By the editors
03/05/2004 1:00 AM EST
URL:
http://www.callcentermagazine.com/shared/article/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=18201860
It's finally here, the moment you've been waiting for - Call Center Magazines's 2004 Product of the Year Awards.
And 2004 brings a lot to celebrate. After years of companies hawking the latest and greatest (and often most expensive) features that technology has to offer, 2004 has brought the focus back to one of the most important assets of every call center: the agents.
More and more executives and managers are realizing how important it is to arm agents with the proper skills and tools they need to solve problems, satisfy customers and, in some cases, generate revenue.
The market is finally putting its money where its mouth is, as some of the top products of 2004 are all about empowering agents to take control of customer relationships. These are real tools that let agents develop career-worthy skills and put their knowledge to best use. After all, what good is the best technology if you don't have the best people with the proper knowledge to use it?
Some of these technologies enhance training, add coaching and measure skills like The Call Center School's computer-based training software, Employment Technologies' software for evaluating agents' written bilingual skills, and quality assurance software from Verint. Other products, such as software from Instranet, KnowledgeBase Solutions, TigerPaw Software and Symon, focus on organizing information and helping agents manage and maneuver through the vast knowledge of your company. There's even an innovative speech rec product from TuVox that's helping to bridge the gap between live and automated customer service.
Services are products too!
This year we've also included services in our awards, to recognize the many fine and innovative companies that provide call centers with services such as benchmarking, design, real estate and selection, outsourcing, staffing, retention and training.
Appropriately enough, our winners include Customer Relationship Metrics, whose survey service enables call centers to remove much of the guesswork in gauging customer satisfaction by capturing customers' reactions within a timely manner. Also in the winner's circle is KSBA Architects, for its design concepts that build out attractive, ergonomically sound and cost-effective call centers.
But companies and call centers are still striving to cut costs, improve flexibility, and boost productivity without going offshore and many are realizing that the best option is not a "call center" per se. That's why we honor Willow CSN, which offers contracted self-employed home agents who can be scheduled to take calls in increments as little as 30 minutes.
Innovation, performance, choice, and versatility. Isn't that what great products (and services) are all about?
As the year progresses, we hope to see more of these virtues in new products and services but for now we honor the products and services that have made 2004 such a positive year for our industry.
The Call Center School's Call Center ABCs Curriculum
When computer-based courses on customer service were novelties, it was easy to overlook the tendency of these courses to emphasize platitudes. Of course, agents should be polite to customers and refer to each of them by name.
Only in recent years, have courses zeroed in on the unique challenges of serving a wide range of customers by phone. And only a few computer-based courses explain what it takes to run call centers well.
Enter Call Center ABCs: Fundamentals for Call Center Staff from The Call Center School (TCCS; Lebanon, TN). As we wrote in a test drive last month, this thorough curriculum comprises five courses about the call center profession, performance management, workforce management, technology and customer relationships.
Among the curricula for call centers that debuted last year, Call Center ABCs earns a Product of the Year award because it is the best at helping agents and managers understand concepts that underpin effective call center management. The examples and test questions in Call Center ABCs reinforce these concepts, and relate them to each other, throughout the courses.
TCCS offers its ABCs curriculum as a standalone program or with its Web seminar series, Masters Series in Call Center Management, which covers many of the topics outlined in Call Center ABCs. TCCS also provides live courses, on-line courses and consulting services to call centers. 615-812-8400, www.thecallcenterschool.com
Customer Relationship Metrics' Completely Automated Telephone Surveys
Customer satisfaction is one of the most important performance criteria organizations need to gather.
But traditional paper or periodic outbound voice or e-mail customer surveys do not often capture customers' reactions accurately. The data is not as actionable because customers' memories have degraded since their latest interaction with the center.
Telephone customer satisfaction surveys can be skewed by having the same agents or teams making the survey calls as those who were on the original calls.
Call monitoring is also a flawed customer satisfaction data-capturing tool. A study by Customer Relationship Metrics (Sterling, VA) found that out of 17 items monitored, only one item - interest in helping - showed any relationship between callers' perception and the monitoring.
To provide accurate, fresh and unbiased customer satisfaction data at a reasonable cost, Customer Relationship Metrics devised the Completely Automated Telephone Surveys (CATs) initiated via inbound or outbound.
In the inbound scenario, prior to speaking to an agent, callers are invited to evaluate the service experience when the call is over. When their business with the agent concludes, callers are then transferred to CATs to participate in the survey.
The outbound process is somewhat different. CATs calls customers soon after the service transaction. If the customer is available (and willing), the CATs system initiates the surveys.
If CATs encounters a busy signal or no answer, the call goes back in the outbound queue; if the software encounters an answering machine, it leaves a message inviting the customer to call a toll-free number or the software mentions that it will call back at a later time.
Inbound or outbound, CATs asks questions and collects both quantitative information (via touch-tone) and qualitative information (via voice). Customer Relationship Metrics records the results, transcribes customer comments and delivers actionable reports to provide feedback to the agent level.
You will receive daily, weekly or monthly reports that identify the drivers of caller and company satisfaction, and which offer you a true picture of first-call resolution.
Customer Relationship Metrics works with clients to set up customer research programs to provide statistically valid results and give you a true "voice of the customer." The information enables you to engineer your service delivery to maximize customer satisfaction. 336-288-8226, www.metrics.net
Employment Technologies' e.Skills Bilingual
More call centers than ever operate bilingually for voice calls - but can you replicate that effort with bilingual e-mail or text chat?
The first step to hiring capable reps is to evaluate these skills in applicants. Employment Technologies (Winter Park, FL) offers its e.Skills Bilingual multimedia simulation software, which assesses candidates' ability to respond to customers in both English and Spanish.
In simulations, applicants take on the role of an agent working in a call center that serves the customers of three hypothetical companies, which include a cellular phone service company, a credit card company and a gourmet food service company.
e.Skills Bilingual is a standalone product that candidates access from a PC. The software consists of three optional sections that measure e-mail composition skills, data entry skills, plus keyboarding speed and accuracy in English and Spanish. The sections are timed and run about 15 minutes each.
In the E-Mail Composition section applicants receive e-mail messages from customers with questions or issues. The candidate has to look up customer and product information to prepare an appropriate response. The software scores the applicants' responses for grammar, spelling, organization, tone, completeness, and accuracy.
During the Data Entry section candidates listen to customer messages and process their requests. Applicants must enter information into appropriate fields on the order form, including items such as account numbers, addresses and credit card information.
And in a third section, Typing and Keyboard, candidates view written e-mail messages and retype the messages as quickly and as accurately as possible. The messages include alphabetical and numerical information.
e.Skills gives you their scores in the form of success profiles, which you can view on screen, print or e-mail to others within your organization. Employment Technologies works with you to help you establish an appropriate benchmark for passing scores.
With the E-Mail Composition simulation, you view the e-mail composed by the applicant, along with a checklist of things to score the e-mail on. 800-833-3279, www.etc-easy.com
InStranet's Contact Centers In Line (CCIL)
When information about products and services is distributed among a range of servers and databases, agents can have great difficultly tracking it, making it harder to serve and sell to customers effectively.
To overcome that problem, InStranet (New York, NY) offers its Contact Centers In Line (CCIL) application to manage large amounts of content and documents across multiple systems and databases.
Agents and managers log on to CCIL through a Web browser. Depending on skill levels, users can access different content and information. The software delivers relevant content about the customer or issue to agents' desktops, eliminating the need to search through different systems and screens. CCIL handles content in Microsoft Word or Excel documents, PDF files or XML files.
You can use several parameters to manage and present information. By integrating with CRM software, CCIL selects relevant documents based on information contained in customer profiles, such as purchase histories. For example, if an agent is taking a call from a customer who owns a DVD player, the agent might see the top ten documents related to DVD players, such as a technical alert.
CCIL also displays relevant promotional documents to assist agents in cross-selling and up-selling. Agents select a promotion by clicking on the offer button and then follow steps that take them through the sale.
We especially like the application's Analytics Engine, which tracks the effectiveness of suggested content and promotions, along with agent stats. CCIL presents this information in a graphical format in real time.
Version 3.2 includes out-of-the-box metrics, plus the ability to customize your own. For example, the application's awareness ratio metric lets you track agents' familiarity with content. Using our previous example, if your company is planning to launch a DVD player next week, you can find out what percentage of agents have read the documents related to this new product. If you see that only 40% of agents have read the required material, you might decide to schedule a last-minute training session or postpone the launch date.
The document effectiveness metric tracks documents that users access most often. You can segment this information based on different variables, such as agents' locations. Customizable metrics can range from measuring how successful specific promotions are to how well agents are meeting up-sell and cross-sell goals. You can also apply these metrics to business partners and resellers. 877-932-5826/646-473-0777, www.instranet.com
Kingsland Scott Bauer Associates (KSBA) Performance Design
Call centers are high-stress, high-density facilities that can benefit greatly from a targeted approach to pervasive problems such as poor air quality, lack of comfort control, poor lighting, stressful noise levels, poor ergonomics and inefficient workspace organization.
Architects and designers Kingsland Scott Bauer Associates (KSBA; Pittsburgh, PA) specialize in the design of call centers.
The company's Performance Design services enable clients to select appropriate design solutions based on hard research and business-case analysis that links design and corporate profit. The results: improved building and occupant performance either at no additional cost or, at modest, additional capital costs with respectable returns that often equal more than 300%.
KSBA pioneered the use of highly flexible, advanced building systems in ways that reduce capital costs, operating expenses, and tax liability while improving productivity.
Features include fully-integrated raised-access floor systems with cabling, sound masking and environmental air running under the floor. These systems provide cleaner air, superior temperature control and can be modified at very low cost.
By taking advantage of offsetting savings, KSBA has delivered these systems at the same capital cost of inferior overhead systems.
To make these better designs more affordable, the firm created a new division, Solidus, that offers clients a single source, turnkey installation of all under-floor components for about $2 less than conventional flooring systems.
One of the best examples of Performance Design is KSBA's first Sustainable Technology Business Center (STBC) in McAllen, TX.
This 75,000 square foot, modular building is designed as a highly flexible universal building for use as a call center and a variety of other high-tech uses. Developed by CentraTek LP, a division of Hunt Power in Dallas, it now houses a 660-workstation T-Mobile call center.
The project incorporates many of the advanced systems pioneered by KSBA including raised-access floors, large structural bays, high ceilings and so much natural light that the lights aren't even necessary on a sunny day. There are two more STBCs in the works, one in West Texas and one in Southern Virginia. 888-231-5722/412-252-1510, www.ksba.com
KnowledgeBase Solutions' KnowledgeBase Enterprise Edition 3.0
Like Knowledge Management, content management focuses on information about a company, rather than about its customers. These days companies share information about themselves with more employees and customers than ever. And as KM expands its scope, so too does the need to impose uniformity on how, when and to whom this information becomes available.
KnowledgeBase Solutions' KnowledgeBase Enterprise Edition 3.0 exemplifies a growing trend toward intertwining content management and KM. The software gives you various ways to display knowledge base items, such as lists of answers to frequently-asked questions (FAQs), drill-down menus, glossaries or collections of documents.
One of KnowledgeBase's greatest strengths is its workflow editor, which allows you to establish various steps for vetting knowledge base items.
KnowledgeBase is extraordinarily flexible, a trait that extends to the diversity of ways you can put together your information. The software lets you select which features you "snap in" (to use KnowledgeBase's terminology). You can opt to incorporate certain types of items, like FAQs, or specific types of reports, like workflow histories.
On a granular level, KnowledgeBase gives you control of whether users can e-mail, print or rate knowledge base items. The software lets you decide if you want to provide users with related items or links to these items.
As a total package, KnowledgeBase is easy to use, and with the help of the on-line documentation, easy to learn. The software is best at breaking down processes of creating and maintaining knowledge bases into tasks, an approach that's especially effective with content management. 800-831-7881, www.knowledgebase.net
Symon's Symon Enterprise Server (SES)
Readerboards are among the most reliable systems for communicating with groups of agents or an entire center. When there's something agents must know about right away, readerboards are the perfect tools to help convey it using a palette of colors, fonts, graphics and even sounds.
Yet for the past few years, vendors have mostly emphasized new software that works with or complements their readerboards. Over time, this software has begun to morph into a new kind of middleware. One of the first examples of this is Symon Enterprise Server (SES) from Symon (Plano, TX).
The software comes in three variants. Series I, true to its readerboard roots, lets you project information from a single data source, such as an ACD, onto an unlimited number of physical electronic displays from Symon. SES Series I also allows you to send information to unlimited instances of DeskView, Symon's real-time reporting and messaging software for agents.
With Series II, SES enables you to define rules that entail more complexity beyond the thresholds you normally set up with data you present on readerboards. If your call center determines where to direct calls based on information customers enter from your IVR system, SES Series II can act as a repository for that information as it traverses your network.
But the versatility of SES is most apparent with Series III. In addition to accommodating multiple data sources, the software serves as the underlying information clearinghouse for Vista, Symon's real-time reporting software for managers, and Contact Center Community, Symon's workforce management system.
Series III also consolidates data for practically any type of historical or real-time report. And whether your company has one call center, or a network of centers, you can use SES Series III as middleware with your routing software.
Subsequent versions of SES will enable you to replicate the software on multiple servers to ensure SES keeps running even if one of your servers doesn't. 972-578-8484, www.symon.com
TigerPaw Software's Tigerpaw Business Suite 9
Given a crowded CRM marketplace, particularly for apps serving call centers with hundreds or thousands of agents, some developers have found a niche catering to mid-size call centers that employ from 50 to 150 agents. Tigerpaw Software's Business Suite 9 is a versatile new twist on that "small-scale" CRM. It lets agents handle sales and customer support requests; draft invoices and complete forms detailing customer support cases; and check inventory. Business Suite 9 was also easy to install and use. In sum, the product is as competitively positioned as any CRM suite for mid-size call centers.
The suite comprises four modules: Pursuit; Quotes; Service & Repair; and Parts Inventory Control and Purchasing. The first two provide agents with information to confirm sales and look up pricing. The last two help agents ensure that customers receive service or repairs. They also let agents order parts.
Pursuit displays customers' contact information and provides a history of customers' purchases and service requests. Quotes lets agents find prices for company products and services, including applicable discounts. The module also lets you generate forecasts to predict sales trends, invoices for customers' purchases, and work orders for repairs that customers request.
Using Service & Repair, agents can create service orders for customers who request repairs. And you can assign technicians to handle repairs from a graphical calendar. Parts Inventory Control and Purchasing lets agents check inventory and complete purchase orders for parts or materials necessary for repair jobs.
When we tested it out, we were able to quickly set it up and get it going (without using the extensive manual), With the Quotes module, we created a work order from a price quote. Work orders let agents fulfill customer orders and can include information about shipping, billing, and packaging expenses. After easily creating and printing a service order, we created an invoice for the customer based on the service order before progressing to the Service & Repair module.
We also created a service contract for each customer to detail the terms of service, including an analysis of the work performed, the cost of service and the customer's preferred method of payment. By selecting the New Contract option, we prepared the contract within one minute. Overall, we were impressed with the way it provides a thorough range of practical CRM options for most call centers. 800-704-9009, www.tigerpawsoftware.com
TuVox's Conversational Voice Response System
Yes, it's easy to be skeptical when someone proposes that an interactive voice response (IVR) system, especially one that employs speech recognition, can converse with your customers.
But using resources, like knowledge bases or answers to frequently-asked questions, with speech rec does make it possible to create a stronger connection among your various methods of communicating with customers.
Want proof? Listen to TuVox's (Los Altos, CA) Conversational Voice Response (CVR) system. It categorizes information from knowledge bases and electronic documents such as Web pages. The system refers to this material to answer questions that customers pose to your speech-enabled IVR system.
TuVox's clients, including the video game developer Activision and the television services provider TiVo, use TuVox's CVR system to allow callers to receive automated answers to their questions through speech rec.
TuVox's CVR system lets customers alternate between speaking with agents and using your IVR system. If callers transfer out of your IVR system, TuVox's system collects information they have provided and presents the information on agents' screens. With TuVox's system, agents have the option of routing callers back to your IVR applications during a portion of a call, like during a change of address, that callers can accomplish most quickly through an automated transaction.
As TuVox's CVR shows, rather than reinforcing a disconnect between live service and automation, speech-enabled IVR helps bridge the gap. And, as one of the best new products to support this goal, TuVox's CVR is among our picks for Product of the Year. 650-623-0210, www.tuvox.com
Verint Systems' ULTRA Version 9
If you depend on recordings of calls solely to evaluate agents, you're ignoring the most important participants in these calls: your customers and your company.
As Lou Boudreau, chief technology officer for the call center business within Verint Systems (Melville, NY), says: "The definition of quality is expanding beyond the agent."
We agree, which is why Verint Systems' ULTRA Version 9 garners a Product of the Year award.
We're particularly impressed with two modules of ULTRA Version 9, Customer Xperience Management and Contact Center Quality.
Both modules allow you to play back recordings of calls, view miniature images of agents' screens during calls and complete evaluations of calls within one window. Both provide folders for evaluations. And the modules enable you to draw attention to specific types of calls, like those that received poor evaluations or that came from certain categories of customers.
The primary difference between the two modules is conceptual: the Quality module emphasizes how agents perform during calls, and the Customer Xperience module emphasizes the effect of calls on your company.
Unlike the Quality module, Customer Xperience lets you review calls that agents transfer to their colleagues or to others in your company. Customer Xperience can also track circumstances where something goes wrong.
But what most distinguishes Customer Xperience, and ULTRA Version 9, is that the module lets you account for how the organization, and not only the agents who speak with customers, handle calls. With this capability, ULTRA Version 9 helps your entire company participate in learning from your customers how to serve them better. 631-962-9600, www.verintsystems.com
Willow CSN's CyberAgents
Home working offers to call centers, and to savvy call center customers, a strong blend of cost savings, flexibility and superior performance.
Having agents handle contacts from their premises avoids enormous real estate costs at yours. Because they don't have to commute they can be brought on line to handle contact spikes very quickly. You minimize paying for agents who have nothing to do.
Moreover, you often get better quality agents: boomers, parents and smart, motivated mobility impaired people who still find commuting a nightmare.
Outsourcer Willow CSN (Miramar, FL) combines the benefits of home working with independent contracting.
Willow, through its patented StarMatic bidding system, puts clients' work out to bid by its self-employed home agents (known as CyberAgents) trained on those clients' contracts. Clients managed the schedules and agents' performance.
Willow has been a pioneer in home working. It began managing contacts in 1997. Its CyberAgent network was based in southern Florida, with calls fed by a BellSouth Centrex switch.
But to survive and grow Willow has expanded its model and changed the technology. The Centrex switch de facto confined the CyberAgent pool to southern Florida; otherwise, Willow would have to pay long distance charges. Clients also wanted more service choices.
Willow began moving its clients from Centrex to a virtual ACD hosted by Prosodie. The switch enables Willow to bring on board CyberAgents who live in other parts of North America. The upgrade gives the bureau, and its clients, disaster protection plus access to a larger agent pool.
Fitting with the home agent model, Willow's entire basic training now happens on-line through e-learning.
Willow also upgraded StarMatic to a browser-based system that is easier for clients and CyberAgents to use.
Willow added a traditional, fully outsourced management component to its original contracting offering. With it, Willow not only recruits and trains CyberAgents, but also manages agents' scheduling and day-to-day performance.
Willow's service offering has also expanded from general sales and service to offering agents with specific skills, such as languages other than English and expertise in vertical markets like insurance and travel. 888-899-5995, www.willowcsn.com
Start Off Spring at Knowledge Exchange
By: Joe Fleischer
Last March, I had the pleasure of attending the first-ever Knowledge Exchange Conference, which Call Center Magazine's publisher, CMP, developed in partnership with the Incoming Calls Management Institute (ICMI).
What I remember most about this conference is how easy it is to meet people. And I'm confident you'll have a similar experience at this year's Knowledge Exchange, which is at Miami Beach's famed Eden Roc Renaissance Resort, from Wednesday, March 24th, through Friday, March 26th.
Knowledge Exchange, as its name indicates, is about conversations, not sales pitches. This is the kind of conference that allows you the time to get to know customer care managers throughout the country and from a wide range of leading companies. You arrive an attendee; you come away a member of a community.
As part of a community, you'll discover how many people you can turn to who can help you manage your call center better. All the speakers at Knowledge Exchange cover at least one of four areas: workforce management; people management; technology management; and strategy and leadership. Whether your goal is to improve your call center's application of technology, your center's overall performance or your center's strategic value to your company, you'll find conference sessions that are right for you.
Because financial institutions are especially adept with techniques - like cross-selling and up-selling - that are essential for call centers in practically any type of business, Knowledge Exchange includes special sessions, and a networking reception, dedicated to managers in call centers that provide financial services.
Yet no matter what business your call center is in, you'll enjoy the intimacy of Knowledge Exchange. Our Executive Lunch With the Experts and our tours of call centers in the Miami area are but a few examples of the numerous opportunities you'll have to meet your fellow attendees, as well as analysts, journalists and conference speakers. You won't want to miss one of the highlights of Knowledge Exchange, Networking with Business Partners, where you can spend a relaxing evening with your call center colleagues, and even have the chance to win a prize!
When you sign up for the entire conference, you'll continue to reap the benefits of participating in a community long after the show, as you'll automatically receive complimentary membership within ICMI for a full year. If you're currently a member of ICMI, then you may be eligible for a discount when you register for Knowledge Exchange.
Want to learn more? Visit www.incoming.com/exchange or call 800-672-6177. We look forward to seeing you in Miami Beach.