be based on the potential of the idea to solve a customer problem and strengthen customer loyalty.

Engage All Levels of the OrganizationCreating exceptional customer experiences through innovation requires a relentless focus on understanding and fulfilling customer needs. Far beyond standard product and service enhance-ments which are process-oriented, it’s critical to focus on the many touchpoints of a customer’s end-to-end journey. This should extend beyond the front lines to include the back-office and head-office teams—their decisions and behavior can also directly or indirectly impact whether a customer has a good experience.

To this end, employees at all levels of the organization must be engaged in the innovation process and understand how their role impacts the customer experience. When the core purpose of an organization is centered on delighting cus-tomers, every employee will look for opportuni-ties to innovate. As customer loyalty grows and multiplies, so will revenue streams.

Employees at all levels of the organization must be engaged in the innovation process and understand how their role impacts the customer experience.

Janet LeBlanc is an award-winning authority on customer value and experience man agement. She consults for companies around the world by transforming how they interact with clients, deliver a branded customer experience, and achieve measurable performance improvements.


??

?

ILLUSTRATION BY PJ SOUDERS AND WILSON JOSEPH

Maximize Results Through

Proactive Collections

Genesys Cloud Dialer

improves agent utilization by 19%

• Quick deployment

• Proven 93% agent utilization

• Industry-leading predictive pacing

• Built-in compliance & speech analytics tools

• Predictive, preview & manual dialing

• Outbound IVR & alert messaging

SCHEDULE A PROACTIVE COMMUNICATION DEMO, VISIT WWW.GENESYS.COM

CALL 1-888-GENESYS

http://www.genesys.com


INDUSTRY FOCUS KATHLEEN M. PETERSON

Setting the Stage: Health care is an industry whose services we all use or need at one time or another in our

lives. Its role and purpose have not changed in centuries, but the tools, structure, regulation and management have been changing in ways never before imagined.

Hospitals are merging and acquiring at a rapid pace to form “systems.” Physician practices are being acquired to streamline patient access, improve response time and care, increase effi-ciencies and improve revenue. As these systems take shape, the patient experience takes “center stage” and there are massive organizational and operational changes undertaken “backstage.”

Health care, like all businesses with mergers and acquisitions, must address the functional realignment needed to eliminate redundancies and posture the organization for growth. Within this realm, the contact center emerges as an organizational solution to meet the needs of today’s changing health care systems and the necessity for easy and efficient patient access.

This article focuses on what is required “back-stage” and “behind the scenes” for success in centralizing physician appointment scheduling.

Realities We have worked with many health care clients to meet the challenge of streamlining access

for patients (and providers). Access has been a consumer issue for decades. Trying to get through to a physician’s office can be frustrating. Office hours are not consumer friendly… closed for lunch, not open Friday afternoons, and never open on weekends. Voicemail has been the go-to treatment in many practices; call-backs are not always timely and frustrated consumers some-times take their business elsewhere. Patients/consumers want easy access and appointments within a reasonable period at a convenient loca-tion. Patients look at cost and quality, as well; high-deductible insurance plans have changed the way patients make decisions about provid-ers. Ease of access impacts that decision.

Hospital systems acquiring physician prac-tices and clinics in multiple locations are well-poised to provide ease of access to their patient population; more providers and locations within the system make for timely and geographically attractive options. The system also enjoys improved utilization of physicians, physician’s assistants and nurse practitioners as well as the ability to support growth. The obvious challenge is that no one physician’s office is equipped to handle systemwide scheduling. Enter the Central Scheduling Contact Center… taking center stage for patient access!

Strategic Elements Access is the strategic component of central-izing appointment scheduling; how it is done determines whether we have a hit or a flop. Centralization is the only intelligent way to offer the patient, in a single contact, access to the most effective and convenient provider. But logic is only half the story. A lot goes on backstage!

Behind the scenes is a lot of emotion. Physicians, once the star of the show, are becoming something akin to the “studio actor.” They are under contract and bound by the opera-tional direction of the system. While the physi-cian performs the same show, the backstage has been altered completely. The “star power” is shifting to the audience; the patient is in control! Physicians perceive they are losing control; get-ting them onboard with the mission is the No. 1 point of success or failure. Those who thought otherwise have paid a serious price.

Centralization efforts must be carefully crafted, brilliantly planned and sensibly executed. The business drivers are clear; patient access is a strategic objective that creates market dif-ferentiation. This contributes to top-line growth

BACKSTAGE AT THE PATIENT EXPERIENCE: CENTRALIZED APPOINTMENT SCHEDULINGDeliver on the behind-the-scenes elements to choreograph a show-stopping patient experience performance.

By Kathleen M. Peterson

PowerHouse Consulting Inc.


(increased market share) while efficiencies gained contribute to the bottom line. When patients can connect via any “channel” with the system in a simple and streamlined way, life is “easier.” This is critical in an industry fraught with emotionally charged situations.

To choreograph a true patient experience per-formance, critical backstage activity must occur. The strategic vision must be defined in a way that allows for adoption at all enterprise levels. Executing without clarity is like going on stage without a script. “Ad libbing” is a very chancy execution and one prone to failure.

The Role of Executives In my experience, senior executives across industries have difficulty articulating specific desired elements of the customer experience. When asked the key elements, executives typi-cally “ad lib” a general response. Health care leaders are no different. We hear responses such as:

“We want our patient experience to be a mar-ket differentiator.”

“We want it to WOW.”“We want the experience to be GREAT.” None of these describes the desired outcome

in behavioral, measurable or manageable terms. Conversely, consider these elements:

●● Know patients as individuals;

●● Respond to caller’s needs;

●● Anticipate and meet enthusiastically the needs of patients, physicians and coworkers;

●● Make services easily accessible via multiple channels; and

●● Make responses proactive, empathetic and timely.

Once elements are defined and documented, the alignment of processes, technology and human factors can be applied to the “script.” Decisions can now be made: What will be the best technology? Do our processes support the vision? What “intangibles” (human, information and organizational factors) must be considered?

Previously Protected RitualsContact centers are not new to health care (hospitals practically invented switchboards!). However, centralized scheduling is a new and challenging performance. To get it right requires patience, calm and understanding; this change

is massive for many established practices. Physicians are very protective of their sched-

ules—a “protected ritual” for centuries. The physi-cian whose schedule is managed by a dedicated secretary perceives themselves to have more flexibility and control than one managed by an enterprise. The transition to centralization chal-lenges both that perception and reality. Where once the dedicated scheduler understood tacitly that every third hour should be left open, the centralized scheduling environment may be directed to fill all open slots.

Success of the centralization effort requires clear, open and ongoing conversations with the physician practices; it is critical to manage the impact of changes to “previously protected rituals.” An often undervalued aspect of change management that provides comfort and confi-dence at the practice level is the message that the contact center will do no harm!

An additional challenge is in hiring; in many organizations, the contact center recruits from the practice. Moving appointment scheduling out of the practice (system practices often house several physicians) assumes some redundancy will occur. This further challenges physicians because the enterprise’s centralization efforts now hit very close to home by recruiting “their” people or making “their” people redundant.

Consider two initiatives. First, change man-agement is essential to minimize the impact of change; providing project information in a timely and consistent manner keeps people in the loop and honesty mitigates fear. Secondly, those recruited from the practice must meet contact center requirements. Schedulers in the practices often perform other tasks that do not exist in the contact center. There are also more key performance indicators (KPIs) than were ever seen at the practice (e.g., adherence, call qual-ity). These components render the contact center job very different than the scheduling function within the practice. It is critical to be clear about how the jobs differ in order to identify those well suited and to weed out those poorly suited to the environment. Often, process audits must be undertaken at the practice level to determine true staffing requirements.

Developing ProtocolsManaging centralized appointment scheduling involves building custom appointment protocols for each physician. Most physicians will begin by

“PROGRESS IS IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT CHANGE, AND THOSE WHO CANNOT CHANGE THEIR MINDS CANNOT CHANGE ANYTHING.”

—GEORGEBERNARD SHAW




articulating how different their practice is; usu-ally when one digs deeper, similarities trump differences. Documenting appointment types is critical: new patients, existing patients, followup appointments, etc. The EMR (Electronic Medical Records) is the source for appointment types; scheduling history provides insight to most utilized appointment types. Documenting physi-cian preferences and information requirements is critical for a successful contact center.

The contact center must also look at protocols in terms of simplification. I have witnessed proto-col documents that span pages within three-ring binders—the result of the contact center asking broadly, “What do you want us to do?” This open-ended question often yields a script the length of King Lear and is a setup for failure. Today, there are centralized scheduling tools often based within the EMR that streamline appointment types. When onboarding a new practice, one of our client contact center leaders always reviews the previous six months of appointments to determine the frequency of appointment types. The ensuing discussion brings a consultative aspect to the migration.

More Than Just SchedulingMore goes on backstage! Contact center sched-ulers must be in partnership with the practice. Patients calling for an appointment may have questions for the physicians themselves, may have complications, or may need something (e.g., prescription refills) that the contact center cannot provide. This requires a call transfer to the practice. One of our clients requires that, as part of the patient experience, all calls must be able to be “warm” transferred to the practice… that is, a transfer with an announcement. This requires a “must answer” line at the practice to allow quick and seamless handling of the patient’s request.

A bonus program in many centralized sched-uling environments is a nurse triage team that is authorized to answer medical questions. This provides another service to the practice and patients; patients don’t have to wait for answers, and practices don’t have to use their nursing staff for patient calls.

In addition to physician appointments, other types of scheduling include procedures, tests and lab work. Many systems have now moved

to centralized imaging (MRI, CT Scans, etc.) appointments. It is easier on the practices; they no longer have to toggle between the patient and the imaging center. It is easier on the patient; for most, it is a one-and-done contact. It is better for the hospital because the utilization of the machines involved balances out the cost. This is a true value-add function!

Technical InfrastructureCentralization requires a robust telecommunica-tions and network infrastructure to support the patient experience. While warm transfers are important, so is maintaining the practice identity. Answering calls with the practice name goes a long way to ease the transition to a centralized environment. A referral matrix, developed with the practice, assures compliance with patient/provider preferences.

Important technologies include a “single sign-on” or “smart desktop” to allow agents to easily navigate the multiple systems necessary to facilitate scheduling. Mapping software allows agents to match a patient’s preferred location to clinic locations. Online job aids/knowledge bases allow for fast and seamless access to required information. A robust quality recording system and program assures that the patient experience remains the focal point while capa-bilities for reporting and speech analytics pro-vide for deeper and richer “business intelligence.”

Closing the ShowAs you consider what it takes to centralize physi-cian appointment scheduling, keep in mind that it is NOT about the contact center. It is about delivering on those backstage elements… the vision, the business drivers and the patient experience. The contact center is the vehicle; the transition begins with the strategy and the planning. It ends with the contact center!

INDUSTRY FOCUS | BACKSTAGE AT THE PATIENT EXPERIENCE

Kathleen M. Petersonis the Chief Vision Officer at PowerHouse Consulting, a call center and telecommunications consulting firm.


CONTACT CENTERTRAINING RESOURCES

PRESENTED BY CONTACT CENTER PIPELINE

Visit www.contactcenterpipeline.com/trainingfor more dates/locations, information and to register

In-Person Seminars& Training

UPCOMING TRAINING SEMINARS DATE LOCATION

ANY 12 MINUTES. ANY LOCATION.With over 200 training videos in contact center principles, strategy, customer satisfaction, quality monitoring, call flow, workforce management, technology and metrics.

Survey Design Workshop

Survey Data Analysis Workshop

Call Center Manager Certification Training

Call Center Engineering BootCamp

Workforce Management Certification BootCamp

Call Center Management BootCamp

Orlando, FL

Orlando, FL

Austin, TXLas Vegas, NVMiami, FLTampa, FL

Austin, TXLas Vegas, NVGreenville, SC

Miami, FL

Las Vegas, NVMiami, FLTampa, FL

Sep 29

Oct 27-28

Oct 6-8Oct 20-22Nov 3-5Dec 1-3

Oct 6-10Oct 20-24Dec 8-12

Nov 5-7

Oct 20-24Nov 3-7Dec 1-5

Watch the video overview: youtu.be/y6fndS47L-Y

C

M

Y

CM

MY

CY

CMY

K

CCP-Training_FullPageAd102014.pdf 1 9/29/14 2:03 PM

http://www.contactcenterpipeline.com/training


WEBRTC IS AN EXCITING, DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY THAT PROMISES TO MAKE CUSTOMER INTERACTION WITH YOUR CONTACT CEN-TER AGENTS MUCH EASIER

THAN ANYTHING THAT’S COME BEFORE IT. The ads for the Amazon Kindle Mayday appli-cation have already set the bar—click a button and the customer is instantly connected with a knowledgeable, well-informed agent equipped to handle the situation at hand. No toll-free numbers to dial or call-back numbers to enter, no more “describing your problem” to the chat agent. With WebRTC, context-rich interaction—voice, data and video—is just a click away.

It is predicted that WebRTC will be available to nearly 2 billion people worldwide by the end of 2016. Because WebRTC capability is already embedded in Firefox, Chrome and Opera browsers, it’s already a ubiquitous technol-ogy ripe for general use. Whether you choose to deploy WebRTC interactions to minimize customer effort (an extremely important Csat metric) or to bypass costly toll-free calls, the only way to be certain your WebRTC-enabled contact center infrastructure lives up to your customers’ expectations is to load-test your system prior to cutover, and then monitor avail-ability and performance around the clock once in production.

But How? WebRTC testing from IQ Services, the leader in managed contact center testing services since 1996.

WebRTC transaction generation capability, coupled with our robust analysis, notification and reporting engines, allows you to be con-fident your WebRTC technologies can handle

the voice, data, and video capabilities you’ve chosen to extend to your customers through their computers and portable devices.

As part of a StressTest™ load and perfor-mance test, IQ Services can create tens, hun-dreds or even thousands of concurrent transac-tions to access your system and exercise your WebRTC technology in a carefully controlled fashion, so you can calibrate and adjust your technology as appropriate. You receive detailed information about every interaction initiated by the StressTest service so you can confirm that the customer experience delivered under load is the experience you intend.

As part of an ongoing HeartBeat™ avail-ability and performance monitoring engage-ment, IQ Services initiates unique WebRTC interactions 24/7. You select whatever time intervals you deem appropriate to confirm your customer-facing systems really are avail-able and performing the way you intend. If any interaction cannot be initiated and completed, your team is immediately notified and detailed data collected during the attempted WebRTC interaction is provided to you to assist in the fault analysis and root-cause identification processes.

WebRTC Service Features: ●● End-to-end performance test in the

production environment

●● Step-by-step response times, results and recordings

●● Real-time issue identification and performance feedback

●● Flexible scheduling and implementation processes

●● Definitive acceptance event

WebRTC Service Benefits: ●● Confidence the solution performs as

expected

●● Observe customer experience without risking real customer satisfaction

●● Actionable data to support pre-production tuning, problem resolution and cutover

●● Reduced issue resolution time and cost

●● Proactively manage cost and risk up front

●● Control the test process and schedule to meet your timeline

●● Confidence your system is ready for production

●● Achieve your ROI and customer satisfaction objective

Though your customers will have no idea what the underlying technology is—and they certainly don’t need to—they will be able to tell if it works or not as soon as they click on that “click to be connected to an agent” button.

And you should know, too. You owe it to yourself—it’s your career on the line. You have to be confident your implementation has the horsepower to keep up with the expected load before you launch, and that your solution keeps up with demand once it’s put into service.

It’s your future…

Let IQ Services be your Mayday button!

By Mike Burke, VP Sales & Business Development

MIKE BURKE has banked more than 40 years in telecommunications, contact centers and networking while working at Honeywell, GTE, Verizon & IQ Services. Since joining IQ Services 15 years ago, Mike has participated in hundreds of engagements to monitor, measure and manage customer service experience for clients worldwide. Prior to joining IQ Services, Mike was involved in a 1990s Internet startup, wrote code for Centrex, designed and built networks for the DoD and helped introduce DSL services for the RBOCs. In the rare moment when he breaks away from his desk at IQ Services, Mike can be found fishing deep in the Canadian wilderness at the Grand Slam Lodge.

SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT

WEBRTC TESTING FOR TODAY’S CONTACT CENTERS

MIKE BURKE

Sponsored by IQ SERVICES www.iqservices.com

Your Team Behind the ScenesWe Put the Heart into HeartBeat™IQ Services does things differently. We designed HeartBeat™ availability and performance monitoring to access contact center technology from the outside-in, so you’ll know how end-users experience your technology, not how your technology experiences end-users. HeartBeat™ monitoring collects actionable data 24/7, including verification of step responses and response times. The insight provided will help accelerate root cause analysis, and it may even warm your heart. Contact us to learn more about HeartBeat™ monitoring and how it can help optimize your customers’ service experience. The beat goes on.

Dalton ZillesAvailability Analyst

Mike HamannLead Monitoring Analyst

Suzanne BostonAvailability Monitoring Manager

Colin KochAvailability Analyst

C

M

Y

CM

MY

CY

CMY

K

http://www.iq-services.com


LEADING THOUGHTS KOREN STUCKI

Companies are relentlessly looking to improve the ways they serve customers. With consumers constantly on the go and

endlessly connected via multiple channels to companies and the brands they interact with, the global economy we live in has created unique customer choices, preferences and buying decisions that are mandating organizations to adopt customer-centric strategies. Companies are now grappling with the best way to engage with customers in an effort to satisfy their vary-ing and highly demanding needs. But, too often these efforts are narrowly focused on a particular interaction channel, lacking a holistic view of how to track, analyze and maximize the flood of data available across an organization that can help improve internal processes, procedures and interactions to better engage the customer.

Customer Experience Versus Customer Engagement Successful companies are realizing there’s an important difference between customer experi-ence and customer engagement. Customer experience is rooted in emotion. The customer owns it. They formulate the image of their experiences. Customer engagement is rooted in action. It’s broader in focus and includes both the customer and company side of interactions, encompassing everything that happens along

the customer journey. True engagement requires employees who are empowered, well trained and equipped with the right information. And lastly, it requires technologies that enhance the cus-tomer’s experience and the supporting analytics to extract insights in real-time to continuously engage customers effortlessly in a two-way dialogue.

Customer engagement is the natural evolution of customer experience and needs to be consid-ered as the next strategic priority for enterprise organizations. The benefit of optimizing customer engagement is that it enables companies to go beyond managing the experience itself at vari-ous touchpoints to include all of the ways that companies motivate customers to invest in an ongoing relationship.

One of the key trends driving market demand for customer engagement optimization strate-gies is the consumer expectation for a more personalized and consistent experience across channels. Consumers have come to expect a consistent, contextual and personalized experi-ence across multiple channels, and thus, pri-oritizing customer engagement strategies can help to achieve better business outcomes by addressing these consumer expectations and demands.

Nearly all business leaders are aware of this trend by now. Some are trying to prepare their organizations for it, while very few have actually built a data-driven ecosystem that connects all parts of the enterprise to deliver a single view of the company to customers and on the brand promise. Those high-performing few are optimized in the customer engagement maturity curve and are winning in the marketplace.

The Omnichannel MaelstromToday’s consumers are using more communica-tions channels than ever before, such as social media and ubiquitous mobility, and expect companies to respond to them in an effective, efficient and personalized way across the chan-nels of their choosing, changing customers’ expectations of the organizations with which they do business. As more channels are being used to communicate with—and about—orga-nizations, the balance of power shifts from organizations to customers, increasingly driving the relationship with businesses. Consumers are choosing to interact through different channels based on convenience, recommendations, the phase of their journey, or based upon previous

CHALLENGES TO UNDERSTANDING CUSTOMER JOURNEYS AND OPTIMIZING ENGAGEMENTCustomers expect a more personalized, consistent experience across channels.

By Koren Stucki Verint

@Verint

www.verint.com



experiences. Moreover, it is clear that consumers expect an organization to have full insight into all prior interactions and be able to respond in a cohesive, customized and consistent manner.

The first step in delivering omnichannel engagement is to systematically and program-matically capture and analyze the voice of the customer, channel by channel. Keeping up with customers’ rapidly evolving communications preferences across many individual chan-nels—multichannel communications—can be challenging enough. Capturing that information across many different channels (which is often unstructured and undoubtedly high in volume), processing it into a single, consolidated view of the customer’s history and behaviors, and then delivering services and offers that reflect this customer awareness—omnichannel communica-tions—can be downright overwhelming.

Omnichannel communications are critical for driving customer engagement and supporting the level of interaction that consumers have, either directly or indirectly with a company or brand over time. Unlike customer experience programs, the goal is to build an ongoing dialog and relationship with customers that engenders familiarity and some level of emotional attach-ment to a brand, product or service.

Empowering and Leveraging Your EmployeesLooking beyond interaction channels, the qual-ity of customer journeys and level of engage-ment an organization can drive often depends heavily on people. Employees provide valuable insight on how customers are engaging with a business. Frontline staff can identify customer pain points and recommend improvements to help enhance interactions. They can also help organizations understand the amount of effort required for certain tasks, and—in collaboration with crossfunctional groups like the back office—can identify where process, system or knowledge gaps are hindering the company from delivering the desired customer experience. By engaging employees, organizations will gain a greater understanding of the customer journey, as well as better define and prioritize improvements to optimize customer engagement.

Having direct insight from both the front lines and the back office to help evaluate customer journeys can enable an organization to under-stand where silos exist, where handoffs between groups are inefficient, customer touchpoints are unnecessary, and expectations are not being accurately set or delivered upon. Rather than focusing exclusively on channels and individual

events, business leaders must look to gain a more holistic view and a deeper understanding of the broader context of interactions in order to deliver a more consistent experience across channels.

Using the Journey to Create Engagement As we have established, omnichannel engage-ment is recognized by most organizations as a strategic imperative, yet many find it challeng-ing to link all the interaction data together for contextual insights that present a single view of the customer’s journey. For example, if a cus-tomer makes an inquiry by phone, then engages in an online chat session and later performs a transaction on the web, it’s important for an organization to piece the different interactions and experiences together to understand when and why customers switch channels, and how that impacts the business. Often, enterprises do not have the right level of visibility across every channel, interaction, process and outcome. However, with the ability to gain insight that provides deeper understandings of customer journeys, organizations will be better equipped to truly optimize customer engagement.

ILLUSTRATION BY JEAN-PHILIPPE CABAROC


One of the biggest challenges that businesses face today is how to leverage the massive amounts of structured and unstructured data and insights that exist within organizational silos. Creating a seamless experience in an omnichan-nel environment and being able to diagnose issues throughout a customer’s journey requires a collaborative, enterprise approach to analyzing “big data.”

The key challenges organizations face when trying to accomplish this include:

●● Keeping up with consumers who channel-hop. Organizations must be able to connect the dots from web to contact center to social media to surveys.

●● Having the knowledge and resources to aggregate and analyze large amounts of structured and unstructured data. Even in small organizations, this challenge can be formidable, given the sheer number of customers, interactions and channels.

●● Identifying and understanding the root causes of customer issues efficiently.

●● Obtaining solutions and consulting expertise to help predict customer actions, deliver personalized service and reduce churn.

●● Having a scalable, automated way to create and maintain customer journey maps.

Having an omnichannel view of the customer journey and the ability to identify drivers and the root cause of customer engagements can

enable more actionable insight that can be used to better predict customer behavior allowing you to be more proactive in your efforts to reduce customer churn.

The Role of AnalyticsBy evaluating customer interactions across all channels using a centralized solution, organi-zations can quickly determine where to focus customer engagement efforts to help realize the greatest impact. When captured, analyzed and acted upon, organizations have the intel-ligence and insights they require to help achieve important strategic objectives. Using analytics, customer journeys across channels can be seg-mented, targeted, tracked and reported on to help organizations understand trends and the root causes of issues, and enhance customer interactions to create more consistent experi-ences. Through the facilitation of multichannel data capture and analytics, visualizations and automated journey mapping, a deeper, more contextual understanding of customer data is possible.

Organizations that strive to be optimized in their delivery of omnichannel customer engage-ment must be committed to building data-driven businesses that break down organizational silos by putting the customer at the heart of the enter-prise. They do so by making the voice of the

customer heard through analytics and customer-centric strategies. These top-performing organi-zations enable, empower and engage employees to operate with empathy and commitment. They link all departments of the enterprise using a common currency of metrics and insights about customer and employee behaviors, resulting in better collaboration and productivity. They also engage customers consistently by integrating key information and knowledge directly into operational tools, including customer-facing digital channels. And most importantly, opti-mized companies deliver on the brand promise by creating a single-company, omnichannel view to the customer through unified operations that are linked by customer insights.

Optimized organizations will be better positioned to understand the entire customer journey, reduce customer and employee effort, and deliver highly personalized service to gain a competitive advantage and increase customer loyalty.

Koren Stucki is Marketing Director, Customer Analytics, Verint. Koren brings experience as both a practitioner and a consultant having built several Customer Experience

and Voice of the Customer programs as an executive in Fortune 100 and startup businesses and as a consultant to global companies and non-profit organizations.

www.Verint.com

LEADING THOUGHTS | CHALLENGES TO UNDERSTANDING CUSTOMER JOURNEYS AND OPTIMIZING ENGAGEMENT


FOLLOW ONyoutube.com/ccpipeline

OPTIMIZED COMPANIES DELIVER ON THE BRAND PROMISE BY CREATING A SINGLE-COMPANY, OMNICHANNEL VIEW TO THE CUSTOMER

A Comprehensive Approach to Contact Center Consulting

Strategic Contact draws upon years of experience across a wide range of contact center environments and technologies to bring the right expertise and insights to every project. Our vendor independence combined with a passion for helping clients optimize the value of their technology and operations ensures no hidden agendas.

Whether you need to plan for, de�ne, assess, evaluate, or implement change, we can help.

Contact us today.

Strategy and VisionAssessment

RecommendationsRoadmap

RequirementsSourcing OptionsVendor Evaluation

Business Case

Project PlanDesign/Development

TestingPilot and Rollout

OperationsTechnology

Support ModelsMonitoring & Management

C

M

Y

CM

MY

CY

CMY

K

SC_Ad.pdf 1 7/27/2012 3:24:14 PM

http://www.strategiccontact.com


I remember my first day as an agent at a major phone company. It was at the start of my working life. I was nervous. I had no idea

what to expect for my first day. I walked in the classroom, sat down and began talking with the person sitting next to me. She was as nervous as I was. More importantly, neither one of us knew what to expect from training.

It has been almost 25 years since that moment. I still remember that “first day” feeling of not knowing what to expect or if I would even like working for this company. “Onboarding” has become a popular buzzword for managing a new employee’s first impression of an organization. That can increase employee engagement and reduce employee turnover. However, new-hire training can have an even greater impact, as far as making new agents feel as if they have made the right choice in joining your company. The fol-lowing are ideas to reduce your agent trainee’s nervousness, while increasing knowledge reten-tion and improving employee engagement.

1. WELCOME YOUR NEW-HIRE AGENTS TO YOUR CONTACT CENTER BEFORE THEY GET THERE.Work with your talent management/human resources department to develop a welcome let-ter from your department to include in the new agent’s pre-employment welcome kit. Yes, there is probably already a letter from your CEO in the package that welcomes them to the company. However, an additional letter from your contact center vice president or director can make the new agent feel even more welcome.

2. SET EXPECTATIONS BEFORE THEY ARRIVE.One option to start off on the right foot is to include a mini-training package as part of their pre-employment welcome kit. What should be included in that kit? Suggested items include the new-hire training schedule, homework expectations and where to arrive on Day 1. Some organizations also include pre-work in the kit. Pre-work may consist of some written pre-reading about the company, industry or customer base. Another idea for pre-work is to have them look up information on the Internet regarding the company, industry, products and competitors. (Note: Always check with your organization’s legal department to see if this type of pre-employment work is appropriate in your state.)

3. CREATE A WARM ENVIRONMENT FOR DAY 1 (AND BEYOND) BY GREETING NEW-HIRES AT THE DOOR.There is an old saying, “Treat your agents the way you want them to treat your customers.” So create a friendly, welcoming environment for your new agents. Have your human resources representative and your trainer greet new-hires as they arrive on Day 1. Have your contact cen-ter’s senior leader drop by in the morning or at lunch to welcome the new-hires onboard. Some organizations will even provide lunch on the first day and invite the new-hires’ future team leader and manager to this event.

4. GIVE NEW-HIRES A TOUR OF THE CONTACT CENTER ON DAY 1.Could you imagine going through new-hire train-ing at an offsite facility, far away from the contact center? What would be the impact on your sense of teamwork? Would you have a sense of belong-ing? Alternatively, would you still feel like the new kid at school, even though you have been through several weeks of training? Well, I have seen that happen. This real-life company did their training at one location, while their contact center was in a nearby city. I remember how dis-connected trainees felt from the contact center. This can also happen if training is conducted in the same building that the contact center resides in, but on a different floor.

People want a sense of belonging. They want to feel like part of a greater whole. So take your new-hire class on a tour of the contact center on their first day. Have them sit side-by-side with veteran high-performing agents so they can hear what great sounds like. This also allows them to

10 TIPS TO IMPROVE AGENT ENGAGEMENT DURING NEW-HIRE TRAININGHow to set up new agents for a successful transition to the contact center floor.

By Mike Aoki, Reflective Keynotes Inc.

PERFORMANCE MATTERS MIKE AOKI

@mikeaoki


meet the people they will be working with upon graduation. Encourage team leaders and manag-ers to visit the training room during breaks and lunches to chat with their future team members. Invite workforce management staff, quality team members and other support personnel to pres-ent information and/or drop by the classroom so new-hires can put a name to a face.

5. SHOW NEW-HIRES HOW YOUR ORGANIZATION SUPPORTS YOUR LOCAL COMMUNITY.Millennials (people born between 1980-2000) make up the bulk of contact center new-hires in most organizations. One of the things they look for in an employer is a company’s willingness to give back to their community. Let them know how your organization supports local charities, raises money for worthy goals and is environmentally friendly within the local community. Anything you can do to create goodwill with an employee will contribute to his or her engagement.

6. GIVE NEW-HIRES A SENSE OF COMMUNITY WITHIN THE CLASSROOM BY HAVING THEM WORK IN SMALL GROUPS.Contact center agents are typically social people. They like talking with and meeting new people. Have them work together in pairs, trios and small groups of three to four people. They can work together on training exercises, role-plays and simulations. This will not only increase their level of knowledge retention, it will also increase the energy level in the room. Make sure that you use e-learning in moderate amounts. E-learning is a great way to learn data. It is also self-paced, so new-hires can move through modules at their own comfort level. The drawback is e-learning does not create the positive energy level or sense of community that interactive group exercises create. So be sure to combine group work with e-learning to achieve the best balance between independent study and teamwork.

7. PUT YOUR NEW-HIRES ON A MISSION.To increase employee engagement, show your new-hires how their work contributes to a greater mission in life. For instance, one employee of a medical supply company believes that all he does is ship boxes to people at home. This employee fails to see how he contributes to the greater good. He just sees his work as a boring job. On the other hand, one of his coworkers sees her role as delivering badly needed medi-

cine to people who might die if they do not get it on time. This person has a sense of mission. She has connected to a greater good. She feels engaged and dedicated to her job. As a result, she tries harder, stays longer and contributes more. Give your employees a sense of mission by illustrating how their work helps people. This will increase employee engagement and reduce employee turnover.

8. GIVE NEW-HIRES A PERSPECTIVE FOR HANDLING IRATE CALLERS.When I was an agent, guess how many of my phone calls were from happy customers want-ing to thank their phone company for great ser-vice? Three. Three positive calls in the four years I spent online. That is less than one positive call per year. The other 50,000 calls I took were from people who wanted to change services, complain about their bill or cancel their service.

I train agents on how to handle irate callers. I am continually amazed at how many of them seem shocked that most of their calls are from complaining customers. Prepare your new-hires for this by asking the class, “How many of you have ever called a company because you felt happy about their service?” Only a few hands will go up. Ask, “How many of you have ever called a company because something went wrong?” Normally, every hand will go up. Then say, “That’s why people call. They have a prob-lem and need your help.”

Another way to add perspective is to say something along the lines of, “Only 10% of our customers ever call in, but they make up 100%

of the calls you take.” Give them that perspec-tive so they know what to expect.

9. LET THEM KNOW HOW THEY ARE DOING.People want to know how well they are doing. This is especially true for the two-week to two-month-long training sessions common to con-tact centers. Let your new-hires know how they are doing by providing weekly updates on their test results, level of participation and schedule adherence during training. You can also give out weekly awards during the course for things like,

“Highest Quiz Score” or “Top Contributor at Asking Questions.”

10. CELEBRATE SUCCESSES.Plan a graduation party. Even a simple pizza lunch will help boost spirits. Invite your contact center’s management team to participate. Have a graduation cake for dessert. Give out gradua-tion certificates. Take a team graduation photo. Make your new-hires feel good about graduating from training.

Mike Aoki is a popular conference speaker and seminar leader. His company, Reflective Keynotes Inc. (www.reflectivekeynotes.com), helps organizations improve their contact center sales,

customer service and management skills.

[email protected] (905) 567-8432

28 CONTACT CENTER PIPELINE ❘ OCT 2014 Sponsored by VOLT DELTA www.voltdelta.com

SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT VOLTDELTA

The Anatomy of Delivering Exceptional Multichannel Customer Service

CONTACT CENTER BUILDING BLOCKS

ACDACD is responsible for receiving and routing calls and other types of customer interactions, such as email or chat, to designated people in your organization based on predetermined rules. It supports a single queue that prioritizes one type of interaction over another, such as phone call over email.

CRMThe CRM keeps track of cus-tomer information and shares the data across channels within the organization. This data can be used to identify highly valued customers, analyze the customer

experience, and provide an opportunity to target customers with special offers.

Integration of telephony and other contact channels directly within an existing CRM enables the tracking of customers as they move between channels.

CALL AND SCREEN RECORDINGCall and screen recording cap-tures the voice of the customer for evaluating performance, ensuring regulatory compli-ance, and assisting with agent training. To be effective, the call recording solution must capture every channel transfer and agent transition as a unified experience. It also must record

the agent screen along with the voice recording to ensure the correct information is displayed at the appropriate time.

CLOUD VERSUS PREMISE SOLUTIONSThe benefits of the cloud typi-cally outweigh premise solutions for the following reasons:

●● Flexibility—Adding features, agent seats, and channels is easier to implement in the cloud.

●● Expertise—Many cloud solution vendors employ experienced staff in the areas of networking, speech, integration and voice user interface design.

●● Cost—Cloud solutions do not require capital investment or hardware maintenance.

A “WIN” FOR EVERYONE

BENEFITS FOR AGENTS●● Complete agent control

to respond or transfer to any channel.

●● Single CRM screen for ease of use.

BENEFITS FOR MANAGERS

●● Consolidated reporting from multiple channels within CRM systems.

●● Supervisors can prioritize channels for agents working with multiple forms of inbound contact.

BENEFITS FOR COMPANIES

●● Improve customer retention—Studies

indicate that 86% of customers who were

“very satisfied” with their customer service interactions are likely to purchase from that company again.

●● Increase in profitability—According to Gallup, fully engaged customers represent an additional 23% in wallet share, profitability and revenue than the average customer.

BENEFITS FOR CUSTOMERS

●● Quicker resolution—Anticipating why customers are contacting you helps to resolve issues or answer questions more efficiently and provides the opportunity to proactively contact them.

●● Personalized service—Knowing what your customer preferences are not only allows them to feel valued, but also helps you to identify products and services that better suit their needs.

Read more on this subject in a white paper by DMG Consulting titled, “ACD vs. CRM: How to Win the Battle,” at: www.VoltDelta.com.

There is no end to the number of tools and technology available for contact centers. Managers who are evaluating technology to invest in a multichannel support organization can potentially spend an inordinate amount of time determining what is needed and which vendor to select. When it comes to improving the customer experience, creating a satisfying work environment for agents and managers, and optimizing company operations (and profitability), three components are fundamentally required: Automatic Call Distribution (ACD), Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) and Call plus Screen Recording. Focus on these three components first to establish a solid customer care technology foundation. Here is what you need to know:

ABOUT VOLTDELTAVoltDelta is a global cloud-based contact center provider with 35 years of experience.

Learn more at:www.voltdelta.com

How to establish a solid technology foundation.

VoltDelta R

OnDEMAND SOLUTIONSO

Make your CRM the pointfor Multichannel Customer Care

PIVOT

www.voltdelta.com

• Voice and messaging support for your customers• Channel focus and priority for your agents • Consolidated reporting for your managers

http://www.voltdelta.com


AGILITY FACTOR JAY MINNUCCI

demands of a contact center. In the executive offices, it is easy to place high value on metrics like employee engagement, customer satisfac-tion and first-contact resolution. The million-dollar question, though, is not how committed you are to these concepts in the C-wing or at the three-day off-site meeting. It is how committed you are to these concepts on the call center floor, when there are 79 calls in queue and 53 reps on the phone. The “here and now” exposes the level of allegiance to your strategy, and the way in which you manage this very moment will have an impact that extends far into the future.

The Metrics That Define the MomentTo manage the moment, you must first identify the key metrics to monitor. “Dashboard” is an overused term in business that has unfortunately become synonymous with almost any report-ing. But if you think of a dashboard in a car or plane, you realize the content is much more dis-criminating. Those indicators that can potentially require immediate attention—speed, altitude, warning lights—are front and center. Other data is either off to the side or must be accessed by using other tools. It is not that the other data is necessarily less important than what is on the dashboard, it is simply less urgent.

And that is exactly how things should be in a contact center. There is plenty of very important data—quality rates, customer satisfaction data, etc.—which requires our attention. But these

metrics change slowly over time. Their impor-tance merits key positioning and attention on our monthly scorecards, but serves only to clutter a dashboard. The urgent data is that informa-tion—calls in queue, agents available, adherence and longest wait—which can change in the blink of eye. Yes, those metrics sound very transac-tional and tactical, but we need not apologize for tracking them closely. In a contact center, if the moment is not managed correctly, the chances that caller #79 in queue will “recommend us to a friend or colleague” are slim.

The ImpactIn deciding how to react to our 79 calls in queue, we are, in essence, deciding how to balance the needs of the caller on the line with those waiting. Our strategic objectives direct us to allow our agents as much time as needed to converse, probe, offer and engage. They also encourage us to take our staff off the phone for coaching, training and career development time. Doing all this should optimize customer satisfaction and employee engagement—for now. Ten minutes from now, though, our agents will be dealing with one angry caller after another, all of them fum-ing over a long wait that sent a strong message about how little they are valued. Satisfaction and engagement plummet despite your best efforts.

How, then, do we walk that tightrope between managing the moment and meeting our strategic objectives concerning the customer experience and employee engagement? The secret is in planning and preparing for these moments in advance, rather than simply reacting when they (inevitably) occur. Why? Because deci-sions made in the heat of the moment often conflict with the mission of our organization. When queues and abandoned calls are rapidly escalating, we do things like cancel training that is in progress, cut coaching sessions short, and hover over agents that are flashing red on our screen because they are trying to complete a

THE HEREAND NOWDecisions made in the heat of the moment often conflict with the organization’s mission.

By Jay Minnucci Service Agility


In a contact center, if the moment is not managed correctly, the chances that caller #79 in queue will “recommend us to a friend or colleague” are slim.


case in a way that will eliminate a call-back. Planning out our approach puts time back on our side, allowing us to make better decisions that could ever be made when under the gun (see the table above).

Plan Ahead for SuccessAnd so, for all the seemingly tactical elements related to managing the here and now, success really depends on strategy, leadership and com-munication. Will you plan and staff in such a way that the rough patches will be minimized? When the queue starts to build, will you still want your reps engaging in conversations and

providing proactive service, or will you (secretly or otherwise) hope they revert to a “churn and burn” transactional approach that clears out the queue and turns the dashboard green again? Will your agents know what to expect in advance, and understand not only what will happen but why you are taking a certain action? In contact centers, the here and now is the tyrant that threatens to disrupt all our well-defined objectives. Be prepared. Be very prepared.

Jay Minnucci is Founder and President of the independent consulting firm Service Agility.

[email protected] (215) 679-5250

Planning out our approach puts time

back on our side, allowing us to make

better decisions.

POTENTIAL CAUSE OF QUEUING PLANNED APPROACH REACTIONARY APPROACH

Low adherence (enough staff scheduled, they just are not on the phone)

We evaluated the data and set a high but achievable goal for adherence. We communicated it effectively to everyone, and made it part of the expectations for both agents and their supervisors. We do not track people down every time they are two minutes out of adherence—though if calls are queuing, we will do an adherence check as a courtesy to those customers who are waiting.

Set the system to flash every time someone is out of adherence for two minutes or more. Make it an expectation for supervisors or real-time coordinators to run staff down whenever this happens—regardless of conditions, and regardless of the fact that our 93% adherence objective actually permits roughly 30 minutes of non-adherence throughout the day.

Peaking traffic We knew it was coming. We saw it in the forecasts and did all we could in advance to lessen the impact. We let everyone know in advance the time periods that would be toughest throughout the day. We asked staff to be especially mindful of coverage during those times.

The WFM team saw it coming, but we do not send those reports out to the floor. We hope things will not be as bad as the forecasts indicate, but if they are, we will “lock it down” and maybe put supervisors on the phone.

Understaffing We have a strong long-term planning process that allows us to hire “just in time” to meet demand, so these situations are infrequent. But when they do occur, we meet and make rational decisions based on the expected severity and length of the impact. The decisions and reasoning are shared with all team members.

This is part of life in a contact center, and we expect our supervisors and agents to understand this. We will cancel training, meetings and coaching sessions as long as we need to until we climb out of this situation. We will also be extra diligent in monitoring real-time conditions and ensuring that talk, after-call work and non-adherence are minimized. We also expect, though, that we will continue to meet our enhanced objectives related to first-call resolution, cross-selling and customer satisfaction.

YOU CANNOT SUCCEED STRATEGICALLY WITH A

CONTACT CENTER UNLESS YOU FULLY UNDERSTAND THE TACTICAL OPERATION AT THE

DEEPEST LEVEL


TECH LINE MATT MOREY & KEN BARTON

ate an interruption—e.g., minutes, hours or days. Then you’ll define your levels of risk mitigation. Categorize the likelihood of each risk occur-ring and the associated impact (see Figure 1). Knowing how each risk and impact affects your operation helps you determine the level of redundancy to build into your overall architecture from a network and system perspective.

Natural disasters are the obvious starting point when defining vulnerabilities. Hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, snow storms and floods can significantly impact your business. You’ll want to identify alternate location strate-gies where agents can handle contacts in the event your building is inaccessible, and make sure they can readily access your systems when they get there. Beyond Mother Nature’s threats lie other risks:

●● While redundancy can protect you from hardware or software failures, there are no guarantees. A technology failure can limit functionality, customer access and/or center performance. This category is a big one, so list the elements of your infrastructure and applications and the things that can go wrong, and define your options to address them.

●● Are you prepared for construction equipment severing a cable or other network outages? Consider multiple data centers and/or access points with diverse routes into your data center(s) in the event your main access is disabled.

●● What if you lose power? Review your backup power approach and ensure that you know exactly how long you can operate, then look at options such as generators to increase resiliency, if necessary.

●● Are you prepared for employee illnesses or a pandemic? You may need plans—and technology in place—for non-contact center employees to handle simple calls or look to an outsourcer or remote or home agents to cover your bases.

Take a look at these types of scenarios (and others on your list) and assign a rating of likeli-hood. Then you can prioritize the highest risk situations.

Now you are in the position to assess the scope of your plan and truly examine the costs of your BC/DR options. You’ll need to determine the financial impact to the business and the cost to support different configurations and aspects of the plan from operational and technical per-spectives. Start with identifying and addressing single points of failure. Typical single points of failure include network access points to your facilities and hardware (e.g., routers, gateways and servers). Next, you will want to consider the operational side of delivering calls to your agents. For each scenario, you need to consider if you can get enough people in the right place at the right time, with access to the right systems, and the costs of doing so.

Many multisite centers’ BC/DR plans include adding seats in unaffected sites by placing agents in training rooms, conference rooms or other areas. They build sufficient network capac-ity in advance and have work stations available and configured to quickly place in the temporary locations. Some offsite data centers can provide expanded space for hardware and seats as well as added capacity. Some data centers even provide agent stations already wired and set up for use just for DR purposes. Many data manage-ment services vendors assist with data backup and recovery, which should be considered in your plan. Outsourcers sometimes offer space for your agents in addition to their own agents answering your calls.

Each of these scenarios can have an impact on hardware, software and network capacity requirements. Consider the number and types of seats you need for business continuity, includ-ing agent, supervisor and support staff, and the bandwidth demands when contacts are diverted.

LEVERAGING TECHNOLOGY TO OPTIMIZE CONTINUITY AND RECOVERYReduce your risks and position your center to take care of customers… no matter what happens.

By Matt Morey and Ken Barton

Strategic Contact Inc.


Matt Morey is a Senior Consultant at Strategic Contact.


Ken Barton is a Consultant at Strategic Contact.


@StratContact


Times Change and So Does TechnologyThe past decade has given way to a number of new technologies to support the scope of your BC/DR plan. These new technologies include cloud services, server virtualization, mobile computing and social networks. While you may want to consider any or all of these develop-ments, cloud services are a great place to start. Your cloud vendor can provide complete contact center technology solutions at their data centers or backup to your premise solution in the event of a disaster. When using cloud services, you can secure service level agreements for perfor-mance that includes uptime (see “Win! Win! Win! The Cloud Contact Center Has Something for Everybody,” Pipeline, December 2012).

If new cloud contact center technology has spurred your BC/DR rejuvenation, make sure that the services you are considering are BC/DR-ready for your environment. Top items to address are:

●● Ensure that your vendor supports the proper network access and application configuration for your routing and reporting.

●● Negotiate SLAs for uptime.

●● Determine how calls will be routed in BC/DR mode.

●● Understand the processes for transition and the impact on the customers.

●● Define multiple ways to contact your cloud vendor in the event of a disaster and the process for initiating switchover.

Server virtualization is another technology development that makes it easier to support your BC/DR plan from a hardware perspective. Using virtualized servers results in a smaller footprint, which is easier to maintain as it requires fewer boxes and can lower your overall total cost of ownership. Place virtualized servers in geo-redundant data centers to bolster your survivability.

Mobile computing and BYOD (bring your own device) enables your contact center resources to work remotely in the event you need to imple-ment BC/DR measures. These options give you the flexibility to quickly open a center in nearly any unaffected location using cell phones, tab-lets and/or laptops. You may not have access

to your full back-office applications and may not handle interactions using the most efficient processes, but at least you are answering the calls and responding to emails. This could be a very viable alternative to hold you over until your backup location is set up and ready to go.

Social media and SMS texting expand your lines of communication with your employees, if an event should occur. You can quickly inform employees what BC/DR measures have been put into place, where they need to be, and what next steps are. The bonus: These technologies are not reliant on your corporate communications systems (that may be down if you are enacting BC/DR measures).

Don’t Forget Documentation and TestingDocumentation and testing processes for BC/DR continue to evolve, as well. From a documenta-tion perspective, many folks simply distribute plans in binders, which can be a challenge to keep current. Enter the cloud again: You can store the plan electronically in your own systems as well as third-party cloud storage. Keep paper


Limited Business Impact

Extensive Business Impact

High Probability

Long Duration

Low Probability

Short Duration

Low-Medium Risk:

May happen, but won’t cause big problem; bonus if you can address these.

Low Risk:

Unlikely events with small impact; don’t focus time/money here!

High Risk:

Likely events with a big impact; pursue solutions that address your most

likely, most costly events.

Medium-High Risk:

Unlikely events but potentially big impact; consider options that address these risks

as well.

FIGURE 1: Categorize Risks and Impacts


copies to accompany the electronic version and be sure that employees know how to quickly access the plan.

The keys to success in documenting the plan are to be thorough while keeping it as simple as possible. Then, put it to the test. If you can’t successfully execute a test run, your design is too complicated or documentation unclear. But also realize a solid BC/DR test involves more than simply your IT department testing your technol-ogy. A BC/DR plan is of no value if correspond-ing operational plans are not in place, aligned, updated and tested for all personnel (IT and CC).

Test your BC/DR plan on a regular basis. The level and frequency of testing varies with the scope of your plan, your vulnerabilities and risks, and your budget, but once a year should be the minimum. Test the network, access and technol-ogy. Test call routing and access to data in the telephony and back-office systems. If utilizing alternate sites or outsourcer services, be sure to test transitioning contact routing to these loca-tions and restoration when things are “back to normal.”

Testing should encompass the operational side, as well. Does your staff know what to do, where to go, how to get there, and what to do when they arrive? Test how people will get to the right place at the right time in the alternate sites. Test all your communication methodologies: IVR messages, social media, SMS texts, etc. Clearly identify responsibility from a program manage-

ment perspective. Know who executes the overall plan and who is responsible for specific areas and tasks, including primary and backup resources. Work with and get to know your vendors and how to contact them for their assistance in execution of your plan. You never know if your plan is going to work unless you test it!

The scenarios that you identified as high impact and high probability when you conducted your risk analysis should be first on your list to test (see Figure 1). Be sure to revise and adjust processes and documentation as necessary based on testing outcomes and reviews of how technology and staff performed. Additionally, it is imperative to clearly define the “owner” of updates, maintenance, and distribution/com-munication of the plan. That role should include updating based on new technology configura-tions and processes, as well.

The First Step Is the Hardest; Start or Update Your Plan TodayIf your organization currently doesn’t have a BC/DR plan, it’s time to get started. If you currently have a BC/DR plan, maybe it’s time for an update. Consider how technology changes can help you fine-tune your plan. Technology additions and improvements provide a nice counterbalance to the nagging feeling that we are more vulnerable than ever. It’s time to reduce your risks and posi-tion your center to take care of customers no matter what challenges get thrown your way.


TECH LINE | LEVERAGING TECHNOLOGY TO OPTIMIZE CONTINUITY AND RECOVERY

❏ Define a strategy for BC/DR that considers vulnerabilities and impacts.

❏ Consider that BC/DR strategy in all technology requirements, purchases and design efforts.

❏ Make the appropriate investments to mitigate risks and be prepared to act when events occur.

❏ Build resiliency into architectures through things such as geo-redundant data centers, diverse network routing, high-availability solutions and routine backups.

❏ Develop detailed and thorough BC/DR plan(s) that address technology and operations.

❏ Test BC/DR scenarios routinely (e.g., twice a year) from start to finish, including restoration of normal operations, with IT and business leader involvement.

❏ Leverage technology advances to improve BC/DR execution.

❏ Update BC/DR plans routinely based on changes to systems or processes, new capabilities, test results or other factors.

Use this checklist to align your contact

center with best practices, and ensure

that you are ready for continuity and

recovery when bad things happen.

WHAT THE “BEST” CENTERS DO FOR BC/DR


@ccpipeline

articles

news

announcements

FOLLOW US:twitter.com/ccpipeline

We love workforce managementLet us forecast your volumesLet us schedule your agents

Need a workforce manager? Hire Human Numbers

770.887.8802 · [email protected] · www.HumanNumbers.com

Re-humanize your workforce

You know how unique your call center is. Your forecasting methods require that same

level of uniqueness. Our work is meaningful to us and valuable to you because

we work closely with your team to generate the best schedules

for their lifestyles. Forecasts start at $2,000 per month.

http://www.humannumbers.com


INSIDE VIEW

●DOWNLOAD MORE INSIDE VIEW ARTICLES @ http://tinyurl.com/CCP-InsideView

SUSAN HASH

ation leaders were tasked with a daunting chal-lenge: How to provide information and answers quickly, accurately and efficiently to a growing citizen base using fewer staff? The solution was a twofold strategy that began with leveraging technology to increase engagement with citizens, according to Frank Carmody, assistant director of operations for Administration and Regulatory Affairs, City of Houston. “We needed to rely on technology to help us bridge the gap,” he says. Easing the workload on current staff would then allow center leaders to focus on improving agent performance and retention.

Since the 311 staff spend a large part of their time (about 74%) responding to requests for information, the operation required a robust knowledge management system that would enable agents to access the right information to answer callers’ questions quickly and accurately. The city implemented the LAGAN Enterprise customer service suite from KANA, A Verint Company. The system is interactive, Carmody says, so agents can continually improve the speed and accuracy of search results by vot-ing on the most relevant answers, which pushes those to the top of the list in future searches.

Technology as Force Multipliers and Workload LevelersWith the knowledge management system in place, Carmody and his team then began to look for ways to leverage technology as a “force multiplier,” in which the citizen becomes the agent, or as a “workload leveler” to ensure an average speed of answer (ASA) of under 60 seconds. “We recognized that, if citizens could service themselves, it would relieve some of the pressure on our agents,” he recalls.

The first step was to redesign the Houston 311 website to ensure that citizens could quickly and easily access the information they need. At that time, the website was not particularly user-friendly, Carmody says. “It was very city-centric,” he explains. “If you wanted to enter a service request because you were having a water prob-

lem, you couldn’t look under ‘W’ for water. You needed to look under ‘U’ for utility maintenance, which is the division.”

The redesigned website provides users with multiple options to find information. The most common requests are easily accessible from the 311 home page. Users can also view a table of contents or pull up an index of all city depart-ments. Citizens soon will be able to access the same knowledge management system via web self-service, ensuring that the information is up-to-date and consistent whether they contact 311 via web or phone.

Prominent on the Houston 311 landing page is an interactive map that shows all open service requests within minutes of a request being entered. The map is a popular first stop for online visitors, says Carmody. Citizens who wish to submit a service request can view the map to see if there is an existing request, check the status of the request and when it is due to be addressed. Website visitors can also access 311’s interactive performance dashboards that provide data on service request volume and response performance, which can be filtered by department, request type, neighborhood, chan-nel and status.

In addition to increasing citizen engagement, the city has found that publishing the service response data on the website helps to improve local departments’ accountability. Internally, the information is used to track each department’s performance against their response objectives. “Every service request has a deadline,” Carmody says. “We want to see which departments are addressing their service requests within the required deadline.”

The combination of a more user-friendly design and access to real-time information has substantially increased website usage—from 20,000 hits per year to about 300,000. Carmody equates the increase in self-service transactions to an annual workload that would typically be handled by 10 agents, “which is no small matter,” he points out.

The City of Houston has also released a free mobile app that allows citizens to quickly and easily submit service requests from their smart-phones. With more than 10,000 downloads so far, the app appeals to frequent users of the 311 site and currently accounts for nearly 6% of service requests.

While the online and mobile self-service tools have proven to be successful force multipliers, the city also relies on other technologies and tools to help balance the workload for the 311

HOUSTON 311City of Houston leverages technology to improve the lives of citizens and agents.

By Susan Hash, Contact Center Pipeline

@SusanHash

There is a boom going on deep in the heart of Texas. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau,

Houston has become the fastest-growing large city in the United States, second only to New York for gaining new residents.

Houston’s growth has been largely fueled by a strong job market—in particular, an upswing in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) employment. While the expand-ing diverse and technically savvy population is good news for local businesses, the rapid growth rate, combined with the city’s property tax cap, has resulted in severely constrained operating budgets for public services.

One of the most vital services is Houston’s 311 department, the city’s information and non-emergency service center, which offers a single point of entry to a variety of city services. The 311 Houston Service Helpline is a 24/7 operation that handles approximately 2.1 mil-lion contacts per year, covering a wide range of issues—from reporting a pothole to inquiries about court hearings. There are about 270 different types of service requests, and 2,600 frequently asked questions.

The Perennial Call Center Challenge: Doing More with LessIn 2011, funding cuts forced the 311 center to reduce its staff from 75 full-time agents to 55 FTEs and 20 part-time staff. Contact center oper-


center staff. Email, for instance, is one of the most basic workload levelers, Carmody says, since agents can respond to email during the lower-volume shifts. The center is also exploring additional workload levelers, such as providing SMS service and a call-back manager, which holds a caller’s place in the queue without them having to stay on the line, or enables the caller to schedule a call-back at a time more convenient to the customer.

A Focus on the Human Side of the EquationThe website and mobile self-service options have deflected a considerable amount of calls from the contact center. Of the 2.1 million annual contacts, approximately 1.7 million were live-agent calls, the rest were handled via the web and mobile channels. This bit of breathing space has allowed the 311 center management team to focus more resources on developing, reward-ing and retaining its agents.

Importantly, the center was able to revamp its new-hire training approach. Initially, new agents received 14 weeks of training before going live on the floor. But, as Carmody points out, “In the theoretical classroom, handling the calls looks easy. However, it can be very stressful when they go out on the floor—particularly if they have to deal with someone who is irritated,” which is an unfortunate reality of call center work. Add to that pressure from the wide variety of inquiries that a 311 agent has to be able to handle. In short, no amount of classroom training can truly prepare agents for what it’s like to be on the floor taking calls, he says.

To help new agents successfully make the transition from classroom to call center floor, contact center leaders split the training into two seven-week blocks. New-hires are trained to use the knowledge management system and handle basic requests during the first stage. They then spend a couple of months on the floor taking calls and applying what they learned. Once they’ve mastered the basics, they return to the classroom for seven weeks of training on the court system—an area that can be particularly stressful for new agents. “It’s a more complicated system with no room for error,” Carmody says. For instance, if an agent provides inaccurate information to a caller about if, when and where they need to show up for court, it can result in fines or even jail time for the citizen.

In addition to training, center leaders also rolled out a peer-mentorship program to help ease new-hires into the role. New agents are

partnered with senior agents who take time each day to sit with the trainee and coach them.

To motivate agents—both new and veterans—to continuously improve their performance, center leaders introduced an merit order rank-ing system, which is based on the number of calls an agent takes a day multiplied by his or her quality control score. For instance, if an agent takes 200 calls in a day and has a quality control score of 80%, he or she would have a merit order ranking of 160. Agents are eligible for various types of rewards that are associated with their scores. For instance, during the annual shift bidding process, top-ranking agents get their first choice of the 14 different shifts available—which is a key motivator in a 24/7 operation.

Promotions to a higher pay grade or from part-time to full-time positions are also based on the merit order ranking. “We don’t interview our staff for promotions because every day is an interview,” Carmody says. “If we have an opening, we offer it to the highest-ranked individual.”

A display board in the center lists the top five agents for each hour, which creates a friendly internal competition for bragging rights. There is also a monetary incentive awarded to the top 25 agents each quarter.

Service Performance Is High and Continuously ImprovingThe City of Houston’s technology- and people-centric efforts are paying off. The 311 center has reduced ASA from 111 seconds three years ago to 66 seconds today.

“We’re here to make everybody’s life a lot easier,” Carmody says. “Citizens don’t have to go through the blue pages in the phone book to try to figure out who they should call. They can call one number to get the answers to their questions quickly.”

The increased visibility into service request data has all departments paying closer attention to their performance. “Every department is striv-ing to ensure that they’re hitting their deadlines for closing service requests,” he notes. “When performance information is out there for every-one to see, it creates accountability.”


Follow @SusanHash on Twittertwitter.com/SusanHash

Susan Hashis the Editor of Contact Center Pipeline.

FRANK CARMODYAssistant Director of Operations for Administration and Regulatory Affairs, City of Houston

10 MOST POPULAR HOUSTON 311 SERVICE REQUESTS

Garbage Container Problem

Missed Garbage Pickup

Nuisance On Property

Traffic Signal Maintenance

Sewer In Residence or Business

Meter Leak

Water Line Break (Minor)

Sewer Excursion

Dead Animal Collection

Pothole


By replacing traditional meters with smart meters, utility companies will eliminate the need to manually read meters each month. Not only do smart meters have the potential to save utilities thousands of labor hours each month, these Internet-connected devices can also be used to conserve energy, and they can instantly alert the utility company in the event of a power outage.

However, new technology can create new prob-lems. Recently, utility Portland General Electric announced it was replacing 70,000 smart meters after three reports of fires caused by overheating of the meter-home interconnection. That blow was followed by the Saskatchewan government’s decision to remove 105,000 smart meters deployed by utility SaskPower, after find-ing eight reports of malfunctions, some resulting in fires on the outside of the home.

Smart Meters Require Smart Communication ChannelsIf utility companies want to embrace the lat-est metering technologies, they can’t let their communication channels remain stuck in the 1990s—especially while they work out their transition to smart meters. Today’s smartphone-carrying customers are used to communicating in a variety of ways, including email, SMS, social media, IM/web chat and VoIP, to name a few. Providing superior customer service requires

utility companies to work with an “omnichannel” contact center provider that can bring together all these communication channels into a single desktop experience.

Empower Agents with Tailored Business IntelligenceThe more intelligence utilities can provide their contact center agents, the less experience is required for agents to competently handle cus-tomer issues, too. Put another way, when com-panies fail to build strong knowledge bases, the pressure to know everything is placed on agents’ shoulders, which results in a highly stressful work environment and higher churn rates in the contact center.

The more options your agents have to effec-tively handle customer interactions, the more options your customers have to request and receive the service they need. Despite all the potential improvements smart meters promise to offer utility companies, making improvements in technology at the expense of customer service is still a new loss.

The true recipe for success includes an omni- or multichannel communication environment where contact center agents are empowered and equipped to resolve customer problems immediately and effectively.

SMART ADVICE FOR UTILITY COMPANIES:BETTER METERS REQUIRE BETTER COMMUNICATION CHANNELS

SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT JOHN CRAY

By John Cray, Enghouse Interactive

JOHN CRAY is Vice President of Product Management for Enghouse Interactive (www.enghouseinteractive.com), which delivers contact center technology and expertise to maximize the value of every customer interaction. For over 15 years, he has delivered numerous contact center and CRM products to market. Prior to this, he has lead consulting projects for several years, delivering successful software solutions for telecommunications, publishing, health care, engineering, transportation and systems security.

Sponsored by ENGHOUSE INTERACTIVE www.enghouseinteractive.com

AS UTILITY COMPANIES ADOPT NEW TECHNOLOGIES TO RUN THEIR BUSINESSES MORE EFFICIENTLY, THEY’D BE WISE TO MAKE SURE THEIR COMMUNICATION CHANNELS KEEP UP.

Although the delivery of natural gas and electricity hasn’t changed much over the years, the way utility companies are metering and billing for their services is currently undergoing a major change.

12minutetutor.com provides the skills frontline leaders need to increase organizational performance. Visit now to see how. Sign up now and receive $30 off your membership! Use code 12TODAY.

Want your frontline leaders to exceed expectations?

Is your training budget limited?

http://www.12minutetutor.com

DIRECTORY


AVOKE® [email protected]® Analytics, from Raytheon BBN Technologies, is a cloud-based whole call recording and analytics solution. Unlike any other solution available in the market today AVOKE Analytics captures and analyzes an entire call from start to finish. AVOKE provides IVR, speech and call flow analytics in an IT-free solution.

Calabrio763 [email protected] develops and markets Calabrio ONE™, a comprehensive suite of contact center workforce optimization software thatís easy to implement, use and maintain. Calabrio ONE includes Call Recording, Quality Management, Workforce Management, Performance Management and Analytics with a modern Web 2.0 architecture and a personalized view for the end user.

CallMiner781 [email protected] www.callminer.comCallMiner is the leading cloud-based conversational analytics solution for improving agent performance across all contact channels. Unlike complex analytics that require a sophisticated fulltime analyst, CallMiner Eureka pushes actionable insights directly to the people who need and can act on the data, including contact center managers, supervisors, and agents.

Avcomm Solutions866 [email protected] a proud Gold Partner of Jabra, Avcomm Solutions, Inc. provides high quality, cost effective audio solutions. We specialize in creating customized programs and pricing based upon the specific needs of our contact center customers. We also partner with industry leading conference phone manufacturers such as Yamaha, Konftel, ClearOne and Revolabs.

The Call Center School615 812.8400www.thecallcenterschool.comSince 2001 and with over 18,000 graduates, The Call Center School offers the worlds most comprehensive e-Learning Curriculum for Call Centers. We believe in keeping our educational programs affordable, accessible, engaging and in line with current call center topics. Our annual plans include unlimited access to more than 170 training modules.

Aspect Software978 [email protected] helps enterprise contact centers deliver remarkable customer experiences across every conversation and every channel, through a single, elegant software platform. As the global leader in customer engagement solutions, our unified interaction management, workforce optimization and back-office solutions seamlessly orchestrate people, processes and touch points for today’s top brands in aviation, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, telecommunications and retail.

CallCenterJobs.comCallCenterJobs.com is a leading “niche” employment resource for experienced Call Center and Customer Service professionals. CallCenterJobs.com boasts the largest collection of QUALITY job openings in the industry (not temp positions or staffing company postings) and is the ultimate recruitment advertising solution for call center related businesses.

8x8, Inc.86 879.8647www.8x8.com8x8 is the trusted provider of secure and reliable cloud-based unified communications and cloud contact center software solutions to more than 36,000 organizations around the globe. 8x8 Virtual Contact Center frees businesses from the burdens and limitations of their on-premises systems and helps them build positive, revenue-enhancing customer relationships. To learn more, visit www.8x8.com.

Bright Pattern650 [email protected] Pattern helps manage the customer experience life-cycle. Architected from the ground up as a multichannel solution, ServicePattern™ is a next generation contact center offering, a unifying force that delivers all of the benefits of cloud-based technology without sacrificing traditional contact center features. ServicePattern is deployed world-wide and gracefully scales to over 5,000 agents.

3CLogic800 [email protected] 3Clogic’s cloud-based contact center software, you will enjoy the cost benefits of working in the cloud, while utilizing our advanced contact center software to enhance your agent’s overall performance. Whether your business requires inbound, outbound, or blended solutions, we provide you with a 360-degree view of customer interactions across voice, chat, text, and social channels.

AchieveGlobal800 566.0630service@achieveglobal.comwww.achieveglobal.comAchieveGlobal helps organizations translate business strategies into results by developing the performance of their people. Across industries and around the world, our clients rely on AchieveGlobal’s 40 years of skills training and consulting expertise in leadership development, customer service and sales effectiveness.

Bluewolf866 [email protected]/contactBluewolf is a global business consulting firm that helps companies produce extraordinary customer moments to transform their business and accelerate business results. A global leader in the salesforce.com ecosystem, Bluewolf’s strategic consulting, implementation, change management and learning, and cloud management services help clients realize business outcomes in weeks, not years.

DIRECTORY

To join the Pipeline Directory, contact: [email protected] OCT 2014 ❘ ContactCenterPipeline.com 41

Castel Communications800 657.8215www.castel.comHeadquartered in Buffalo, N.Y., Castel Communications, LLC is a market leader, delivering cutting-edge call center solutions for leading financial institutions, collection agencies and telemarketing organizations across the globe. For more information about predictive dialing, digital voice recording, voice and speech analysis and other call center solutions, call 800-657-8215, visit www.castel.com.

Connect First888 [email protected] First provides contact centers the industry’s most passionate and comprehensive US-based support. Quick to deploy, full-featured and fault tolerant, the reliable and robust Connect First platform is suited for inbound, outbound, and blended contact centers serving a range of industries with intuitive solutions. To learn more about creating profitable customer experiences, visit www.connectfirst.com.

Conscious Success800 270.6722Jacqueline@ConsciousSuccess.netwww.ConsciousSuccess.netConscious Success helps call centers save money and increase profits by reducing absenteeism, attrition and medical claims. As these profit drains are eliminated, customer service and morale increases. Our clients’ representatives are happier, healthier and stay employed longer. Sales increase, difficult calls are handled with ease and customers appreciate the enhanced service.

Convergys888 [email protected] A global leader in relationship management. We deliver a broad range of customer and HR solutions, backed by technology, business analytics and consulting services that help create valuable relationships between our clients, their customers and their employees.

Career Impact Incorporated800 813.8105207 [email protected] Impact is an organizational development consulting firm which has specialized in serving the call center community for more than 20 years. We work with clients around the world to implement the Impact Monitoring® System.

The City of Medford, Oregon541 [email protected] is located in sunny southern Oregon and is conveniently located on Interstate 5, providing the community easy access to all markets. Medford offers a highly desired quality of life in which to raise families in a business-friendly environment, which includes an educated, diverse workforce, with affordable and reliable utilities.

Contact Center Insights513 673.9054larryeiser@contactcenterinsights.comwww.contactcenterinsights.comContact Center Insights can bring real-world customer service and contact center experience and expertise to the table to improve customer satisfaction and increase efficiency. Our experience encompasses strategy, operational processes, technology, employee and cultural issues, structure, sourcing options, merger integration, labor relations and, specific to the utility industry, the impact of smart grid on customer ac-cess strategy and contact center operations. We partner with organizations to tailor en-gagements to meet their needs and achieve their objectives.

Customer Bliss425 444.7654jeanne@customerbliss.comwww.customerbliss.comCustomerBliss coaches chief customer officer and customer experience leaders in creating clarity and an actionable path for driving profitability through customer focus. Jeanne Bliss helps companies bring the silo-based operations together to understand the customer perspective, gain consensus on the desired customer experience and required hand-offs for optimum performance. She also gives keynote speeches and workshops.

Contact Center Professionals623 239.3699martinprunty@contactcenterpro.comwww.contactcenterpro.comCCPro is an independent contact center consulting firm recognized for its experience and integrity. With over 20 years’ experience in the industry, CCPro is dedicated to helping its clients dramatically improve the performance of their customer service and support operations. We offer a full line of services including contact center consulting, design, technology design, performance optimization, outsourcing analysis, management training, and other consulting services.

Consona Corporation888 826.6766crm.consona.comKnova knowledge management from Consona is a full-featured KCS Verified solution, especially designed to handle even complex queries across channels. Consona solutions span self-service, agent-assisted service, customer management, chat, and proactive support. We work with the world’s most demanding, high-volume service and support organizations, ensuring our products meet their high standards.

Culture.Service.Growth. (CSG) 210 475.1155 service1st@csgemail.comwww.cultureservicegrowth.comCulture.Service.Growth. (CSG) is revolutionizing the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry. Founded by two of the most experienced and respected experts in contact center customer service management – and further supported by a “dream team” of advisors – CSG offers world-class outsourcing solutions for organizations committed to delivering unparalleled quality and customer experiences.

Customer Contact Strategies972 510.8591mrowan@customercontactstrategies.comwww.Customercontactstrategies.comAt Home Customer Contacts helps companies develop and deploy remote working strategies, with a focus on contact centers. Michele Rowan, President, moved 1000+ positions home with Hilton Hotels in both the US and Europe. She conducts workshops around the country, webcast trainings, and customized gap analysis/consulting for organizations around the globe.

DIRECTORY


Five9800 [email protected] www.five9.comFive9 is the largest pure cloud contact center software provider with more than 1,600 customers and facilitating more than 3 billion calls per year. The Five9 Virtual Contact Center and Predictive Dialer are revolutionizing the contact center industry, bringing the power of the cloud to customer service and sales organizations around the globe.

Genesys1 888 [email protected] is a leading provider of contact center and customer service software – with over 20 years of contact center innovation and experience. Our software maximizes the value of customer engagement and differentiates the experience by driving personalization and multichannel customer service – as well as extending customer service across the enterprise.

Doherty Customer Contact Solutions952 [email protected] is a women owned staffing firm specializing in the direct hire and temporary placement of contact center professionals. Doherty can help with your executive searches, large scale ramp ups and contact center attrition consulting. Eric has 20 years in the industry and serves the board of the Midwest Contact Center Association. Contact: Eric Berg, CSP, Director—Doherty Customer Contact Solutions, [email protected].

HigherGround810 229.9194mhalliwell@higherground.comwww.higherground.comHigherGround, Inc.,a premier software developer of call recording, data integra-tion and reporting tools, offers solutions designed to deliver timely, accurate information for analytics and decision sup-port to improve operations, performance and ultimately increase profitability. HigherGround applications are used by call centers as well as organizations in public safety, financial services, healthcare, government and many other industries.

eGain Communications 800 821.4358 | 650 [email protected] is the leading provider of multichannel customer service and knowledge management software for on-site or on-demand deployment. Based on the Power of One™, the concept of one unified platform for multichannel customer interaction and knowledge management, eGain solutions improve customer experience, optimize service processes end to end, increase sales, and enhance contact center performance.

Envision206 [email protected] is an industry leader that specializes in contact center solutions that help companies drive revenue through a comprehensive workforce optimization suite and committed partnership. Envision Centricity™, our Web-based product platform, addresses every facet of workforce optimization, including quality monitoring, eLearning, workforce management, performance analytics, full-time recording and speech analytics from a single Web-based interface.

Fresh Perspectives210 913.0868beverley.mcclure@freshperspectivesllc.netwww.freshperspectivesllc.netDrawing upon a 30-year career with customer service champion USAA, and expertise as a certified coach, Beverley McClure founded Fresh Perspectives, LLC. As an executive coach, consultant, facilitator and speaker, Beverley provides clients with fresh insights, actionable solutions and accountability partnerships to facilitate knowledge transfer and results-based behavior change.

Great Brook978 779.6312www.greatbrook.comGreat Brook enhances its clients’ organizational effectiveness through improved feedback management and the application of that feedback for operational improvement and strategic competitive advantage. We assist organizations design and improve their feedback programs through our unique Survey Design Workshops, Feedback Audits, and targeted Survey Mentor services.

Enghouse Interactive602 789.2800 or 800 [email protected] Helping your customers reach you anytime, anywhere, and anyhow, Enghouse Interactive is a solutions driven technology company that specializes in helping you to maximize the value of every customer interaction. Our global, cross channel portfolio of interaction management solutions include contact centers, attendant consoles, IVR, call recording solutions and more to support any telephony environment - on premise or in the cloud.

HireIQ Solutions678 [email protected] Solutions, Inc. helps call centers improve hiring decisions, reduce recruiting costs and increase talent performance using its innovative virtual interviewing technology. HireIQ’s hiring optimization software suite uses rich media, web and voice response technologies to automate the early stage interviewing process, resulting in better-qualified candidates presented for hiring consideration.

Human Numbers770 [email protected] Numbers is passionate about forecasting and scheduling. We offer workforce management services to call centers that can’t afford to purchase WFM software, or who do not have a full-time Workforce Manager. Our customers receive the expertise of a seasoned Workforce Manager who takes on the weekly duties of ACD data collection, forecasting, and scheduling, without having to hire a full-time staff member.

ICMI800 [email protected] www.icmi.comICMI is the leading global provider of comprehensive resources for customer management professionals – from frontline agents to executives – who wish to improve customer experiences and increase efficiencies at every level of the contact center. Since 1985, ICMI continues to help organizations through training, events, certification, consulting, and informational resources.

DIRECTORY


inContact866 965.7227www.inContact.cominContact is the cloud contact center software leader, helping organizations around the globe create high quality customer experiences. inContact is 100% focused on the cloud and is the only provider to combine cloud software with an enterprise-class telecommunications network for a complete customer interaction solution. To learn more, visit www.inContact.com

IntelliResponse866 454.0084info@intelliresponse.comwww.intelliresponse.comIntelliResponse Answer Suite technology is an industry leading On Demand software platform that empowers customer-focused organizations to quickly and effectively address their customers’ questions with “One Right Answer” across a wide variety of interaction channels, including corporate web sites, agent desktops, social media platforms and mobile devices.

Look.Listen.Be.443 742.1291wandasitzer@looklistenbe.comwww.LookListenBe.comLook.Listen.Be. is a consulting company providing no-nonsense training solutions and customized answers for contact centers. With more than 20 years in the customer service and sales industry, Wanda Sitzer coaches management teams and the frontline to elevate their interactions and maximize their performance.

Live Xchange866 [email protected] your corporation with the means to successfully develop and operate your “own” remote enabled contact center. Livexchange provides a fully hosted Virtual Multi Channel Contact Center Platform with all the tools to recruit, train, record and coach agents and a full suite of detailed reports at one low price.

Interactive Intelligence800 [email protected] Intelligence offers unified business communications for contact center automation, enterprise IP telephony, and business process automation, with our open standards, all-in-one software suite. Over 4,000 organizations worldwide currently benefit from our on-premise or cloud-based solutions, both of which include value-added services for software, hardware, implementation, consulting, support and education.

Impact Learning Systems800 [email protected] Learning Systems provides customer contact skills training for customer service, technical support, telesales staff and their managers. Their programs teach usable skills while building team spirit and a positive work environment. The programs give step-by-step guidance and practical techniques to assure that your customer relationships are dynamic, responsive and effective.

LIMRA LOMA Assessment and Development Solutions888 785.4672Talentsolutions@limraloma.comwww.talentsolutions.limra.comRecruit and Hire Top PerformersLIMRA and LOMA help contact centers identify and develop top-performing reps and managers. Clients have relied on our research-based pre-employment tests for 75 years. By incorporating our hiring solutions into your center, you can improve service quality, boost productivity, shorten time to hire, reduce turnover, and enhance training results.

LiveOps800 411.4700www.liveops.comLiveOps is revolutionizing the world of work. The company offers innovative solutions aimed at solving technology and workforce needs for today’s businesses. LiveOps’ Contact Center Cloud is the award-winning technology platform that enables companies to enhance their consumer experience while achieving measurable operational efficiencies.

IQ Services612 243.6700www.iq-services.com“IQ Services provides customer experience quality assurance services for contact centers. Services include performance testing, monitoring and related professional services for self service (IVR) and agent supported customer interactions. Our mission is to provide flexible and cost effective approaches giving customers confidence their business solutions deliver the required customer experience before they are deployed and in production”.

iQor800 811.4214www.iQor.comHeadquartered in New York City, iQor provides intelligent customer interactions and outsourcing solutions. Our 17,000 employees in 39 Centers of Excellence around the world are dedicated to understanding each customer’s DNA. We use data science and real-time analytics intelligence to deliver extraordinary customer experiences that enhance revenue while promoting and protecting our clients’ brands.

Intradiem888 [email protected] is the leader in intraday management solutions for multi-channel contact centers. Intradiem’s customers achieve an invincible customer experience with a real-time workforce by automating manual processes such as intraday task management, intraday staffing, reskilling, channel balancing, and real-time alerts. This ensures front-line workforces are poised to react to whatever the market throws their way.

Janet LeBlanc + Associates Inc.613 730.2709janet@janetleblancassociates.comwww.janetleblancassociates.comJanet LeBlanc + Associates Inc. is a team of dedicated professionals who are passionate about using the voice of the customer to drive business results. Working with senior management, our team integrates operational, customer value and business performance measures to influence strategic planning, employee performance management and process improvement initiatives. With award-winning results in driving transformational change, we help clients tie customer strategies to bottom-line results.

DIRECTORY


OpenSpan678 [email protected] is a provider of activity intelligence and desktop automation solutions that improve performance, drive revenue and increase efficiencies in contact center, back office and retail storefront environments. OpenSpan solutions are deployed on more than 300,000 desktops across the world, and are optimizing billions of transactions in the banking and financial services, insurance, telecommunications, retail and technology industries. For more information, visit www.openspan.com.

[email protected] www.nuance.comNuance provides tailored customer service solutions that support intuitive and pleasing interactions between companies and their customers. Our full suite of customer care solutions – including speech-enabled IVR, full-service hosting, proactive outbound notifications, routing and CTI services, desktop optimization and business consulting – enable organizations with complex and evolving customer care operations to earn happy, loyal customers.

MTB5866 [email protected] the big 5 is a leadership development company which enhances Contact Center Supervisors, Managers, and Directors ability to successfully lead diverse teams through books, workshops and onsite consulting. MTB5’s System of Success results in major performance gains and expense reductions, with launches in 5 nations in only 2+ years.

NorthEast Contact Center ForumThe Guiding Light to Contact Center Management

www.neccf.orgMelissa Kovacevic Consulting & CoachingTeltrainer@comcast.netwww.mkcallcenterimprovement.comSince 1983 Melissa has partnered with contact center and front line retail team clients to develop strategies that blend People, Process and Technology for improved Customer Experience and business success. Her proven training solutions are designed for maximum knowledge retention, and are customized for your goals, mission, customers and staff’s needs through workshops, classroom, and one-to-one coaching for leads, supervisors and managers onsite or via phone/email/Skype.

NorthEast Contact Center Forumwww.neccf.orgThe NorthEast Contact Center Forum is a regional contact center professional organization. We are a non-profit group focused on creating an environment for education, personal and professional growth and improving networking opportunities. Our Board of Directors are involved in contact center operations and serve on a volunteer basis to host topics of interest and importance to our attendees. We host four meetings each year.

NICE Systemswww.nice.com/enterpriseNICE Systems enhance customer experience while meeting the organization’s operational, revenue and compliance needs. NICE enables organizations to ”impact every customer interaction” by capturing interactions and transactions, analyzing cross-channel data to reveal business insights, and applying insights in real time for business impact.NICE serves over 25,000 organizations in more than 150 countries, including over 80 of the Fortune 100.

ORACLE RightNow Cloud Service866 630.7669www.oracle.com/rightnowOracle’s Service Solutions make your brand stand out with the most complete cross-channel customer experience, combining leading technologies for Contact Center, Web, Social and Mobile.

Contact Center Solutions800 776.7712www.oce.oregon.govOur business model is simple: A private sector company operates their business within the walls of an Oregon prison; utilizing their own supervisory staff, servers, software applications and telephone lines. OCE provides the infrastructure, agents, building, personal computers and staff (liaisons for institution). If you would like more information on this unique and exciting business opportunity please let us know. We can arrange a tour, or come to your location for a full presentation of our operation.

Greg Levin512 [email protected] Levin, Principal and Founder of OFF CENTER, has been researching, reporting on and satirizing contact centers and cus-tomer care since 1994, and is considered one of the most authoritative and refresh-ing voices in the industry.Greg educates, empowers and entertains contact center professionals worldwide via a variety of compelling resources, including: his brand-new ebook, Full Contact: Contact Center Practices and Strategies that Make an Impact.

Medallia650 [email protected], the global leader in customer experience management provides solutions that enable companies to gather, monitor, and act on customer feedback while improving call center metrics. Global 2000 companies around the world use Medallia to track customer satisfaction across all touch-points including phone, email, IVR, social media, and web.

Pegasystems617 [email protected]’s customer service and contact center organizations must deliver a great customer experience and maximize the productivity of their contact center personnel. With Pega, you can easily capture your service goals and best practices directly within the system, engage customers in any channel, deploy a guided contact center desktop, and rapidly adapt to change.

The Pace of Servicewww.thepaceofservice.comTwitter: @mpace101The Pace of Service helps organizations realize the full benefit of Customer Service, Social Business, Business Process Management, and People Leadership. Michael Pace is considered one of the country’s leading speakers and writers on the topic of social media customer service, and has created scalable, high quality social support environments. You can connect with Michael on Twitter @mpace101 and on LinkedIn. Michael also writes a weekly blog at www.thepaceofservice.com.

The Paceof Service

DIRECTORY


SATMAP201 [email protected] is the world’s only technology which employs a non-linear neural network to align callers and agents based upon more than 100 personality attributes to optimize call outcomes in real time. SATMAP adds a measurable, critical layer of business intelligence to the call routing process and works in conjunction with all existing routing systems and platforms.

Saddletree Research480 922.5949info@Saddletreeresearch.comwww.saddletreeresearch.comFounded in 1999, Saddletree Research provides custom and syndicated industry research covering emerging and high-growth contact center technology solutions and markets including Web 2.0 framework and applications (social networks), analytics, workforce optimization (WFO), and Internet Protocol (IP) telephony. Papers and publications feature an emphasis on demand-based end-user data.

Sennheiser Communications860 [email protected] www.sennheiserusa.comSennheiser Communications is a joint venture between electroacoustics specialist Sennheiser Electronic GmbH & Co. KG and hearing healthcare specialist William Demant Holding Group. It manufactures wireless and wired headsets for mobile phones, contact centers, offices and unified communications, as well as PC/Mac-compatible computer headsets for VoIP, entertainment and gaming.

PoundZero919 [email protected]/videoThe Complete Mobile Solution for Contact Centers. PoundZero’s Visual Multichannel capabilities solves the voice menu frustration for smartphone users by replacing it with a Visual Menu, and satisfies smartphone communication preferences by adding multichannel interaction capabilities, such as chat, text, and call-me-back. PoundZero’s Mobile Content Management System empowers smartphone users who prefer to find answers for themselves.

Plantronics866 965.7227www.plantronics.com/contactcenterPlantronics offers the industry’s most comprehensive and widely adopted families of corded and wireless headset solutions for contact center and the enterprise. Recognized for their sound quality, reliability and comfort, Plantronics solutions improve the effectiveness of internal and external communications regardless of where professionals are working.

PowerNet Global888 [email protected] 20+ years as a leader in the telecommunications industry and achievement as a multi-award winning company, PowerNet Global is a premier provider of call center solutions. Get cost effective, stable, long term outbound and toll free inbound termination specifications with free call back service and 24/7 NOC support. We also offer Inbound DIDs and quality International termination. With PNG, you can experience Tier 1 call quality without the high cost.

Proactive Planning Group443 [email protected] Workforce Management work for you!The Proactive Planning Group is a full service contact center consulting firm specializing in Workforce Management issues. Our mission is to improve contact center performance by focusing on root causes, real world solutions and return on investment.

PowerHouse Consulting800 [email protected] www.powerhouse1.comPowerHouse Consulting, Inc. is an internationally-recognized consulting firm specializing in Contact Centers and Telecom-munications. Our services include Strategic Planning, Contact Center Assessments/Solu-tions, Telecommunications/IT Assessments, Workforce Optimization, Outsourcing Man-agement, Custom Training, and Procurement Management. Collaborating with more than 350 clients, our seasoned consultants work with organizations of different sizes, varying budgets, different industries to bring quick, practical, and cost-effective solutions.

OPTION 3 - Original Purple(C=100 M=97 Y=27 K=24) and Black

RCCSP Professional Education Alliance708 246.0320librarian@the-resource-center.comwww.the-resource-center.comThe Resource Center for Customer Service Professionals (RCCSP), celebrating its thirteenth year of service to the contact center community, provides access to world’s largest network of call center, help desk, and IT support center training and certification providers: the RCCSP Professional Education Alliance. Experience the industry’s most comprehensive training curriculum.

Reflective Keynotes Inc.905 567.8432info@reflectivekeynotes.comwww.reflectivekeynotes.comReflective Keynotes Inc. specializes in helping inbound contact centers improve their sales results. Our workshops, webinars and keynote speeches provide key insights to help your Agents close more sales and help your Managers coach more effectively towards sales results.

Service Agility215 [email protected] www.serviceagility.comService Agility provides guidance to orga-nizations seeking substantial improvement in customer satisfaction levels and in the efficiency of their service and sales opera-tions. Our expertise is delivered through four channels: consulting, training, speak-ing, and writing. We serve call centers and face-to-face operations. We offer our clients industry expertise, real-world experi-ence, knowledge transfer proficiency, and guidance independent from partnerships with other vendors.

Pelorus Associates434 [email protected] Associates provides market research, consulting, and marketing communications services to over 35 contact center vendors in seven countries. Engagements include opportunity analysis, market potential estimates, market segmentation, acquisition research, white papers, ROI models, regulatory analysis, blog posts, product briefs, and strategic partnering. Projects are client-driven, conducted professionally, and with complete confidentiality.

DIRECTORY


TelePlaza.comTelePlaza is a comprehensive online directory that provides more valuable and relevant call center content than any other “niche” industry Web site and is the ultimate resource for locating quality contact center information. TelePlaza offers more industry specific information than the search engines AND more call center supplier listings than any other online industry search site.

VoiceLog800 [email protected] more than a decade and nearly 100 million calls, VoiceLog has been a trusted third party verification and call recording services partner. VoiceLog provides cost effective services to ensure quality sales and control. Product offerings include Call Recording, Automated Scripted Recording, and Live Operator Verification.

Verint1 800 [email protected]® Enterprise Intelligence Solutions® help organizations capture and analyze customer interactions, sentiments, and trends across multiple channels, improve performance, and optimize the customer experience. The solution portfolio includes the Impact 360® Workforce Optimization® suite and Voice of the Customer software for increasing customer satisfaction, enhancing products and services, and driving revenue.

VoltDelta OnDemand Solutions866 [email protected] OnDemand Solutions provides a hosted infrastructure for enabling virtual contact centers and home agent call distribution and management, inbound and outbound voice recognition applications, and voice of the customer call and agent screen recording. VoltDelta supports more than 2.4 billion calls and 2 billion SMS text messages per year.www.youtube.com/voltdeltachannelwww.twitter.com/voltdelta4u

VoltDelta R

OnDEMAND SOLUTIONSO

Varolii Corporation800 [email protected] www.varolii.com Varolii is a leading provider of customer interaction management applications. Its cloud-based communication service helps organizations more effectively interact with large numbers of customers and employees through voice, text messages, smartphone applications and email, while reducing cost of operations, driving regulation compliance and improving service.

Touchpoint Associates901 230.0567 bfurniss@touchpointassociates.comwww.touchpointassociates.comTouchpoint Associates takes your contact center to a higher level of service and profitability. Our Strategic Call Center Roadmap is an actionable plan to refocus people, process, leadership and technology for maximum results. Our Frontline Management Workshop is an engaging program to develop frontline managers into top performers. Call today to learn more.

TantaComm800 [email protected] is a leader, innovator and trusted partner in customer interaction recording and quality management solutions. Balancing innovation with practicality, TantaComm delivers todayís most cost-competitive path to compliance, service optimization, operational excellence and customer satisfaction.

XO Communications800 [email protected] www.xo.comXO Communications is the leading unified communications provider of Contact Center on Demand (CCOD) and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) services for the contact center industry. These cloud-based applications from XO will help enterprises better manage their contact center infrastructure by improving productivity, increasing customer satisfaction and reducing costs.

Strategic Contact866 791.8560consult@strategiccontact.comwww.strategiccontact.comStrategic Contact is an independent consulting firm that provides objective perspectives based on its deep experience in contact centers large and small. The firm helps companies plan for change and growth, assess current environments, develop strategies, evaluate and implement new technologies, develop outsourced and virtualized center configurations, and conduct business case analysis.

SQM Group800 [email protected] 1996, SQM has been a call center VoC expert for improving organizations’ FCR, operating cost, customer service and retention. We have done this by benchmarking, tracking, consulting and recognizing our clients’ FCR and customer retention performance.Over 70% of our tracking clients improve their FCR and operating cost year over year. For the average call center SQM benchmarks, a 1% improvement in their FCR performance equals $276,000 in annual operational savings.

SPi Global888 906.2369www.spi-global.comSPi Global stands for Solutions, People, Innovation. We are the largest Filipino-owned BPO company in the Philippines specializing in CRM Contact Center Solutions that generate award-winning results. We provide geographic and price-point flexibility with more than 30 global locations and 18,000 employees. Our clients profit from our world-class practices, IT resources, financial security, and processes—part of our 32-year history. We deliver service excellence 100% of the time.

Uptivity888 [email protected] www.uptivity.com What boosts the bottom line for any contact center? You want the best every agent can deliver while optimizing contact center management for a better understanding of the customer. Only Uptivity gives you the tools you need to continuously improve your contact center. For more information, visit us at www.uptivity.com.

27%In a recent Workplace Bullying Survey, over one-quarter (27%) of American adults said that they have current or past direct experience with abusive conduct at work.

SOURCE: “2014 WBI U.S. WORKPLACE BULLYING SURVEY,” WORKPLACE BULLYING INSTITUTE;WWW.WORKPLACEBULLYING.ORG

44%Forty-four percent of businesses surveyed cited improv-

ing customer satisfaction as the primary objective of their contact center. 27% said that focusing on reducing the cost of customer engagements was the most import-ant, with 12% focusing on revenue generation through customer acquisition as the call center’s main focus.

SOURCE: CALL CENTER IQ’S EXECUTIVE REPORT;WWW.CALLCENTER-IQ.COM

60%The percent of Internet users who will opt for mobile customer service applications as their first option by

2015. SOURCE: GARTNER’S “PREDICTS 2014: CUSTOMER SUPPORT AND THE ENGAGED ENTERPRISE”;

WWW.GENESYS.COM

301.3 millionAccording to final data from International Data

Corporation, vendors shipped a total of 301.3 million smartphones worldwide in Q2 2014, up 25.3% from the

240.5 million units shipped in the second quarter of 2013.

SOURCE: INTERNATIONAL DATA CORPORATION (IDC) WORLDWIDE QUARTERLY MOBILE PHONE TRACKER;WWW.IDC.COM

Call-Handling Productivity UPTurnover DOWN

More social interaction at the workplace leads to higher productivity and less turnover, according to Sociometric Solutions, a management services firm that analyzes communication patterns with social sensing technology to drive innovative transformation services. After tracking workers at a Bank of America call center, the firm observed that those in tightknit communications groups were more productive and less likely to quit. After the call center switched from staggered 15-minute breaks to having teams take breaks all at the same time, call-handling productivity increased more than 10%, and turnover declined nearly 70%.

SOURCE: “UNBLINKING EYES TRACK EMPLOYEES,” THE NEW YORK TIMES; WWW.NYTIMES.COM

ILLUSTRATIONS BY; LUIS PRADO

Connect with Contact Center Pipeline:

YOUTUBE CHANNEL@ youtube.com/ccPipeline

TWITTER@SusanHash ❙ @CCPipeline

LINKED-IN@ tinyurl.com/ccpLinkedin

THOUGHT YOU SHOULD KNOW

ContactCenterOutsourcingREINVENTED

CultureServiceGrowth.com210-475-1155

8415 Datapoint Drive, Suite 600 San Antonio, TX 78229

Great Cultures EnableWorld-Class ServiceDriving Growth for Clients

CSG-Logo-Ad-Final.qxp:Layout 1 9/23/11 12:40 PM Page 1

http://www.cultureservicegrowth.com

adding value technology to optimize continuity...

Documents