Workforce Management Featured Article
How to Shop for Contact Centers
Organizations that are shopping for new contact center offerings should be sure to consider their reporting requirements and whether the solutions they’re looking at can support them. Those solutions’ ability to integrate with other business systems in a seamless way is also something shoppers need to be sure to investigate.
That’s the word from CEO LANtelligence Martin Tracey in a column he authored.
“At the very beginning of the data collection process and business process reviews, reporting should be one of the first items reviewed and agreed upon,” he writes. “Behind the scenes, contact center solutions make a variety of routing choices when determining where to route the next interaction. Having a clear vision on the desired reports and data can help clarify the routing choices required. Not all routes that an interaction takes are the same, and how the interaction is routed can have an impact on how it appears on the reports at the end of the day/week/month or quarter.”
Tracey says contact centers solutions that draw data from various databases and systems – like analytics, quality monitoring and reporting, and workforce management – can also create hassles for customers. That’s obviously in part because the data resides in separate repositories and can be in various formats. It’s also because if and when the different vendors of those solutions revise or update their data structure and tables, it can impact everything else for the contact center.
“Far too often this scenario creates a cycle of ongoing upgrades to try and get the different solutions working in harmony,” he says. “Over time, the management's lack of confidence in the data undermines the results and the ability to show the value of the contact center organization.”
Tracey suggests that to avoid that problem, organizations select a single-database solution. “In some cases, you may be giving up a couple features,” he adds, “but the end result is that data and reporting are accurate and can be used to support the value of the contact center with the C-level executives.”
Reporting is key in contact center environments. That’s why Calabrio (News - Alert) purchased Symmetrics early last year. The Symmetrics’ (now Calabrio) visualized reporting tool combines and presents call center and enterprise data. It works on all switches, and can leverage both structured and unstructured data in any format from any source. For example, the Symmetrics solution allows for the aggregation and analysis of data from custom-built applications, customer relationship management systems, human resource management systems, omnichannel routing systems, voice analysis solutions, and workforce management solutions.
Edited by Mandi Nowitz
