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Jack Wynn

New App to ‘Aggressively’ Change Workforce

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A mobile call centre app is aiming to remove the need of computer terminals for employees without risking data security.

The Verint Mobile Work View looks to allow employees constant access to workplace information regardless of time or location.

With a main goal of removing the reliance on computers and web browsers, the app will also allow employees to access work schedules and request time off through their mobile devices.

The app allows for enhanced security capabilities to ensure information isn’t stored on devices, and “enables companies to confidently extend mobile capabilities to employees without compromising data security,” says Verint SVP and general manager in strategic operations, Nancy Treaster, adding “we are aggressively and proactively adding apps and other solutions that help address the evolving requirements of today’s changing workforce.”

The changes integrate Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies, which can have large financial benefits and increase workforce optimisation in employees.

The convenience of instantly using your own devices, according to Ms Treaster, will allow workers to “experience the benefits of further engagement and empowerment that comes with delivering on-demand, actionable information.”

Forum Insight: 10 ways to succeed at networking events…

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Walking into an event room full of people you don’t know can be a scary experience. However, there are proven ways to conquer this fear and make networking an enjoyable and a useful process to do business. Here, we share 10 of the best practices to eradicate those networking nerves.

  1. Plan ahead: Try to obtain the attendee list in advance and highlight the people you would like to meet. On arrival, contact the event organiser and say who you are trying to connect with. If they get the chance, an introduction between yourself and the other party will be made upon arrival. It might also be beneficial to go to the registration area to ask if one of your selected visitors has arrived.
  1. Get there early: If you are one of the first to arrive, it is much easier to strike up a conversation with a small group of people.
  1. Most people are in the same position: If you do not know anyone else attending, it’s good to prepare a few opening questions: ‘Any particular presentation you’re looking forward to hearing today?’; ‘What brought you to this event?’
  1. Join a group: Approaching a group of attendees already in full conversation is a daunting prospect. So be bold, confident, and simply ask: “May I join the conversation? I’ve just arrived and I’m keen to learn what’s going on.”
  1. Build interesting conversation: Ask topical and relevant questions to the specific event. Be a good listener and don’t dominate the conversation with your own stories and business ideas.
  1. Be helpful: Share your knowledge of the industry, your contacts and sources of information. If people perceive you as an experienced and knowledgeable professional, they will want to keep in contact and maintain a relationship.
  1. Use your business card as a tactical weapon: I have a friend who renovates old wooden floors, so his business card is made of a thin piece of wood and has proven to be a guaranteed conversation starter. Be imaginative with the design and the job title displayed. Anything that says ‘sales’ or ‘business development’ could cause people to fear a sales pitch is on the way. So try and think of a job title that encourages a productive conversation.
  1. Receiving business cards: Be sure to make notes on the back to remind you of the conversation and the person. This could become much use in future interactions.
  1. Following up: If you engaged in constructive conversation with an attendee and have agreed to follow up after the event, then set a preferred method of contact and make sure to do so promptly.
  1. What not to do: Sales pitches, even if you’re asked ‘what does your company do’, keep your answer to a very brief explanation. Don’t ‘work the room’ rushing from group to group as this is not the way to form business relationships. It’s better to have had four good conversations than a dozen meaningless chats.

 

Words by Paul Rowney, director at Forum Events Ltd

BT to add 500 jobs to meet customer service targets…

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British Telecom (BT) has declared it will add a further 500 frontline customer service positions to its
bases across the UK and Ireland.

Due to the continuing growth of the company’s BT Consumer division, contact centres in Doncaster,
Accrington, Swansea and Warrington are expected to benefit the most, and the new roles are in addition to the previously-announced target of 1,000 UK and Ireland customer service jobs by the end of March 2017.

Expanding the customer service teams will also help with BT’s commitment to answer 90 per cent of its customers’ calls in the UK and Ireland by the same date.

Libby Barr, managing director of customer care at BT Consumer, said: “We are proud to be creating these new jobs in the UK and Ireland. BT is completely changing the way we serve our customers in order to boost our service levels.

“We are going to answer 90 per cent of our customers’ calls in the UK and Ireland by the end of March, and we have been taking on great people to fill full time jobs working for BT. In fact, we will be recruiting for an extra 500 positons, which will be a dramatic increase in what we said we’d do.”

BT’s existing employees can earn a £500 bonus under a ‘Refer a Friend’ scheme if their friend’s application is successful and they complete the first six months of the role.

Manpower agency staff will also have the chance to convert their role into a permanent position with BT.

Register now for Customer Service of the Year…

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Customer Service of the Year is now open for 2018 entries! Head over to csoy.co.uk to see what the awards can offer you, including a detailed research report, personalised debriefs, and a true understanding of how your customers really feel about you. Plus, there’s an exclusive discount for Call Centre & Customer Service Summit attendees.

 

Contact Bob (bob@csoy.co.uk) and quote code CCS!

Noble’s RTSA endorsed by permanent tsb to improve contact centre performance…

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Noble Systems’ Real-Time Speech Analytics (RTSA) has been adopted by the Irish banking chain, permanent tsb, in a bid to enhance all contact centre controls and further improve its customer service offering.

Noble’s Composer RTSA claims to ‘listen’ to all agent interactions and assigns an individual virtual coaching partner to provide agent feedback when needed.

Using a library of ‘user-defined phrases’, the system monitors all calls and triggers an alert when a phrase is detected or not detected on both sides of the conversation, based on the conditions defined for the campaign.

Alerts can be sent to managers via the Noble Harmony web manager interface, as well as agents using the Noble Composer agent desktop.

Alan Murphy, head of Collections at permanent tsb said: “At permanent tsb, we take customer service very seriously and we have invested heavily in technology that will support our agents to provide exceptional service and support to our clients.

“One of the key reasons we purchased Composer RTSA from Noble Systems was to complement our existing Noble technology, allowing us to identify areas of the scripted conversation not going to plan for our agents  and to proactively notify them during the call. With Composer RTSA, we can listen out for key phrases to ensure that 100 per cent of calls are in compliance and that any customer or agent issues are flagged in real time, rather than after the event”.

Colin Chave, general manager at Noble Systems EMEA added: “We are delighted that permanent tsb have invested in Composer RTSA, and we are looking forward to seeing them quickly realise their return on investment and at the same time improve their customer journey and increase agent satisfaction.

Learn more about Composer RTSA here

Senior business leaders holding back on adopting new technology…

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New research carried out by 8×8 and the Institute of Directors (IoD) has exposed a rift between attitudes of company directors and IT managers when it comes to embracing new technology.

Comparing the views of mid-level ‘hands-on’ IT managers with senior directors across more than 260 UK businesses, the research found 45 per cent of IT managers say their senior business leaders are holding back technology for reasons of ‘self-preservation’, whereby they are reluctant to embrace new techology that will disrupt their own position within their organisations.

In addition, IT managers were found to be far less optimistic than senior directors when asked if their organisation makes full use of the latest technology, with just 34 per cent believing they do, compared with 49 per cent of C-suite respondents.

Kevin Scott-Cowell, UK managing director at 8×8 said: “We frequently hear anecdotal evidence that IT managers face significant opposition from senior leaders when it comes to adopting new technologies such as cloud communications – this research suggests this is something which is widely felt.”

62 per cent of IT managers say UK businesses are too wary when it comes to adopting new technology, such as cloud communications, and only 56 per cent believe senior members invest sufficient resources to stay up-to-date with the latest technology.

An insufficient budget is also a significant factor felt by IT managers when it comes to new technology implementation (35 per cent), compared to just 20 per cent of senior business leaders.

Scott-Cowell added: “Certainly, many senior leaders fear replacing expensive legacy IT systems that they have invested in. Their reluctance to do so in order to preserve the status quo can be damaging to businesses who are losing out on the many benefits to staff productivity and, ultimately, the potential for business growth.”

To read the full report, click here

Inisoft: Happy Agents = Happy Customers…

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Now more than ever, people are the most important asset in the contact centre. Technology has advanced to the point that most simple issues can be resolved digitally, without an employee’s involvement. However, this means that when a customer does need to speak with an agent, issues are highly complex, and customers are often more frustrated than ever. 

Download the Aberdeen Group’s report on “Agent Desktop Optimization: Three Strategies to Maximize Agent Productivity and Customer Experience” which highlights the importance of an agent desktop optimisation programme and how this not only empowers a contact centre agent but also the organisation. 
 

To download the Aberdeen Report, click here

Contact us at: info@inisoft.com

Guest Blog, Amanda Johnson: Top tips for introducing a business continuity management strategy…

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Business Continuity involves building resilience in your organisation by identifying its key products and services and the critical activities that underpin them, then devising strategies so that you can trade through a disruption and recover afterwards. Most organisations recognise the importance of having a Business Continuity plan in place, but perceive the process to be too expensive and time consuming. However, this doesn’t have to be the case…

The benefits of introducing continuity awareness within an organisation far outweigh the risks associated with just hoping bad things won’t happen (although statistically they will!).  Companies are looking ever more carefully at their supply chain to identify potential weaknesses and are asking for evidence of a documented and tested strategy to prove service level agreements can be maintained in any event.

The biggest mistake is trying to do the whole process in one fell swoop which, if ever completed, is likely to be a huge document that is put on a shelf and ignored for quite some time. By breaking the process down into simple, manageable phases where you can tick off the “quick wins” and demonstrate progress you introduce a culture of ongoing review, it is vitally important to constantly update your recovery plans in line with business growth and operational changes:

  1. Carry out regular risk assessments and take steps to eliminate – or at least minimise – potential threats to the operation of your business;
  1. Consider possible scenarios and analyse their impact on your business – forewarned is forearmed;
  1. Compile an action plan of what should be done in order to maintain ‘Business As Usual’ in any event. Put formal contracts in place to enable fast recovery of vital operations;
  1. Document key business processes and ensure no critical activities can be done by a single individual;
  1. Review the resilience of your suppliers and their capability to meet service-level agreements (SLA). Consider multiple sourcing to reduce reliance on a single supplier;
  1. Protect your company information and ensure it can be accessed or rapidly restored in any event without compromising on security;
  1. Conduct regular tests to prove you can continue to function should you lose access to your premises or vital services, or, worst-case scenario, your entire business environment;
  1. Encourage all employees to get involved with the preparation and testing of Business Continuity plans so they buy in to the importance of keeping your business alive.

 

Learn more about the DSM Group here

Amanda Johnson is the operations director at DSM Group, an IT Services and Solutions company specialising in Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery. DSM operates out of a secure facility with a number of fully configured workplace recovery suites where business can relocate to if unable to work in their usual premises and carry on business as usual. DSM has a highly resilient data centre with a team of specialist engineers providing a range of services including cloud computing, system recovery and automated data storage.

Guest Blog, Darryl Beckford: Merging the new with the old – disruptive technologies for contact excellence…

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Customer expectations have never been higher, and the contact centre has been heavily affected by the rising ‘bar’ for contemporary customer experience, fuelled by rapidly evolving consumer technologies.

But in reality, many struggle to reconcile antiquated operations with strategic digital ambitions. The danger is that without improving the customer experience and breadth of service available through the contact centre, many enterprises will be unable to achieve their core strategic objectives and will leave themselves vulnerable to challenger start-ups.

The right technology deployments such as voice analytics, natural language call steering and voice biometric technology can enable a customer-centric strategy in the modern contact centre. These tools can be used in new ways (outlined below) to drive efficiencies and a better experience now. But what about the future?

As consumer adoption of technology outpaces that of the enterprise, contact centres of the future must harness new modern technologies for the connected consumer to enhance the experiences of both employees and customers alike. These innovative technologies can be merged with current tools, delivering customer contact that supports a disruptive business.

Voice analytics

Voice analytics raised its head about five or seven years ago as ‘the next big thing’, but has fizzled out because the use case pushed by vendors just wasn’t working. While in theory the idea that you could do a Google-esque search of your call recordings to find out what people are saying sounds fun, in reality companies don’t have the time to delve into that detail.

But many companies have invested in this technology, and there are other ways to derive value from it. That way is through using voice analytics to drive consistency and embed change. For example, the use of Quality Advisors to monitor agent calls to ensure the best possible service is widespread, but in contact centres with more than 1,000 agents this can be an expensive and inefficient process. Often there is only time to monitor one or two of each agent’s calls every month.

Instead, contact centres can use voice analytics to listen to all calls answered by agents, and not only give agents a score that is more specific, but can do so on a daily basis. This makes it a lot easier to gather the most out of your workforce, ensuring consistency and empowering personal behavioural change in the contact centre. Most contact centres have good staff who are ambitious, and want to do the best job possible, but they may be inconsistent – and without useful instruction, will remain so. Voice analytics is one way of tackling that in 2017.

Natural language call steering

Natural language call steering can ensure the call reaches the appropriate adviser by automating the caller’s journey, and when done right it can work seamlessly for customers. Using an ‘Open Menu’, contact centres can ask the customer to describe their reason for calling, and use the caller’s naturally spoken response and further clarification questions to route the call. Speech recognition technology in the past was incredibly lumpy, and this is worlds apart. The key feature is that it is low effort, and directs the customer to where they want to go the first time round.

Voice biometrics

Looking back, 2016 has been the year of voice biometrics. Banks such as Barclay’s are beginning to take the potential of the technology seriously, paving the way for other industries to adopt it as a trusted method of verification in call centres. Voice biometric technology can be used to create a unique Voice ID or “voiceprint” from a caller’s voice. This can be used to identify and verify callers to the contact centre, and also as part of a multi-factor authentication scheme for digital and mobile application channels.

Some challenges have arisen as new software has become available which potentially allows a fraudster to spoof a customer’s voice. Biometrics tools will continue to evolve to defeat this “voice hack”, by using additional factors to ensure security.

Right now voice biometrics is seen as being about security, however the future of the technology will actually be about customer personalisation and choice. Since identity verification can now happen without the customer even noticing, voice biometrics make sure customers are treated in the way they ought to be. Ultimately the aim is to allow customers to use their identity to be able to log how they want to be treated, and which channels they like to use.

Voice-controlled technology

The voice-connected Amazon Echo was released in the UK just over a month ago, and is a connected home tool which could change the way that people live in their homes. The Amazon Echo runs on a service called Alexa, a voice controlled personal assistant. Amazon sees the future as smarter, connected and everywhere, and it is my opinion that the real boom here will be in customer contact.

If used properly, voice-controlled tools can drastically improve customer experience, reduce customer effort and reduce operating costs. Customers are really driven by effort, even the extra work involved in having to look up passwords is enough to put customers off. Customer contact involves many different transactions types, from balance check which lasts a couple of minutes to a mortgage application which can last up to 40 minutes. A lengthy transaction would not work on technology like Echo, but short frequent activities such as ‘Check my Balance’ are a sweet spot for Alexa. The customer benefit is huge – chores become a 10 second activity, rather than an obstructive two minutes via the call centre.

The key to this technology is spotting when it will work within the customer journey, and how it can tie into how the customer is attempting self-service. Organisations must start to think in a slightly different way – not necessarily about linear process flows, but understanding what the customer is doing in that specific episode.

Potential for the future

But the potential doesn’t stop there for the technology. In 2017 and beyond, the combination of voice biometrics and other technology is where we will see the most change. If an Amazon Echo device can recognise you from the sound of your voice, then in the future it should be able to offer you things based on your preferences, and services that you’ll be subscribed to. What if you could go to someone’s house, be recognised by your voice, and connect to your own account? It could go even further: the Echo is a dumb device with a speaker, microphone and a processor, but it could be replaced with your connected car allowing you to also access those services, handsfree, whilst on the move.

The future of voice biometrics is that these devices will be able to connect you with your services and preferences based on your identity. As the technology that is becoming mainstream begins to connect together and prove itself, it offers a glimpse into a future that is radically different from where we are now.

 

Darryl is a customer contact professional who has mastered the art of delivering low effort experiences for customers across multiple channels. Now head of Digital Acceleration at KCOM, he has considerable previous experience as a consultant, helping many well-known brands create precise, meaningful and repeatable experiences for their customers.

Industry Spotlight: New original research from Kura and the CCA…

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For most contact centre professionals, delivering consistently good customer experience across multiple channels and touchpoints is the ultimate goal. Understanding the complex landscape of changing customer expectations, as well as the opportunities offered by technological innovations, means that this goal requires continuous adaptation.

With this in mind, Kura teamed up with the CCA to understand what this means for organisations today and how they can best prepare for this in the future. From our extensive research we’ve uncovered a number of trends and have concluded five top customer service strategies to service the contact centre customer of the future. These are:

1. Lead from the top down.
2. Personal, empathetic and complex problem-solving.
3. Setting-up people for success.
4. Measuring performance.
5. Be proactive, seize opportunities.

 

To download our exec summary, click here