The analytics machine: Why contact center technology is changing the customer experience

For a long time, the contact center was nothing more than a place where customer complaints went to die. An agent’s objective was to simply note the issue and try to resolve it as quickly as possible, and metrics were nothing more than call duration and first call resolution.

Contact Center Technologies and #Analytics change the customer experience

Increase Contact Center Security and Performance with added Webcam Monitoring

CSI releases a new call monitoring feature which can utilize agent webcam feeds as an added security and performance measure, continuing a proud string of groundbreaking innovation with the release of the Virtual Observer (VO) VO Live webcam feature, a feature which takes agent call monitoring to an entirely new level of agent assistance.

The Virtual Observer (VO) Live Webcam is a feature that was developed from listening to our customers who wish to learn more about smart phone abuse and other distractions that lead to agent performance issues (#’s of calls per hour, out of adherence trends, fraud prevention, safety and security (reviewing what actually occurred during unplanned emergency events)).

CSI is the first workforce optimization vendor to integrate web cam control with live screen monitoring. Supervisors can now use VO Live to monitor agent motion and activity, facial expressions, body language, behavior patterns, employee code of conduct and ethics.

 This new feature is a logical extension of the original call monitoring goal: to make your agents the best they can possibly be. The feature, intended to be another performance tool in your contact center’s utility belt, can be enabled or disabled for environments who wish to not have web cam capabilities.

Quick List: Benefits of Quality Monitoring

I was speaking to one of our customers this morning.

The customer was very happy with basic, simple call recording and was a little unsure of bringing in a robust quality monitoring system, but they were considering the upgrade (CSI's customer upgrade program delivers free software upgrades to active customers) to Virtual Observer.

My contact there, the call center manager, asked me for some basic bullets she could use to present a case for implementing a quality monitoring system.

The list I sent her was hardly complete, but a powerful reminder of how strong a short list of the benefits could be:

- reduce employee training cycle time
- reduce attrition
- generate more sales, saves and "upgrades"
- view trends over time, compare month-to-month or year-to-year and make decisions based on real performance data
- resolve disputes through call retention
- create training materials based on the best recorded calls
- automate many of your current internal QA methods

With the above list, the benefits of both quality monitoring and Virtual Observer are very, very clear.

Use Screen Capture to Improve Agent Performance

Virtual Observer's Screen Capture functionality is more than a "big brother" feature. It is an extremely powerful training tool which can help to identify where your call center agents are making crucial mistakes in navigating your CRM applications. Watching recorded screen activity (which should be synchronized with the audio recording) during the evaluation process allows you to properly evaluate the entire interaction from start to finish, across all media.

Virtual Observers's Screen Capture feature creates a true full-motion video. The video is a smooth, real time capture of your MS-Windows desktop environment, including dual-monitor environments.

Additional Benefits:
- Reduce Call Wrap-Up by improving CRM process flow
- Produce "New Hire" Training Materials which include recorded screen activity
- Include Screen Recordings in Content Deliverables and e-Learning

One of our more recent feature releases, "VO Live", also offers real-time viewing of agent screen activity in a thumbnail view. Supervisors can watch everyone's screens at the same time, enlarge and take control of an agents' screens, and chat with an agent to assist them.

Use Virtual Observer to automatically distribute training material to agents

Virtual Observer's E-Learning module is an essential ingredient in any recipe for agent development.

Let's look at a practical example of how it may be used:

1) Your number one supervisor, Harliss Dondo, has just completed ten evaluations today. Five of them were exceptionally above the average, three were average and two below.

2) Harliss opens one of the exceptionally rated evaluations. He selects "package event" from the Virtual Observer menu. He highlights the call and exports the entire event (evaluation and screens included) to a network folder. He names it "Excellent Customer Greeting 001". He repeats this process several times, and soon he has his top ten evaluations all in one folder.

3) Harliss (or Harley for short) then chooses "Make Media List" from the menu. He then selects all the calls in the folder he just made. The system will then burn them to a cd or ftp them up to a webserver. An instant "greatest hits" compilation is born, perfect for training material for a new hire.

4) In Virtual Observer's E-Learning module, Harley had designated three training documents to be automatically delivered to any agent who scored below the par. The system has already emailed the training docs to the two agents who fared poorly and also included the link to the webserver that contains the greatest hits list, placing them on the road to improvement. On Monday, Harley will hand out a greatest hits training CD to 5 hires during new employee orientation.