VITEC, Inc. & Interactive Intelligence
Top 15 Contact Center
Trends for 2015
Michelle O’Brien, Vince Fulgenzi & Charlie Sonnenberg
www.vitecinc.com
Thank you for joining us today!
To follow are some top trends we’ve noted, see what you
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Trend #1 – Voice Analytics
 Speech/Voice analytics software = ability to reveal customer insights/V.O.C.
Most centers record all calls What about email, Web form, survey, social media contact?
 Social media, web surveys & focus groups added to sources of data that could
be analyzed
Speech/Voice analytics to become even more popular, thanks to Big
Data, SaaS and other trends…
Fonlo customer service blog, 2013
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Voice Analytics – Tuning In…
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According to Micro Market Monitor the North America speech analytics
market is expected to grow from $241.8 M to $696.2 M by 2019
The reason for the boom in growth = the rapid expansion of call centers.
VoiceBase on January 22, 2015
“The traditional center has evolved into a valuable hub, where analyzing
interactions in real time is quickly becoming a powerful tool for businesses to
extract intelligence…”
VoiceBase on January 22, 2015
When used effectively, speech analytics can strongly impact:
• Customer Service – lower rate of poor calls, trend positive calls
• Customer Retention – recordings give insight into customer mind & sale success
keyword(s)
• Marketing & Sales – sharing data with marketing departments from calls leading to sales,
companies can market to customers more effectively.
• …and others – education, market research, training/coaching, etc.
Remember: You can have data without information, but you cannot have
information without data. It’s time to start collecting that data.
VoiceBase on January 22, 2015
(article: 3ways speech analytics will change the call center industry)
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Trend #2 –Voice Biometrics
The Verizon data Breach Investigations reported, “76% of network intrusions are
from the exploitation of weak or stolen credentials.”
Most centers operate with one primary goal: customer service….leaving them vulnerable to “bad
actors” and fraudsters…taking advantage of weak methods to authenticate callers.
Voice biometrics verifies callers’ identity through the unique patterns in the voice
The single greatest benefit to companies is to provide their customers a more secure –
and extremely natural – form of authentication
According to Gartner: Stronger caller authentication than traditional security
questions & account information can shorten calls by 20 seconds!
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Biometrics – Speaker Verification
Voice biometrics eliminates much security risk by using
the customer’s unique voiceprint for authentication.
Easier and much more accurate way to authenticate caller identity.
• A voiceprint is a hashed string of numbers & characters.
• Compromised voiceprint has no value to a hacker
Benefits of Biometrics:
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Save Your Customers Time
Fraud Prevention
Cost Savings
Easy Implementation
Customer Experience
 Associated Press reported voice recognition industry could generate as much as $900 billion in
revenues in 2015.
 Global market for voice biometrics expected to reach $30 million by 2020, with the AsiaPacific region growing fastest, at a CAGR of 21 percent over the next five years.
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Trend #3 – Big Data
 The big data and analytics market will reach $125 billion
worldwide in 2015, according to IDC
Big Data is an all-encompassing term for extremely large data sets that may be
analyzed computationally to reveal patterns, trends and associations, especially
relating to human behavior and interactions.
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Big Data – who’s mining your data now?
“There's valuable data in those contact center logs…There may be no corporate function
that throws off more data than the corporate call center…Every contact is counted,
routed, measured and scored”
Stephanie Overby in an article in CIO.com, titled Big
Data Analytics Gold for the Call Center.
A recent survey by Software Advice, a web-based review center for
helpdesk systems, on how to improve call routing using big data
revealed:
• 67% of people over 65 prefer slow paced customer service calls,57% of 18- to 24-year-olds prefer more
time & attention.
• Casual engagement preferred by 49% of Midwestern callers,; 36% of Northeastern preferred formality.
• U.S.-based agents preferred by 78 % of those 55-64; 48 % of 18- to 24-year-olds had this preference.
So, what do these stats show?
THAT’s Big Data..
How can your team use big data to provide top-notch customer service?
• Customer Insight – agents need access to all customer information to personalize service,;
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improves customer experience & empowers agents
Data Analysis – Your analysts work w/pros to drive effective decision making. includes customer
journey mapping & best agents for specific calls. Center to account for customer data both
quantitative and qualitative & provide to agents real time
Training - Essential managers trained to utilize data to advance customer service. Empowering
them to base interactions on accurate data=fact-based decision making. Helps coach agents to success,
measureable impact on team performance.
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Trend #4 – Live Chat/Support
“Making Proactive Chat Work” Study conducted by Forrester Research :
• “44% of online consumers say having questions answered by a live person in the middle of
an online purchase is one of the most important features a Web site can offer.”
• ATG Global Consumer Trend study found 90% of customers consider live chat helpful and an
emarketer.com survey found 63% more likely to return to a website that offers live chat.
38% of respondents said they made their purchase due to the chat session itself…”
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Live Chat (Live Support)
Advantages of Live Support/Chat:
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Convenient for customers
Reduces expenses (rep. time & phone expense)
Increases sales
Edge over competitors
Taps into customer pain points (Voice of Customer!)
Build deeper relationships and trust with customers
(always someone there to help)
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Quality customer service is
crucial to long-term success of
your business.
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Existing customers will become
most vocal advocates & grow
customer base on your behalf if
you provide worthwhile &
memorable experience each &
EVERY time.
Prepare to Chat!
• Train your team; specific skills for chat (good writers, multi-taskers, recognize angry customers,
provide timely responses, etc.)
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Be aware of shopping hours for customers
Don’t be robotic
Consider hiring employees with sales experience (or train current staff)
Boost your social
Be prepped for surges in chat volume & how to relay to customers
Offer customers helpful support/chat features
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Trend #5 First Contact Resolution/SSR
“SQM surveyed over 1,000,000 call center customers…”
“Most important metric for
measuring customer service . . .
FCR / SSR!”
Likelihood to go to competitor
“SQM research…shows that call
centers w/high employee
satisfaction also have high
FCR”/SSR.
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First Contact Resolution/SSR
• Improves employee satisfaction
• Cross train reps and empowered to go that extra mile to
resolve issue rather than escalating/callback.
• Rework standard procedures of logging service orders,
tickets or documents instead of passing it through the
loop
• Reduces operating costs
• Adds value to your customers
• Returns trust to “at risk” customers
• Builds great brand image for your product/company
• Increases sale opportunities
• Look for departmental integration, if possible, to work on
First Contact Resolution/Single Session Resolution.
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Trend #6 – Remote Agents/@Home
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Over 3 million Americans work from home
More than 50 percent of call centers in the U.S. have some at home.
Attrition rates for work-at-home agents 35 to 50 percent lower
At-home agent adoption expected to accelerate by over 25 percent annually
Work@Home = WIN + WIN
Gives Employees
Gives Employer
More Flexibility & Work/Life Balance
Great efficiencies & high margins
Companies like American Airlines, Citi, American Express and JetBlue are
increasingly turning to employing an at-home call center workforce
. . . the added layer of computer-based security can make the home
working environment more secure than in-house.”
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Touchtone entry of payment information & use of PC cameras
Special access codes & adding additional passwords
Some call centers record the screens of their workers
Ability of agents to keep working
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Remote Agents – breaking it down
Some Challenges:
• Reps @home can lose the sense of community and connection present in a
call center.
• Training can be a challenge when it must all be done by video & phone.
• Motivation to keep working at top productivity might be more difficult to maintain
when the agent is @home, instead of seeing others working @desks.
• For mission-critical projects, it may not always be possible to hire call center
agents that work from home. However, it would be ideal if they work onsite for a
year or so before they can start working from home.
Some Advantages:
• Cuts office-space costs, especially in high-rent districts.
• Increases employee satisfaction (casual dress & work in the comfort of own
home)
• Adds flexibility to hiring process; location not an issue.
• Many agents more productive & able to give individualized attention to each
caller w/fewer distractions
• A shift in flexibility of scheduling & working hours that matches when
people/customers are home
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Trend #7 – Virtual Agents
Gartner forecasts that 50% of customer service interactions will
be conducted via virtual assistant by 2015
• Virtual agent is a chatterbot program
“Online CSR”
• Lead intelligent conversation:
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Perform appropriate non-verbal behavior.
Personal service feeling because of human appearance &
ability to reply to customer inquiries
• Combining A.I. to help people perform tasks
(intelligent virtual agent, virtual rep or v-rep)
ICMI research shows that more than 64% of contact center leaders
feel advanced self-service options such as virtual agents improve the
overall customer experience
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Virtual Agents – “Real” results
 A recent Forrester Report showed only 28 %of U.S. online consumers "prefer to
contact companies via telephone or e-mail rather than using a company’s website
to get answers to their questions."
With names like Jess, Ana, Kim and Olivia, V-Reps are the smiling self-service persona
of some of the world’s biggest brands:
PayPal, Google, Coca-Cola, E-Bay, Apple, Columbia College, etc.
Dubbed “virtual agents”, they sit on websites 24x7, inviting the customer to “ask a
question”.
Some V-Rep Benefits:
• Offers an unbiased, unadulterated voice of the customer
• Interprets intent of customer question w/natural language; traditional keyword search cannot
• Automated reporting reflects the opinions of tens or hundreds of thousands of YOUR
CUSTOMERS.
• Insights can be available in real-time - no need to wait for an analyst
• Can instantly categorizes themes & trends
• Themes can be clicked on for drill-down insights (ex: why are so many customers mentioning a
particular competitor?
• Provides opportunities leaders can immediately act on to improve product & service offerings.
As with any successful self-service channel, there is a big benefit in reduction of calls, emails and
chat sessions initiated to the center. Translates to a quantifiable ROI on a technology which:
Gets companies in tune with their customers, without having to hassle them for feedback!
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Trend #8 Agent Roundtable Session
The Voice of your AGENT IS the Voice of your CUSTOMER!
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Improved Teamwork and Communication
Greater job fulfillment
Empowerment & Ownership among agents
Happiness & Trust
Cultural improvements
Increased sales
Improved customer journey
Enhanced retention: Agents & Customers
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Trend #8 – Agent Roundtable Session
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People are power
Your center, Your company wouldn’t exist without People
Information becomes power in the hands of people (knowledge)
YOUR PEOPLE are the most untapped source of information about
YOUR CUSTOMERS
• Do you know the Perception of YOUR PEOPLE?
• Do you know the Perception of YOUR CUSTOMERS?
Employee and customer perceptions, beliefs and opinions,
experiences, needs and information drive their behavior,
decision and actions.
• The people most tuned in to the voice of your customers are…YOUR
PEOPLE.
• Reps in your center are on the front lines, watching, listening, learning &
guiding your customers throughout their experience
• YOUR PEOPLE are walking with your customers on their journey. They’re the
guides…talking, instructing & listening to YOUR CUSTOMERS all the while.
• Is your center Function focused or Human focused?
• Do you roundtable?
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Trend #9 - Gamification
“Gamification makes the hard stuff in life fun.."
“Gamification is:
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Deriving all the fun and addicting elements found in games
Applying them to real-world or productive activities.
“Human-Focused Design” vs. “Function-Focused Design”
Gartner, in a recent report: “…by 2015, more than 40% of the top
companies would be using gamification to transform their business
operations”.
CRM Magazine: “. . . it is imperative that management finds
ways to ensure that workers are properly engaged.
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Gamification
According to Gartner, a 5% increase in customer retention could increase
profits by 25 to 125%?
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Who’s in charge of customer retention in your center?
And, how engaged are they?
 Recent Gallup Poll shows 70 % of people aren’t engaged in their jobs, costing the U.S. economy
$350 billion annually in lost productivity.
 Engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave the organization than the disengaged (think
training costs)
Good news!! Engagement, both for managers & call center reps, can be
improved using gamification.
Gamification can…
Gamification Mechanics
What’s in it for Me?
• Recognize & Reward
• Measure & Motivate
• Build Reputation
• Increase Loyalty
Fast Feedback
See where I’m headed
Badges
Show my achievements
Competition
Know who’s winning
Community
Work as a team
Leveling up
Learn more, try harder
http://www.yukaichou.com/gamification-examples/gamification-stats-figures/#.cptsource=twitter.cptid=anon1be9a9acc89fe536ca4590df0eca23;
bunchball/CITO research
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Check this out…
Recent workforce science research identifies another group in the
call center whose engagement is critical—managers:
Bosses, as it turns out, really do matter
In telephone call centers where hourly workers handle a steady
stream of calls under demanding conditions:
• The communication skills and personal warmth of an employee’s
supervisor are often crucial in determining the employee’s tenure
and performance.
• Recent research shows that the quality of supervisor may be
more important than the experience and individual attributes of
the workers themselves.
— Steve Lohr, “Big Data, Trying to Build Better
Workers,”New York Times, April 20, 2013
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Trend #10 Multi-Channel
In 2015, Multichannel is in full-swing & mainstreamed. Research shows customers expect to be
able to communicate with sales or customer support via:
• Phone
• Email
• Web chat (see chart).
• Other channels rapidly moving up, based on age demographic.
Consumers between the ages of 25-34 are the largest group looking for these other channels.
www.vitecinc.com
Multi-Channel – The Mainstream
You may have heard the term “omni-channel,” in place of multi-channel, implying an
offering of all possible channels of communication, including Social Media. Savvy centers
are moving in that direction.
• Voice, email, & chat are must‐have capabilities. Your center will lose customers if you
don’t have them.
• Video, social engagement, & mobile extensions areas of communication
differentiation. Customers don’t expect you to have them. Will be impressed to find
you can follow over all channels. (Source: Nemertes Research)
Benefits of Multi-Channel?
Increased Efficiencies:
 Self-service options reduce costs
 Certain channels allow better optimization of agent’s time
Delivery of a Better Customer Experience:
 Give customers choices
 Ability to provide a consistent service level
So what to do?
• First, determine the age demographic of your customers.
• Take a phased approach, adding one channel at a time
• Don’t deploy “Accidental Multichannel,” for a few examples, where:
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New channels are added by individual departments,
Context and history aren’t shared,
Multichannel/Omnichannel contact centers have the ability to add social media content to the mix to
enhance customer relationships, strengthen brand opinion, drive increased lead generation. Adding ability
to route social media content to the right person for tangible, identified action extends leverage &
responsiveness of your center. Look for a solution & vendor partner that provides integration with contact
center software so you can bring this growing & valuable source of data into your workflow. www.vitecinc.com
Trend #11 – Blending/Cross Training
• Zendesk: 72% online self-serve - only 52% getting what they need.
• Forrester Survey
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Blending – The Right Recipe for Cross Training
Equipping Agents to Deliver Social Media Support
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Voice remains primary touch point for organizations, yet many relying on center to manage
other contact channels.
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Agents having tools in place and the training to resolve issues quickly & consistently.
Cross-train Agents to Enable More Flexible Call Center Scheduling – skill blending
• Some companies still prefer to train agents to handle specific channels, many learning it pays to
cross-train:
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Gain greater flexibility in scheduling.
Combined with advanced workforce management system, managers can more easily achieve
operational efficiency.
Some important considerations for contact center managers:
• Occupancy: ability to forecast traffic & shift agents to different positions at certain times of the day
to meet service levels
• Leveraging service level differences: real time (voice, web chat) vs. near real time (email, social
media)& identifying social interactions “trending” hour by hour
• Shifting responsibilities: Variation of agent work can drive retention
• A consistent, reliable customer service team is essential to positive customer experiences.
IMPORTANT: Agents are getting tougher contacts looking to them to be problem
solvers.
Managers must consider how adoption of multi-channel technology affects what
staff members are trained to do
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Trend #12 – Mobility (Mobile Customer Care)
Smartphones and the Customer Service Revolution
2016 smartphones/devices will be responsible for 37% of inbound CS calls in N. America
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Trend #13 - Multilingualism
• Advantages multilingual support over traditional call centers.
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Create a positive customer experience
Increase efficiency & agent productivity
Drive sales & revenue in new markets.
U.S. Census: 1980 – 2007
• Speak a language other than English at home more than doubled (5th Largest Hispanic )
• Don’t speak English grew by 140 percent, overall population up 34 percent.
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Trend #14 – Workforce Optimization
Achieving a higher level of customer satisfaction through workforce-optimization
2013 Forrester Survey: Client satisfaction goes hand-in-hand with workforce optimization.
Voice of the Customer is imperative
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Workforce Optimization – how to “work” it
The Value of Metrics
• Center managers can’t effectively manage what’s not measured
• In 2014, only 43% of centers had high level understanding of KPIs
Large numbers of centers continue to depend on basic metrics to determine how
well their workforce is performing…
What about the Voice of the Customer or VOC – where’s that being heard?
 Forrester Research predicts annual growth of about 20 % in the coming years for
VoC. According to Jim Davies, Research Director at Gartner, it is “now being viewed
as a must-have strategy.”
 Client satisfaction and customer experience goes hand-in-hand with workforce
optimization.
 Capturing the Voice of the Customer is imperative to creating your
organizations customer experience.
 What are you measuring and what are your customers saying?
 Is your center’s workforce optimized?
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Trend #15 – The Cloud
• DMG Consulting; Cloud-based infrastructure predicted to double 2013 - 2015.
• Frost and Sullivan: North American cloud-based call center market is expected to
grow to $2.1B in 2014
www.vitecinc.com
The Cloud – winds of change
Moving the contact center to the cloud is an evaluation
that warrants careful analysis…
Primary Cloud-Based Contact Center Benefits
• No upfront costs
• Faster deployment
• Less for IT to Support
• Improved Systems :
• Updated IVR, ACD, WFM, Recording, etc.
• Upgrades included. “Never” be stuck with an outdated system.
Other Considerations:
• Is Trading Large Operating vs. Large Capital the best financial decision?
• Hidden costs?
• Security: Data center hacking is common event;
• How secure is the cloud, is anything safe?
• More moves to cloud, does the value (of the target) increase?
• Early adopters learned that there can be less flexibility & increased
response times prompting a move back to premise or private cloud.
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Forward to the Future:
Trends and A Memorable
Unmemorable Tale…
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UNMEMORABLE SERVICE
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MECHANICS OF COMMUNICATION IN
CUSTOMER SERVICE
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FOCUS ON REDUCING CUSTOMER EFFORT,
NOT “CREATING EXCEPTIONAL EXPERIENCES”
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2.5:1 phone preference of 77 year olds +
 56% of customers in ACD tried self-service
 34% are still on your website while talking to a rep
 50% customers prefer text over all other channels
 10% disloyalty created by channel switching
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MITIGATE DISLOYALTY BY TYING CHANNEL
DATA TOGETHER TO INFORM EACH STEP
OF CUSTOMER’S JOURNEY
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BIOLOGY OF COMMUNICATION
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