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PLANT MAINTENANCE, TEST + MEASUREMENT
Contact centres are a critical point of contact with customers.
For many businesses, providing a seamless experience is the
ideal but with multiple channels, achieving this can be chal-
lenging. In any situation the answers you get are only going to be
as useful as the questions you ask. In a contact centre there are two
dimensions to the metrics needed. The first are operations-related.
They may include questions like: what is the average time to
answer a query or call, how long is the queue, what is
the average time to resolution? However, improving
on these metrics makes little sense if the contact
centre is not also measured on its ability to fulfil
its primary purpose, be that sales, debt collection
or managing client relationships. Failing to do
this may leave the organisation with a very short
queue indeed. For example, cutting time to reso-
lution by skipping a few steps in the process may
bump up call volume as customers call back in to fully
resolve the issue. New technologies and techniques are
emerging to help organisations get a more comprehensive
understanding of client satisfaction and identify issues as they arise.
New tech for better insight
Voice analytics has advanced considerably. It is now possible to
listen not just for specific words but tone, pitch, volume and even
context in a recording or live call. Voice to text technologies enable
deeper and more granular analysis with identification of trends and
Andre Deetlefs, Jasco Enterprise
Big data and advanced analytics can provide an advantage – but only if you measure the right things and ask the right questions.
Analytics and contact centres –
add smarts and soar
issues. For example, an escalating number of calls about overdue
accounts can be flagged, helping organisations better manage the
situation as it unfolds.
Voice analytics can also pick up other trends, like rising voices
or the customer speaking over the agent (or vice versa). Unlike tra-
ditional methods where random calls were selected for assessment,
voice analytics solutions can flag only potential problem calls
for supervisor assessment. And what can be done with
voice can be done with other text-based channels
of interaction, like email, SMS and social media
posts. In addition, analytics can now increasingly
identify sentiment, like sarcasm in a Tweet. This
moves into the realm of Big Data. As we deploy
more technology, more reporting becomes pos-
sible which requires Big Data analytics. With so
much data available, deciding what to measure
becomes strategic.
Conclusion
For any contact centre the first step is to define issues and problems,
and identify goals. Step two is collecting the right metrics and infor-
mation. The final step is asking the right questions and applying the
right technology to extract value from existing data, or identify trends
in real time. Many organisations choose to start small and scale as
their operations grow. However, improving business outcomes can
be as simple as asking the right questions.
Andre Deetlefs is the Executive in Lines
of Business at Jasco Enterprise.
Enquiries: Tel. +27 (0) 11 266 1500
or email
• Contact centres are a critical point of contact
with customers.
• The answers you get are only as useful as the
questions you ask.
• Voice to text technologies enable deeper and
more granular analysis, with identification of
trends and issues.
Electricity+Control June ‘16 32