Despite my background in sociology, I was always a skeptic of online dating. It just seems that using some personal data points to let an algorithm play matchmaker was missing something – the human element. But several of my closest friends have proven me wrong and are now happily married, and the track record for such services speaks for itself. It seems data can indeed broker the most human of interactions. 

Two weeks ago IBM announced the launch of the Real-time Analytics Matching Platform (RAMP) – essentially this is the next generation of skill-based routing systems. The basic idea is to route customers based on data such as purchase history, account information, even basic demographics, to representatives that have demonstrated the ability to best serve a given customer segment or type.

Yes, it’s kind of like a matchmaker for contact centers.

Nearly five years ago, we first spoke with Assurant Solutions (the company with whom IBM initially piloted RAMP) about the use of this platform. I have to say, it blew our minds at the time. When we asked how they screen new hires for this program, Assurant commented that they didn’t need to – each person is good at helping some type of customer — and the platform, through a rigorous profiling exercise and by monitoring success rate at closing sales, learns to route the right contacts to the right reps.

Now, the obvious elephant in the room is the cost. Factor in the development of a profiling methodology (for both customers and reps), determining the right customer data parameters, allowing the algorithms to learn and refine themselves over time, not to mention the technology requirements, and I think it’s safe to say it’s a lot.

So is it worth it? Here’s my gut reaction, but I really welcome your thoughts…

As a qualifier, Assurant’s operation is a retention desk, where customers often call to unsubscribe from various insurance products. In this environment, they cite a 37% increase in product retention, and have ultimately kept the RAMP solution in place for 6 years now. For them, it would appear the ROI is strong.

However, IBM has premised the tool as a way to reinvent the yesteryear of customer service, similar to when you’d walk into a store and the store keeper knew what you want and how you needed it.

I think that premised as a service tool, this feels extreme. It certainly stands in contrast to the personal connection of yesteryear. Almost like removing the interactive element from the human equation and telling reps, “don’t worry about adapting and playing off that situation with the customer and instead, trust that we’ll get you the right customers.” Excuse the generalization, but you get my point.

We’ve done a lot of work in the space of teaching reps to better recognize verbal cues and customer personalities, and then flex to that customer in that situation. One of our core teaching points is to never profile a customer in a CRM app – customers are indeed human and highly dynamic. You never know if you’ll catch the nicest most understanding customer on a bad day.

Given the right circumstances (i.e., a high probability up-sell instance, or saves/retention desk), RAMP seems to make sense, but for a diverse set of service and support needs, there could be considerable downside in entrusting software to get the right call to the right rep at the right time, and implicitly giving the rep permission to “be themselves.”

No related posts.