ChannelVision September - October 2016

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Best-in-class firms, for instance,
are 17 percent more likely than all
others to have access to detailed
historical account data, often pre-
venting the need for agents to ask
more exploratory questions or for
customers to provide and repeat ba-
sic information – an issue that often
tops lists of customer support com-
plaints. Likewise, intelligent contact
centers provide workers with unified
desktop capabilities, whereas, on
average, contact center agents tra-
ditionally have used three screens
to find relevant data needed to
serve customers.
“This consumes 15 percent of
agent time,” said Aberdeen. “Hence,
a 300-seat contact center with a fully
loaded annual labor cost of $50,000
incurs $2.25 million each year in
unnecessary costs due to poor infor-
mation management practices.”
Customer service reps in an
intelligent contact center also are
empowered with easy access to
relevant knowledgebase articles,
said Minkara. “Such easy access
to relevant insight ultimately helps
the intelligent contact center reduce
handle times and improve first con-
tact resolutions.”
Empowered agents lead to hap-
pier customers, and improving cus-
tomer experience results is a top
objective for 96 percent of contact
centers surveyed by Aberdeen. Here
again, intelligent contact centers
are known for allowing executives
to manage performance through the
lens of the customers. In other words,
the top-performing companies use
a mix of activities to track customer
experience outcomes and ensure
agents are meeting and exceeding
client needs.
Best-in-class contact centers, for
instance, are 28 percent more likely
to enable supervisors and execu-
tives with real-time views of activity
results. This provides decision mak-
ers with the ability to detect positive
or negative trends in a timely fashion
and take corrective action when nec-
essary, say Aberdeen analysts. The
best-in-class also are 30 percent
more likely to use customer feed-
back when measuring and manag-
ing agent performance, and are 37
percent more likely to use voice of
the customer (VoC) data as a way
to build agent competency profiles,
compared to all others.
So far, we have seen how in-
telligence in the contact center
improves agent interaction with cus-
tomers and upper management, as
well as their own performance. The
forth building block involves smarter
interaction between customer care
and IT departments. Aberdeen sur-
veys found that best-in-class com-
panies are 44 percent more likely to
have a formal process where cus-
tomers care executive and the CIOs
work closely to manage customer
data. (Incidentally, they are also
significantly more likely to regularly
back up customer data.)
“A collaborative data manage-
ment process includes determining
the roadblocks in making better use of
data, mapping data flows, and deter-
mining how to incorporate new chan-
nels within the current customer inter-
action channel mix,” Minkara stated.
“While each business will face unique
issues at different points in time, it is
regular collaboration that ultimately
helps the intelligent contact centers
outpace all others and drive maximum
results through effective use of data.”
Ultimately, in the era of the em-
powered consumer, who typically is
armed with a single device by which
they can communicate with a busi-
ness in multiple ways, an intelligent
contact center becomes less a differ-
entiator and more a necessity.
Personalize the Customer Service Experience
Source: Aberdeen Group
Focus on the Agent Desktop to Create Happy Customers
& Minimize Costs
Source: Aberdeen Group
Global Carriers' Top SDN/NFV Applications
for Producing New Sources of Revenue
70%
50%
30%
10%
Use customer contact
information to direct
customers to the right
channels
Route customer cases
based on complexity and
nature of issue
Use self-service
data when forecasting
agent demand
Best-in-Class All Others
-6%
-4%
-2%
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
Number of
positive
mentions
through social
media
channels
Customer
retention
Average
revenue per
call
Improvement
in average cost
per customer
contact
Improvement
in average
handle time
7.3% 7.2%
4.3% 4.4%
-4.5%
-1.0%
-3.4%
2.3% 2.2%
1.5%
Compani s with agent esktop
optimization programs
All Others
Year-over-year percent change
64%
49%
61%
38%
46%
26%
vCPE virtual
managed services
Metacloud
Bandwidth
on demand
Virtual
private cloud
Services
Personalize the Customer Service Experience
Source: Aberdeen Group
Focus on the Agent Desktop to Create Happy Customers
& Minimize Costs
Source: Aberdeen Group
70%
50%
30%
10%
Use customer contact
information to direct
customers to the right
hannels
Route customer cases
based on complexity and
nature of issue
Use self-service
data when forecasting
agent demand
Best-in-Cl ss All Others
-6%
-4%
-2%
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
Number of
positive
mentions
through social
media
channels
Customer
retention
Average
revenue per
call
Improvement
in average cost
per customer
contact
Improvement
in average
handle time
7.3% 7.2%
4.3% 4.4%
-4.5%
-1.0%
-3.4%
2.3% 2.2%
1.5%
Companies with agent desktop
optimization programs
All Others
Year-over-year percent change
64%
49%
61%
38%
46%
26%
40 ChannelVision | September - October, 2016