Labels: agent desktop, contact centre, CRM, CRM application, social CRM

Integration technology has been on a journey that has radically improved agility and reduced TCO. It has moved from a manual craft to something more modular, reusable and business focused:
• Hiding complexity behind well defined and open interfaces that encourage reuse and sharing
• Replacing point to point with many to many
• Minimising the custom coding required for any particular solution
• Abstracting away complexity, becoming more model driven and “business technology” focused
• Adding management capabilities to monitor and improve usage

As a result, integration at the data and process levels have been transformed, and the enabling integration technologies have become widely adopted. This explains the popularity of approaches such as BPM.

However, these approaches still leave users stranded with too many applications on their desktops, including major enterprise applications that are complex and difficult to use because they are not dedicated to the task at hand. This is primarily because they do not extend to delivering the simple, intuitive, flexible UI required to make people more efficient and to reduce the cost of building and maintaining applications for people. If I want to create an integrated (composite) application for users in my business that spans several functional domains (such as billing, CRM and order management) then:
• I have to custom code the UI for all the functional domains and how they are to be combined, or i have to take a packaged application like CRM and begin to develop new screens that lock functionality from other domains into its code
• I have to do this each time I need a new solution
• There is no equivalent of a “process model” that lets me involve the business and make changes rapidly, and there’s no reuse or sharing at the UI level
• I’m on my own when it comes to measuring and monitoring usage

In other words integration for people has missed out on the principles above. Applications for users are still crafted individually, rather than being assembled. It’s only been economical to build / buy applications for the largest user groups or to deliver specific functional applications which the user must “swivel” between. Users and processes become inefficient, and as more and more point solutions build up on the desktop, developing and integration solution becomes harder, as functionality is baked into these applications. The success of SAAS applications actually re-inforce the proliferation of applications on the desktop with yet a new generation of applications.

The answer though is simple enough: extend the same principle applied to data and process integration all the way to the user interface and the building of user facing applications:
• Service enable ui : create UI services, well defined and open interfaces that encourage reuse and sharing rather than point to point integration
• Develop business friendly mode to orchestrate the UI services
• Provide management capabilities to monitor and improve usage

This is what enterprise mashups really ought to focus on: addressing the last mile of integration to make people more efficient.

Labels: application development, architecture, business alignment, contact centre, CRM application, customer experience, Lean Software, mashup, SOA, user experience, Web services

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

We've created a new video that provides an introduction to Corizon enterprise mashups and their use.

Labels: call center, contact centre, contact centre agents, enterprise mashup, mashup, process mashup

Labels: agent desktop, call center, contact centre, Enterprise applications, enterprise mashup, process mashup

Labels: agent desktop, call center, contact centre, contact centre agents, enterprise mashup, mashup

Recent studies have highlighted the current dilemma most companies have with contact centres: they are both critical in maximising customer value and considered poor in meeting customer expectations. A YouGov survey conducted in the UK showed that phone and email were by a significant margin the most likely channels used by customers to contact a company for customer service (75% and 70% respectively). Self service comes third with 43%. At the same time, consumers were unhappy with the quality of service provided: 83% were frustrated with the interaction and 60% of agents agreed with them!

This matters enormously because “on average, 40% of customers who suffer through bad experiences stop doing business with the offending company” according to a recent survey published in the Harvard Business Review by Dave Dougherty and Ajay Murthy from Convergys. They go on to define the same reasons for the frustration as identified in the YouGov survey: lack of knowledge of the agent and incapacity to resolve the query on the first call. With increasing access to relevant information online through the internet and social networks, I expect customers to become more and more demanding of the contact centre agent in the future. With the simpler queries being increasingly resolved thorugh self-serivice, interactions will become more complex and more critical and the cost of failure will increase.

So what stops contact centres providing the right customer interaction? The main reason is the proliferation of applications on the desktop. The Corizon Contact Centre survey of 90 Contact Centre Managers shows that agents have to use on average 5 different applications during a call. It is not uncommon to find more than 20 on each desktop. In such an environment, it is proving very difficult to provide to the agent, cost effectively, the right information at the right time and, crucially, the tools that allow them to resolve the query in a fast and efficient way and stop customers needing to call back.

Fixing this problem has proved very difficult as demonstrated by the generations of legacy applications one can find by walking in a contact centres, from ancient green screen applications to the most recent CRM systems. Resolving this issue cost effectively requires a new approach. This is where process mashups come in. They deliver a step change in agent productivity by providing a dynamic UI that guides the process and gives agents the right information at the right time. Agent desktops can be integrated using a step by step approach, fixing the most broken processes first and delivering immediate improvement. The process mashup approach enables the easy creation of fit for purpose desktops, changing the economics of integrating applications for people by extracting “mashable” components from existing systems to deliver an initial solution in days. Once initial process hotspots have been fixed the business can iteratively work towards delivering the ‘perfect’ application for the contact centre agent that can constantly evolve with the business needs, all within a governed and secure IT infrastructure.

Labels: agent desktop, Big Shift, contact centre, contact centre agents, CRM application, enterprise mashup

I have just experienced two very different contact centre interactions. In the first, the contact centre agent was able to address my questions and resolve my issue in a personable dialogue, making decisions along the way and accessing information easily and rapidly to make these decisions. The result was successful and my perception of the company enhanced. In fact, this was a better experience than resolving the same issue online. I can clearly see how this contact centre could engage in social CRM and graduate to a two way relationships world, interacting on multiple platforms.

In the second experience, with a different company, the agent followed an inflexible script in an impersonal manner and was unable to resolve the query (systems too slow, needed to swivel between several applications, and ultimately the key data required was on a system the agent did not have access to). The result was a highly frustrating experience and need for a second call. Argh...

These two experiences made me realise how tough the job of a contact centre agent is. On very little pay and in a pressurised environment, these guys deal day in day out with often angry customers and are supposed to resolve all their issues rapidly and pleasantly. And we are increasingly expecting more from them: issues are getting more difficult to resolve because the simpler tasks are now done online, we expect a higher standard of service from the agent because we get already so much from self-service, and finally we expect them to make decisions there and then. In some industries, contact centre interactions are becoming a key driver of customer churn.

I can only see this trend accelerating. Younger generations are not willing to deal with companies in one way, push type relationships. They expect two-way relationships across multiple platforms where they take control of the relationship with the brand. This will put even more responsibility on contact centres agents and will fundamentally alter the role of the contact centre:

1. Contact centre agents’ value will increase as they to take on greater responsibilities and capacity to make decisions. Talent retention will become more important, compensation will increase and the role will shift from transaction to relationship management;

2. The contact centre itself will become a strategic asset essential for customer relationships. Investment decisions will shift from minimizing costs of interaction to maximising interaction value;

3. Off shoring decisions will need to include whether the processes and/or customer interactions require complex interactions where local knowledge is important to build the customer relationship;

4. Systems supporting contact centres will need to be more integrated (social media, self-service etc.) to enable support of customer interactions across platforms and at different steps of the interaction process (e.g. interaction initiated in self-service and completed with an agent);

5. Flexible, dynamic and user centric systems will become essential to ensure fit for purpose IT that empowers agents to do their jobs in ever changing environment.

I believe this is part of the Big Shift described by John Hagel in his latest blog. In a further blog, I will develop our thoughts on the implications of this type of shift for organizations processes and supporting IT systems. But first off on holidays!

Labels: Big Shift, contact centre, contact centre agents, social CRM

Labels: agent desktop, call center, contact centre

• experienced agents need to be able to work in a less constrained way compared to rookies, and will find constraints demotivating and frustrating
• new products are often trialled and launched with very broad cones while the organization learns using highly skilled agents. As the products mature and the agent base grows, processes then need to become more constrained and more “spout heavy”.
• knowledge management solutions can be used to narrow the cone sooner by reducing the up-front analysis work for service desktops
• sophisticated propensity-to-buy and segmentation based intelligence can help to move to the spout quicker and optimize outcomes

Labels: agent desktop, call center, contact centre, enterprise mashup

Spending time recently in a contact centre reminded me of a quip I heard from Lord Saatchi. He was talking to a senior director of a well know consumer brand and saying: “do you know the old saying about half of your marketing budget does not deliver but the issue is which half? Well for your company, I have worked it out: neither!”

So which half of your IT budget works in the call centre? Neither. You just have to look at how many applications call centre agents have to deal with during a call! Research shows on average 6 but in our experience the number is usually much higher. This is despite years of investment in technology in call centres. The reason for the failure? Each time a new requirement for the agent emerged, a new application would be built or an existing one would be modified. This lead to a proliferation of applications on the desktop, making the job of maintaining them (and integrating them) harder and harder for IT. No wonder release cycle of enterprise applications on the desktop can now be measure in months or years! This results in inefficient processes with dramatic economic consequences: high cost to serve customers while delivering, in a majority of cases, a poor customer experience. No wonder so many companies decided to give up on call centres and outsourced them despite the fact they are one of the most important (and inescapable) windows to customers.

This is why call centre is such a ripe environment for the deployment of enterprise mashups. By changing the economics of building and maintaining integrated solutions to call centre agents, they address the application proliferation issue, reduce dramatically the cost to serve customers by making agents more efficient and deliver clearly measurable ROI in short time frames. This is where we think the real value of enterprise mashup can be realized: in delivering real composite applications to address immediate business needs but in a way that is repeatable and complements modern architectures. A theme I will come back to regularly in this blog.

Labels: agent desktop, call center, contact centre, mashup, process mashup