This post was written by Priyanka Kaushal, a Research Analyst with our broader Sales, Marketing, and Communications research team.

Have you made a substantial investment in Workforce Management (WFM) technology, only to find that your manual forecasts of contact volumes were more accurate than the system-generated forecasts? Or do you find that the rep schedules created through WFM – although efficient – have contributed to staff stress or disengagement?

CCC examined why companies struggle to effectively use Workforce Management technology. Our research found that companies often forecast volumes using WFM with unrefined data inputs, and create schedules to maximize efficiency. Instead, companies need to arm WFM technology with knowledge to increase forecasting accuracy, and create schedules that balance efficiency with employee needs. So how do you get three gears of WFM – forecasting, scheduling and adherence – to work for you?          Read More »

By Corey Stout

We are hearing about the use of wikis more and more at the Customer Contact Council – and it’s not because of Julian Assange and the infamous Wikileaks.

Rather, organizations are looking to leverage wikis to improve their business by fostering greater peer collaboration. (FYI:  Wikipedia’s comprehensive list of wiki software providers.)

And it makes sense. In general, people look to their peers to help address challenges since it’s often easier and faster and people really value and trust peers’ experience.  Thus, live communities, notably wikis, empower reps to provide insightful information about customers and collaborate to share best practices.

Wikis can usefully aggregate the information dispersed in the minds of different people. Just by clicking “Edit This Page,” peers can use wikis to pull together and build on information that can help them do their job – and do their job better. 

Generally speaking, we’ve found that wikis are more useful in larger organizations and in organizations that serve a variety of markets.  In these cases, the benefits of a wiki’s ability to pull in information from across the organization outweigh the costs of staff time needed to curate the wiki.  For smaller organizations or organizations with only a couple key markets, a wiki often isn’t worth the investment required. 

Nonetheless, while wikis can be an effective way to drive organic peer collaboration, they can also be more trouble than they are worth if companies do not use them correctly.

Here are three factors to consider before using wikis as a tool of peer collaboration:

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As a research analyst at CCC, one of my favorite areas to explore is the impact that technology has on the customer experience. It goes without saying that technology—everything from CRM to the latest IVR strategies—has played a major role in transforming how businesses serve their customers over the last decade. To help CCC members navigate this (nearly) limitless technology universe, we offer the Technology Decision Support Center—a one-stop shop for helpful resources on purchasing and implementing a variety of call center technologies.

One technology that is front of mind for many of our members is speech analytics. For those who may be unfamiliar, speech analytics is a software application that mines recorded customer interactions for specific words or phrases, call elements, or trends that can be used in a wide range of ways to improve operations and inform strategy decisions.

The real value of speech analytics lies in the technology’s ability to capture, organize, and analyze Voice of the Customer data more efficiently than the hit-or-miss approach that characterizes most manual VOC efforts. The downside, however, is one we see all too often: companies view technology as a quick fix, but without a strong plan and processes in place they fail to realize returns. This is especially true of speech analytics, as this versatile technology can sometimes lead companies to be overly ambitious.

To help members confront these challenges, CCC is offering two upcoming webinars featuring a panel of representatives from EarthLink, U.S. Cellular, and InterContinental Hotels Group that will discuss their experiences with speech analytics technology. Read More »

By Corey Stout

In The Shallows, Nicholas Carr writes that technology is “pushing even more distractions and interruptions on us” and thus will never “return to us our attention span.”

Although I don’t believe that our attention span has reached a point of no return, I do think technology has made multiple sources of information more readily accessible, resulting in shorter attention spans. Whether it’s my Girl Talk ringtone, the chime of my email inbox, or the ping of my Facebook page, I find myself switching between tasks in a matter of a second.

So – given everything competing for my attention – maneuvering through a Web site or remaining on hold for too long are not my strong suits – no matter how good the graphics or music are.

Companies are increasingly turning to click-to-call, giving customers the option to submit an online request to receive a callback at a certain time. The reason for this trend? Many believe click-to-call has the potential to provide customers with a lower effort experience by decreasing the amount of time they might spend waiting to reach a rep. Read More »

By Matt Hoffman

Technological changes often force contact centers to alter the way that they conduct business.  For example, many companies have had to alter their customer service models to adapt to the growing diversity of communication platforms (e.g., iPads, Blackberries, and regular old desktop computers).  Given the disruptive nature of technology, I often hear customer service executives asking how they should react to the introduction of new technologies that impact their current service offerings.  But should executives also be asking how they can proactively take advantage of opportunities created by new technologies to engage customers more effectively?

Consider the ongoing deployment of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and smart meters within the utility industry.  Contact centers within utility companies have spent time thinking about how to react to this new technology but few have thought through how to proactively capitalize on AMI’s potential.

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Last time, I talked about knowledge management processes and people that lead to a sustainable knowledge management approach.  Thanks to all who commented and moved the conversation forward!  Now, a good knowledge management system is all well and good, but in light of some of the comments I got – what happens when reality sets in and we face a less-than-ideal situation?  What happens when the system breaks down? Read More »

A friend of mine, a librarian, just changed jobs.  At her old place of employment, she spent her last few weeks updating guidelines and refreshing handbooks, training her replacement so the transition would be seamless.  But, several weeks into her new job she still gets e-mails from her replacement asking questions (“What’s our inter-library book sharing policy for new books?” or “What if I get a request for a publication we don’t get?”)  She shared her frustrations with me, and wondered if there was anything she should have done differently to upskill her replacement before she left.

My answer? More or less, no.  The answer wasn’t a better transition plan, it’s a better knowledge management approach.  My biggest clue here was that she manually updated everything before she left – trying to cram all her tribal knowledge into the handbook after the fact, rather than updating the handbooks and guidelines in real time as things changed.  Of course she forgot to include things, especially if they weren’t everyday occurrences. 

The same can be said for the contact center.  There’s so much knowledge floating around about the latest product or the best way to handle a customer issue, but it’s not always in our frontline rep-facing knowledge base.  Or perhaps the information is in there, but is not up-to-date or is poorly written.

The answer for many service organization is to invest in the latest knowledge management technology.  And while technology plays an important role, I’ve come to believe the emphasis should be placed on the people and processes of knowledge management.  I’ve seen highly sophisticated knowledge management technologies fall short of their goals because the company had poor processes to support the technology. Read More »