Contact Center Observer

Friday, January 03, 2014

Very Frequently Asked Customer Questions and Answers about Call Monitoring Capabilities

Can we record our live chat sessions so we can score them?
Yes – Virtual Observer can be setup to trigger recording when a chat session begins, regardless of the chat system used. Using the same logic, we can also capture email, social interactions, etc, allowing users to then evaluate the interaction as simply as they would an audio call.

How can we calibrate our evaluation sessions?
Calibrations can be done by a simple check box on the evaluation header. This flags the evaluation for calibration purpose and is easily identified for analysis.

Can we query past or archived recordings using Speech Analytics?
Yes – From within the integrated "Call Insight" user interface, Virtual Observer offers an "ad hoc" querying feature which allows you to search through past events for specific words or phrases. These can also be saved for later use.

How do we share highly scored calls for training purposes?
Virtual Observer offers many different ways to share recordings and their subsequent scorecards with other departments. We offer a packaging function that allows users to email a link to the recording. From this link, the recipients can also access all of it’s scorecards. The packaging function will also email the actual recording and scoring files to the recipient if they are not in the user community, depending on defined security parameters, enabled permissions and de-encryption settings, of course.

Are the dashboard reports in real-time?
Yes – the dashboards offer real time analytics - representing the specified date ranges or saved query parameters. The dashboard reports can also be set to refresh automatically at a specified time interval.

Tuesday, December 03, 2013

Workforce optimization features and training can dramatically optimize and improve everyday business processes

Many customers end up incorporating process changes once they experience Virtual Observer's flexibility and full capabilities through our onsite training.

One recent example is the ability to send evaluations, calls, or recorded chats back to the agent via our Agent Portal and E-Learning feature set.

When customers learn this kind of automated coaching is available, they often incorporate it into their actual everyday processes, reducing a training cycle time from what used to be 3 days on average, to mere hours.

Another interesting process changes had a client utilizing the system's Agent Types and Agent IDs fields for KPI reporting.

They were able to create these Types and IDs to match their financial cost centers and then they ran performance reports by Agent Type in order to view KPIs into their reports by cost center.

This scenario shows the depth of our reporting as well as the ability to slice and dice the data in many different ways and also shows how users can customize the use of the Agent descriptive fields for many possible applications.

Of course, every user can customize their Virtual Observer dashboard layouts (see a sample screenshot above) in order to bring their important metrics to life.

Friday, November 01, 2013

Are your customer initiatives also boosted by the "Voice of the Agent"?

You've invested in a sweet new technology platform which records all of your calls.

Great start. Now what are you doing with them?

Many contact centers have deployed quality monitoring tools for evaluating and scoring calls. Sometimes this leads to live coaching of the agents and other times it leads to scheduled training based on topics where the agents did not fare too well.

Other contact centers have invested in full workforce optimization suites (typically consisting of the aforementioned call recording and quality monitoring, plus workforce management, speech analytics and surveying). These are great and extremely effective, except they lack the "Voice of the Agent".

Empowering your agents with the ability to use a workforce optimization system will do wonders for their self-improvement and personal development. There are several key areas where they can contribute to the quality monitoring process and calibrate with your "Voice of the Customer" (VoC) intiatives:

* Allow your agents to play back their own calls and view their recorded screens"
* Share evaluations with them and let them respond, dispute or accept their scores
* Provide them with targeted e-learning material based on where their scores show they need improvement
* Allow them to collaborate with approved peers, supervisors, groups, etc.
* Enable shift trading, bidding, etc. with integrated Workforce Management technology

Agents should buy into the whole quality-monitoring process and by giving them access to a WFO toolset, they are less likely to take on a "Big Brother" view of your technology investments and more apt to take ownership of their own developments.

Other WFO features such as CSI's "VO Live" exist to provide management with the ability to zero in on agent behaviors which might be inefficient, counter-productive or where supervisors can intercede in real time to help an agent solve a customer issue. Agents who are introduced into the WFO process in an enthusiastic manner will also buy into the concept of pushing themselves even harder to be the best they can possibly be.