Contact Center Solutions

It should come as no surprise that people are frequently dissatisfied and annoyed with the level of customer service they receive from the companies and organizations with which they do business. Surveys consistently find that many people are not getting the kind of service and help they feel they deserve. Complaints run the gamut from not being able to find answers on company Web sites, to not being able to speak with a knowledgeable company representative. Given the countless...

As the contact center landscape changes, so too must the reporting and analysis solutions that drive decision-making and performance management. Each contact center is a unique mixture of systems, applications, people and culture serving a specific customer or client segment, each will need a different roadmap to their destination.

There are four common reasons that contact centers are driven to undertake this journey in the first place:

1. Current reports don't meet requirements: Typically,...

The demand for customer collaboration solutions is somewhat new but growing fast. Not surprising for a new market is the confusion caused by competing vendors' claims for their solutions. A recent Frost and Sullivan white paper, Customer Collaboration - A Richer Customer Experience Drives Profits,  provide a "what to look for" list as an aid to sorting out these claims:

• Web-based co-browsing functionality that works with all modern browsers and computer operating systems found in the market,...

According to a new Knowlagent sponsored DMG white, a growing number of leading contact centers are putting their agents to work during idle time. They are using an emerging set of workflow-enabled applications to identify agent downtime and deliver work items and tasks to fill those idle periods. These emerging solutions are helping to speed up and reduce the cost of processing.

Most contact center agents know a great deal about what happens throughout their organization because of the training...

Analytics applications are deployed in a number of functions and departments within the enterprise, and for a number of requirements in service operations. It is as critical to sales optimization in the marketing department, for example, as it is to performance optimization in the contact center. As a result, analytics often performs in a cross-functional capacity, typically without the benefit of coordination among users.

In the contact center, “cross-functional” may be narrowly defined as...

Features commonly provided by unified desktop solutions are as follows:

Single login/logout - Once the agent logs into the application they have unified access to multiple applications. There is no need to log in and out to access data bases or other applications.

Pre-populated screen pops - Unified desktops rely on the CRM as well as other sources, such as IVR entries and data gleaned from enterprise data bases to fully populate screens before the agent takes the call. All unified desktops pop...

DMG Consulting’s annual Quality Management/Liability Recording (Workforce Optimization – WFO) Market Share Report is essential for vendors and investors who want to understand the current status and expected future performance of the 45-plus WFO competitors. In its eighth year, the Quality Management/Liability Recording (WFO) Market Share Report provides a detailed analysis of the performance of WFO suite providers, applications and sectors for fiscal 2010.

While some vendors experienced a...

The following are some more information on the vendors who attended the IQPC event.  

Analytics

For companies frustrated with isolated or disparate data sources, 360'CRM's latest advances in its InSight data analytics tool provides new levels of actionable information for the Call Center or Channel Management practitioner.  InSight not only automatically draws call center performance data in to a common, universally comparable dashboard and report analytics library, it also integrates internal...

The staff of CRMXchange was present at the IQPC Las Vegas Call Center Week. IQPC did a commendable job with the content and speakers in the event. The exhibit hours were long, running close to 11 hours on day one, but the vendors were pleased with the amount of interest that people showed in their products and services. 

We traveled the exhibit hall. Below are some vendor highlights.

Analytics

Contact Solutions – The Continuous Improvement Practice (CI) is based on a unique methodology and supported...

Even in the best-managed and busiest contact centers, where workforce management solutions are used to optimize agent schedules, there will always be unexpected downtime without calls. Using this idle time productively will improve agent satisfaction and service quality while reducing agent-related costs. Delivering real-time, targeted training, coaching and communications during slow periods can alter your contact center’s dynamics – boosting productivity, quality and customer perception. A new...

The hosted business model gives enterprises access to contact center infrastructure and the other contact center applications they need to cost effectively provide an efficient and outstanding customer experience.

The hosting business model:

-Allows companies to acquire functionally rich technology and applications without a large capital investment or long-term commitment.

-Is highly scalable  and gives users ongoing technical support and access to innovation and upgrades at no additional cost.

-...

First Contact Resolution, the ability to identify, solve and close the customer’s issue(s) during the first customer/enterprise contact,  may be the foremost KPI in evaluating a contact center/customer care organization’s overall operating performance from a business perspective.

Despite the knowledge that a high level of FCR in the contact center correlates closely with general levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty, low levels of FCR in customer care settings remain a significant industry...

With the advent of analytics in the contact center over the past decade, the industry has experienced unprecedented gains in operational productivity and customer service. Typically deployed as part of a workforce optimization (WFO) solution, analytics is a primary driver of performance and quality monitoring improvements. Analytics provides an objective means by which to identify where opportunities for improvement exist while providing a pathway for executing on those opportunities.

Analytics...

Studies have shown that high levels of First Contact Resolution (FCR) in the contact center correlate closely with customer satisfaction and loyalty. Yet, mastering it remains a significant industry challenge. That's where a shift to "measuring what matters" can help—and why in today's business environment, FCR is the right solution at the right time. With its ability to improve both sides of the customer service equation—decreasing costs while increasing satisfaction—FCR has been deemed a...

Driven to rethink priorities over the last few years, business leaders have been forced to look for more cost-effective and flexible ways to acquire and update their contact center solutions. This has paved the way for the rise of the hosted or cloud-based contact center market. While most other technology segments lost momentum, this sector has grown rapidly over the last two years. End users are turning to hosted contact center solutions because it gives them flexible and scalable virtual ACDs...