A recent paper from Gartner (Top Business Processes for Customer Service, 2010 to 2012 - subscription required) about customer service process priorities adds to my impression that the agent desktop - and in particular the complexities of using the applications on it - is in danger of being the “elephant in the room” when improving service delivery in the contact centre.


The report discusses the process improvement priorities for customer service, looking at problem resolution, feedback management, workforce optimization and field service processes. Within the first category it examines agent facilitated, self service and collaborative problem resolution. As it suggests, it is essential – in both financial and customer experience terms- to move as much interaction as possible to the self service and social arenas. However, most organizations will still need high quality agent facilitated support, either because of the complexity of the issue or because of customer preference.


In this arena it cites a familiar set of challenges

• Problem definition and understanding — both by the customer and the agent
• Process handoff steps, both intra- and inter-departmental within the organization
• Transfer of customer from one department to another, or transferring from one channel to another
• Ability to resolve the problem for the customer
• Cost to the organization of resolving the problem for the customer
• Time to resolve the issue for the customer
• Keeping the customer informed of the status of the issue resolution
• Tracking inquires linked to the same issues over multiple contacts

I completely agree that the technologies cited as relevant to addressing these challenges - Call handling and case management, trouble ticketing, training, knowledge management, cobrowsing, automated call distribution (ACD), call recording and workforce optimization – are important. When it comes to the “moment of truth” and the customer is on the phone, the only thing that really matters is “do I have access to the knowledge, information and tools needed to fix the problem?”. And for most agents this all comes via the desktop, which will typically be cluttered with CRM, KM, trouble ticketing, case management etc as well as a set of operational applications such as billing, tests, returns management, field service bookings, logistics, order management and diagnostics. So we have all this investment in systems to help the agent, but then deliver them through an unusable clutter that frequently undermines the bigger strategic objective.


Like the proverbial elephant, this rarely gets mentioned, even though it’s a fundamental determinant of the agent’s performance and hence customer service. I can think of a few possible reasons

• We are conditioned to having to work this way
• Technologies that have offered a solution have failed, reinforcing acceptance
• “The agents can manage” so we can act like it doesn't matter

This elephant needs to be sent on its way if the challenges are to be met. We need to give the agents the right tools, not handicap them with horrendous desktops. Why do you think we tolerate his presence?

Labels: agent desktop, agent desktops, call center, contact centre, contact centre agents

I attended an excellent event delivered by Sabio, one of our strategic partners, last week. Focused around the Sabio Best in Class benchmarking framework called Insight, the agenda covered individual areas of focus for Contact Centres each illustrated perfectly by a case study. Targeted at Operations Directors, IT and Senior Contact Centre Management, the event covered Demand Management, Automation, Accessibility, Optimisation and Efficiency in the Contact Centre from a strategic and underlying technology perspective. The balance between prescriptive advice, practical reality and input from the attendees was refreshing. As were the case study presentations, for once not all about how great things are but illustrating real examples of the progress and real performance improvements that each company had made, with the recognition that there were still many things that need to be addressed and that much of the time they were fire fighting.

HomeServe talked enthusiastically about how they had improved resource optimisation through forecasting and identifying the key factors that influence call volumes. However they accepted that their forecasts would never be 100% accurate because of factors that they couldn’t predict such as the more recent freak weather conditions. They talked about the progress they had made in multi-skilling through simplifying the desktop, making it easier to train agents and to broaden their remits. The result of this was their ability to successfully blend work between teams to address forecast anomalies better but recognised that there was still progress to be made here to make it seamless.

Egg spoke about managing demand and driving greater automation, their desire to move customers to self service wherever possible whilst admitting that in some cases automation was not possible and that the customer would have to call and speak to someone. Egg uses extensive measurement and monitoring processes to identify contact trends that can be addressed by the business. On the whole their move to self service continues to be successful for the majority of transactions but they explained that it was important that if the customer did have to resort to calling that the integration between the channels was seamless and the customer service levels were consistent.

In a very energetic presentation from Lego, the senior customer services director described in detail how Lego were working towards achieving better customer accessibility. Lego were unique in their desire to increase direct customer engagement to ensure that they continue to grow and meet customer needs. The recognition that their customers were multi-lingual, spanned generations and that the majority of Lego is sold during what they called Main Season or to the rest of us – Christmas has massively impacted their contact centre strategy. They needed to achieve improved customer contact across multiple segments whilst recognising and developing Lego as an emotional brand that their customers felt part of and involved with. Something that they realised they lost sight of in the early part of last decade, but had since 2007 been striving to put right with some excellent success rates.

Finally a presentation from Telefonica O2 Ireland that talked about delivering operational efficiency through measuring in call performance, aligning the agent with the customer needs and the work that they have been doing to segment the customers and align service requirements to those segments but doing this within the unique challenges of the local market.

These sessions in addition to some interesting conversations with many attendees led me to believe that the priorities of senior contact centre directors both in operations and IT are many and varied but that the underlying principle they are looking to achieve is the right level of customer service.

There are many areas on which they can focus their attentions in order to achieve their business strategy, technology being one of them. This led me to think that the key defining factor in any technology implementation within the contact centre has to be its impact on the customer. There are so many technology options that will deliver clear business benefits but where should they focus to improve performance – it was made clear that they should begin with the customer journey looking at the major pain points. Ultimately much of that customer journey is controlled by what is going on at the agents desktop. There are some technologies that will have a more wide reaching impact than others, Enterprise Mashups being one where quick wins can be made and strategic value delivered. One thing that was clear is that companies with extensive sector and technology expertise as demonstrated by Sabio can clearly help to bring together the strategy and technology elements to address these pain points, reduce the fire fighting and help contact centres to meet their ambitions to perform.

Labels: agent desktops, contact centre, customer experience, Enterprise Mashups, operations, Sabio