The power of customer opinion
by Jeff Hodson on August 15th, 2011
Did you know that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society? This finding, by Social Cognitive Networks Academic Research Center (SCNARC) scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, was recently published in the July 22, 2011, early online edition of the journal Physical Review E in an article titled, “Social consensus through the influence of committed minorities.”
The minority rule
SCNARC Director Boleslaw Szymanski, a distinguished professor at Rensselaer, states, “When the number of committed opinion holders is below 10 percent, there is no visible progress in the spread of ideas. It would literally take the amount of time comparable to the age of the universe for this size group to reach the majority. Once that number grows above 10 percent, the idea spreads like a flame.”
The post on Rensselaer’s website further explains how this research was concluded:
“To reach their conclusion, the scientists developed computer models of various types of social networks. One of the networks had each person connect to every other person in the network. The second model included certain individuals who were connected to a large number of people, making them opinion hubs or leaders. The final model gave every person in the model roughly the same number of connections. The initial state of each of the models was a sea of traditional-view holders. Each of these individuals held a view, but were also, importantly, open minded to other views.
Once the networks were built, the scientists then ‘sprinkled’ in some true believers throughout each of the networks. These people were completely set in their views and unflappable in modifying those beliefs. As those true believers began to converse with those who held the traditional belief system, the tides gradually and then very abruptly began to shift.”
Maybe you’ve experienced this phenomenon. You or your company’s idea, opinion, or agenda doesn’t seem to be getting any traction with your friends, colleagues, or customers. Suddenly, an unknowing critical mass of 10 percent of unshakable believers has accumulated through dialogue, collaboration, or experience, and “Wham!” a movement has begun―seemingly out of nowhere. Of course, this movement can have either a positive or negative effect depending on what the 10 percent minority’s conclusions are.
UC center impact
Quite often, today’s sales and support centers default to reactionary measures, meaning that they pay attention, usually, to majority-based situations. Issues or concerns are noticed and addressed after the flames have been fanned and are raging by the community of customers or users. This puts the center staff in the role of acting like firemen and firewomen addressing only critical path conversations and taking precious time away from listening and understanding the underlying minority swell of opinion that is occurring.
As one Rensselaer researcher states, “As agents of change start to convince more and more people…People begin to question their own views at first and then completely adopt the new view to spread it even further.”
These observations are useful in understanding how opinion spreads.
“There are clearly situations in which it helps to know how to efficiently spread some opinion or how to suppress a developing opinion,” said coauthor Gyorgy Korniss, Associate Professor of Physics, according to the release.
No question, increased integration of social networks (similar to those simulated in the study) as an additional form of unified communication feeding into the modern contact center is taking place. Taking these findings to heart in relation to social network integration could have a noticeable impact on center operations and the company’s bottom line as a result. Listening to and understanding the groundswell of minority opinion as it is happening is becoming more important.
With social networks now feeding into the ops center, the critical mass for reaching the tipping point may be driven even lower. As TrendsSpotting’s post points out “Once people get an illusionary image of the mass (and social networks interactions can generate such effect), they will address it accordingly.”
This could mean that with the integration of social networks into the contact center, one might expect spikes in opinion, ideas, and agendas to occur:
- More rapidly—rising faster than before
- More often—greater frequency than before
- More broadly—across a wider range of topics
Managing social media
With the newness of social media in the contact center, there is much debate on how it should be handled. Several models exist, some more successful than others. In general, there three common and related practices threaded into most attempts to manage this volatile area:
- Retain a quality social monitoring service. Covering all available social network information pouring in is inefficient, even impossible, to address humanly. Locating and partnering with a good social monitoring service whose core competency it is to find, filter, and forward relevant social information that is pertinent to your business concerns is essential. Working out the proper search and filter criteria may take a few iterations to perfect, but once satisfied can dramatically remove the chaff from the valuable kernels of information you are looking for. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself refining your filter from time to time in order to get to the right information.
- Tap information in the contact center to support collaboration. With “pre-qualified” social media in hand, continue to leverage what your contact center does best: treat the information with the appropriate prioritization, time, and attention to win the collaboration―however that is measured in your business. Many monitoring services want to provide customer relationship management (CRM) as an add-on to the core monitoring services they provide. I recommend against this, as CRM is usually one of the core competencies of the contact center. That’s what it is designed to do best. With the addition of social media, this may require interactions via new channels that traditional contact centers aren’t quite up to speed with. For example, responding on a customer’s Facebook wall with several hundred friends watching. Or maybe it’s a tweet to an analyst with lots of followers. Or more commonly, responding with a comment to a blog post or online article that may contain positive or erroneous information about your business. Whatever the media, it takes special “social interaction” treatment and collaboration to make an impact―which brings me to my third point.
- Develop a skilled social staff within your customer service representative (CSR) pool. Fortunately, many newer CSRs already have the social savviness to jump right in and interact. This must be coupled with a degree of freedom to respond appropriately but within the guidelines of the business and its public message. The number of social skilled staff should be few, trusted, and preferably with the ability to establish credibility for themselves and the business in the social world. The cream of the crop.
This area continues to evolve before our eyes, with many different approaches. The fact that a minority opinion can quickly turn into a majority, especially within the context of social networks, is something that should be noted. Whether your contact center participates directly with social media or not, it can be assumed that your business (its products, services, support, quality, responsiveness) is being discussed by your customers somewhere in the wild, forming opinions and ideas, seeking to reach a critical mass. I think it’s better to be part of the conversation from the beginning.
How do you handle social media within your operations? Is it working?
Give thanks to systems administrators
by Jeff Hodson on July 29th, 2011
Today is System Administrator Appreciation Day, and as a systems architect I’m acutely aware of all the incredible work they do on a daily basis. I think we can all agree that our lives would be much more difficult (crashing networks, unavailable phone systems, unsecured data) without the efforts of these dedicated employees.
Most people think about system administrators only when something goes wrong—in other words, when the IT systems that support their companies are suddenly unavailable. At Aspect, we’ve taken a different approach. To show our appreciation for the administrators, we have made a concerted effort to design products and platforms that can integrate seamlessly into your operation, saving you precious time.
With the emergence of Consumer 2.0, the contact center has taken on not only added importance but also added complexity, with new technologies, new channels to be integrated, and new enterprise-wide capabilities. As my colleagues note frequently on this blog, the next-generation contact center is positioned to be the hub of the company-customer relationship going forward. This means that systems administrators will have to bear the increased burden of supporting these capabilities.
Not in Aspect’s concept of the next-generation contact center.
We’ve pursued a number of angles to facilitate the integration of the contact center with the enterprise. Our work with organizations and experts around the world has helped us identify the right configurations to meet the needs of business.
Our developers have also designed products to provide all the needed capabilities through a unified platform that is centrally administered and can adapt to changes in capacity requirements. In addition, our close collaboration with Microsoft means that adding contact center functionality to platforms such as Lync is quick and painless.
Similarly, Aspect’s products lay a modern foundation for next-generation customer contact but without the requirements of a proprietary communication infrastructure. As a result, systems administrators can avoid difficult integration projects and devote more resources to higher-value work.
System administrators are a vital component of successful customer contact. They have the responsibility of integrating the systems and processes that enable a rich customer experience while managing the needs of the enterprise. At Aspect, we believe in doing our part to support their efforts 24/7/365.
Take time on Friday to let the system administrators know you appreciate the job they do for you every day.
The rise of Consumerized IT
by Jeff Hodson on June 28th, 2011
The continued beat down on enterprise IT organizations by their end users to become more Consumer 2.0 friendly is beginning to have an effect! The pressure appears to be loosening the vice grip of control that CIOs have enjoyed over the years and the intentional side effect of high-level separation between work and play activities. They are gradually becoming “Consumerized IT.”
In fact, according to a recent Proofpoint 2011 Consumerized IT Security Survey, “84% of organizations in the U.S. are now allowing their employees to use consumer-focused IT products and services such as iPads, iPhones, Facebook, Twitter, and instant messaging.” The survey even pushes the envelope by suggesting “organizations that prohibit consumerized IT may be increasing risk at an unquantifiable level.” This is due to the reality that employees are finding ways to use unsanctioned devices and services that leverage both work and play tasks regardless of the corporate rules. Consumerized IT is a fact of life in the workplace, business approved or not.
From the perspective of the contact center operations, a major end user of enterprise IT, the effects of Consumer 2.0 activities both within and outside the workplace is most evident. Regardless of a center’s service, sales, or marketing focus, collaboration and interfacing are occurring in ways that traditional enterprise IT shops just aren’t equipped to handle.
The need to incorporate social media information and online marketing efforts into the customer contact equation now has value. It is essential to access experts and management who are on the move via the plethora of mobile devices in order to sustain or improve contact resolution. Today’s “average” customer service representatives and peripheral expert professionals are tech savvy and spend much more time online, bringing their non-workplace approaches in house to socialize, communicate, and network while wondering why their IT-supplied workstation or phone has to be so darn difficult to use.
Of course there are reasons for this. IT security, support, and openness to the outside world are always a concern. Consumerized IT characteristics offer little to alleviate these concerns. But as a result of its “excuse me, I’m already here” presence, there are new ways being forged to help mitigate these risks including:
- Leveraging the latest virtualization technologies
- Emphasis on protecting actual data rather than the device – encryption, for example
- Moving away from a “trust only” approach to deploying a layered security and compliance strategy that includes a combination of trust, policy, and technology.
Risks aside, some of Consumerized IT’s benefits must be mentioned too:
- Greater accessibility to resources over extended periods of time – blending work and play
- Less burden and cost for the IT organization to supply the latest device or gadget as users will bring in their own – no more IE 6 browsing, yeah!
- More emphasis on application support and less on particular devices
- Collaboration and interaction that are prone to happen faster and continue in real time
Contact centers and their standby panel of UC-connected experts can greatly benefit from an IT organization that has a adaptability plan for Consumer IT. With the inevitable influx of social media content and online collaboration coming down the contact center pipe (not to mention maintaining the pace of the more traditional contact forms like voice, email, and chat), planning for and embracing the Consumer 2.0 onslaught rather than resisting it makes for a much smoother ride for the turbulent – or should I say cloud-y – times ahead. Either way Consumer IT is already in the proverbial “house” and poised to take over.
For more information on Consumer IT and how you can prepare for it, here are some excellent sources:
- Proofpoint 2011 Consumerized IT Security Survey
- 5 Reasons Why CIOs Can’t ignore Consumerization of IT
- Ready Or Not, They’re Already In Your Enterprise
- Security Concerns Aside, Consumer IT Takes Over Enterprises
So, I wonder, where does your enterprise IT organization stand as it relates to the Consumer 2.0 challenges? What is your IT shop doing to become Consumerized IT?
Let me know your feedback!
[DING] “…you are now free to use your electronic devices…”
by Jeff Hodson on June 6th, 2011
If you travel much through the air, I’m sure you’re familiar with some version of this in-flight announcement that comes over the speaker at about 10,000 feet. It used to be that it was only meant for the fortunate few who were lucky enough to be supplied with the latest technology while the rest of us reluctantly settled in for the long, monotonous, mind-numbing trip ahead. But today it’s different. A quick scan up and down the aisle reveals a significant number of passengers now at the ready with their devices poised, ear buds inserted, and fingers on the power button in anticipation to be the first to “wire in.”
Even more interesting is the proliferation of device types being used. No longer are laptops the only means for device activity; smartphones, tablets, players, and a host of other types are in the mix. In addition, what passengers are doing while on these devices has changed. It’s not just doing what you can while in offline mode, such as reviewing spreadsheets or editing slide decks. Now its online activity as well―email, IM, Facebook, voice calls, and checking in on how things are running back at the office.
Access to the right information with the right device is key
It’s this last item that got me thinking about access to critical, timely, and contextual information from the contact center. Sure, the information is there on premise, but is it accessible in the right form factor for those who need to know but are on the go? I don’t know how many times I’ve seen the well-intentioned manager standing in line at the coffee shop, watching a daughter’s soccer game, or rushing down the office hall wielding their laptop out in front of them, screen open, and typing away as if trying to act like what they were doing was normal. Whether in the next conference room, country, or continent, contact center executives and managers are in need of their information in a style and device that’s fitting no matter where they are.
Consider the contact center executive who is visiting customers to discuss service level agreements. Quite often, the context of these discussions involves reviewing recent user experiences―for example, an excessive queue wait time or an agent’s handling of collaboration. Executives need to be able to pull their smartphone out and bring up dashboards, review stats, or playback recordings in real time to reveal the whole story when the proverbial [DING] is rung by the customer. Doing so could provide negotiating leverage or solidify a long-term relationship.
Or take the contact center supervisor who is constantly on the run―cube to cube, floor to floor, or building to building. Agents are calling in sick, traffic is spiking, and that executive is looking for some specific details – [DING]. A tablet that goes where the supervisor goes, connected to the contact center data, would allow for immediate configuration changes in traffic queuing and agent schedules. They could monitor status and assist in analyzing the report data in real time. Whether at home, waiting for the kids at school, or tied up in a meeting down the hall, a manager can conquer the challenges directly and efficiently.
The trend toward more intimate devices
The need for more intimate devices tailored to provide access to entertainment and work items that are important to the people using them appears to be taking center stage, or at least becoming more mainstream according to a recent Forrester post, “The post-PC era: It’s real, but it doesn’t mean what you think it does.” Author Sarah Rotman Epps suggests that while the static desktop machines will still be around for some time, people are increasingly looking for devices to accomplish their tasks that are more ubiquitous, casual, intimate, and physically close and interactive with them at all times. Because of this, we can expect continued and increasing technology innovation in areas such as compactness, engaging all the senses, mobility, and context-aware sensors. She goes on to say:
“These technological innovations fuel social change, and vice versa. As people conduct more of their lives online—shopping, banking, entertainment—we require more computing in more places. The rise of social networking requires real-time connectivity to manage our relationships. And eroding work-life boundaries means that consumers demand devices that can do double-duty in their work and personal lives.”
I agree, but due diligence is in order for center operations. Is the contact center ready to embrace these new technology innovations driven by social change? Realistically, not as a whole, nor should it. There are still valid cases to be made for on-premise, static presence, and control of the environment, especially when needing to monitor and measure everything down to the keystroke. But moving toward these innovations at certain levels of the contact center (executive, supervisor, administrator, manager) can bring a more efficient, productive, and seamless workflow to the environment that just wasn’t possible before.
Apps that cross the workplace boundary
Today’s devices are many and diverse. The question is not “Can I find the right device to suite my needs?” The choices are now numerous. Rather, the question is, “Will the applications I need close to me run on the devices I’ve chosen to use no matter where I roam?” It is at this level a better application tool set is required for this new breed of devices that are generally available today.
To conclude, it might make sense to offer a list of some of the more important application features the management layers of the contact center need in order to realize the early benefits of using these newer devices and the innovations that come with them.
- Assumed functionality―IM, voice, email, social
- Access to contact center statistics and alert subscription
- Ability to provision contact center operations with appropriate credentials
- Customizable dashboards and real-time displays with key metric displays specific to the users concerns, whether at the business, workgroup, or service representative level.
- Management of workforce―scheduling, adherence, status
This list will definitely grow over time, offering a wealth of freedom and flexibility for those responsible to answer the [DING] for contact center operations today.
What do you think? Is this something you see as a “must have” for contact centers in today’s social climate? I’d like to know your thoughts.
Bite-Sized 2.0
by Jeff Hodson on May 12th, 2011
With the 2.0 experience in full swing, whether enterprise, Web, mobile, consumer or some combination, contact center businesses appear to have their work cut out for them. The challenge is to figure out how best to incorporate the next-generation forms of social collaboration into their daily operations while still maintaining the structured, reported, monitored, and efficient practices they are known for.
Given the critical lifeline the contact center provides for their business and its customers, it is often tagged as being a laggard when it comes to adopting the latest trends and technologies pushed by the market. Fortunately, riding the “All things 2.0” wave may be less daunting and more manageable than it first appears.
As principal architect for Aspect, I’m often asked to help investigate and define reasonable approaches to help our customers bridge the gap between the new and trendy with the reality of their contact center environment and service level agreement (SLA) requirements. With the latest wave of infrastructure and data technologies available for enterprises, I’m greatly encouraged that contact center owners will not have to sacrifice life and limb in order to bring the social element into their fold.
In fact, many technology building blocks being offered today – with a 2.0 agenda – are increasingly sensitive to integration, blending, and loose coupling as they aim to become part of established, even legacy, environments. They are in effect allowing those who are nervous, uncertain, or skeptical to adopt 2.0 functionality in bite-sized portions without having to risk more than their operation can handle.
Reviewing the recent keynote addresses presented at Microsoft’s MIX11 conference, which dealt with the Web and its future, reminded me that many of Microsoft’s recent technology announcements weren’t so much about new whiz bang functionality as simplification, standards, streamlining, performance, tooling, and integration – all features geared toward incorporating Web 2.0 functionality into the business environment in small and manageable chunks. This approach enables you to grow and familiarize yourself with the 2.0 adoption curve as your business learns what it wants to do with all the new social data.
Speaking of data, it should be expected that social content will be flowing in bite-sized chunks as well. Gone are the complete conversations that had well-defined beginnings and endings to them. Instead we should expect a much more granular and disruptive flow of information from the social space that occurs over longer periods of time.
For the contact center, this may require complete service collaborations to include several mini-transactions that may take the form of tweets, blog comments, RSS feeds, and the like. How we handle this new information in line with the way today’s businesses operate will be a great topic of discussion.
As I begin to contribute to this blog, I’m excited at what’s in store for contact centers and how they collaborate going forward – dare I use the already-abused term “contact center 2.0”? In the coming weeks, I plan on delving into several of the newer trends and technologies that are or will have a noticeable impact on contact center environment as it relates to the 2.0 experience. Areas will include:
- Social Media
- The Cloud
- Mobility
- Web 2.0 Technology
- Security
- Availability
- Skills
At Aspect, we are continuously working hard to seamlessly incorporate the 2.0 experience into contact center operations. Let me know your thoughts, concerns, or ideas on how we can make the experience even better as we continue this dialogue in future posts. I welcome your feedback.
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Improving the way companies communicate internally and externally with their customers is an important objective for all organizations. This blog is focused on levaraging the collective knowledge withing Aspect.