SWPP Announces Finalists: 2012 Workforce Management Professional of the Year
by Jane Hendricks on March 5th, 2012
In just a few days, several Aspect colleagues and I will be heading to Nashville for the Society of Workforce Planning Professionals (SWPP) Annual Conference. Excitement is in the air! In addition to the usual buzz about meeting up with workforce professional colleagues, we’ve just learned that three Aspect Customers are among the five finalists for the 2012 Workforce Management Professional of the Year award.
Finalists were selected by the SWPP Board of Advisors from nominations received on the SWPP website, submitted by call center employees and business partners over the past 12 months. The recipient of this annual award, according to SWPP, is someone who not only understands the importance of contact center staffing, but also sees that workforce management is as much an “art” as it is a “science.”
Congratulations to these three Aspect® Workforce Management® customers, who have been named finalists by the SWPP Board: Michael Ellis of Suddenlink Communications; Kristin Goldman of Ameriprise Financial; and Cynthia Stevenson of Citi.
It gives us a great deal of pride to be affiliated with these three stand-out individuals. It’s exciting to see the kind of positive impact they’ve brought to their organizations, and knowing our solutions had a role to play in their success is especially gratifying. We are thrilled to see their accomplishments recognized, particularly by such a respected institution as SWPP.
The other two finalists are: Chad Andree of CenterPoint Energy; and Robert Dobson of InterContinental Hotels Group.
Winner to be Announced at SWPP Annual Conference
As I mentioned, my bags are packed for Nashville and I’m looking forward to representing Aspect at the SWPP Conference, where we expect to hear the official announcement of the 2012 winner. My fingers are crossed for all of our nominees!
If you plan to be on site with us as well, I hope you’ll take the time to stop by the Aspect booth and attend our sessions. My colleague Eric Hagaman, Product Strategist for Workforce Management, will be offering valuable tips during the 60 Ideas in 60 Minutes. And I’ll also be presenting:
Managing Your Front and Back Office Workforce with Quality in Mind
March 7, 10:45 AM – 12:00 PM
Plus, don’t miss the session by Aspect customer Brighthouse Networks:
Getting the Most Out of Your Workforce Management Investments
March 9, 10:15 AM – 11:00 AM
We’re looking forward to seeing you!
A UC Reality Check with Nemertes Research
by Kelly Burke on January 12th, 2012
Despite the promise of unified communications, many companies still struggle with challenges such as creating an effective business case, measuring results, choosing the right partner (or partners), and developing an effective organization.
Join me on January 26, together with Irwin Lazar of Nemertes Research, for A Unified Communications Reality Check webinar.
Using real-world cases studies and benchmark data gathered from hundreds of end-user organizations, this hour-long webinar will answer many of the questions that may be preventing an organization from moving forward with a more efficient, cost-saving UC solution.
We’ll explore:
- What solutions companies are currently deploying and why.
- How to build a business case and measure success.
- How to develop organizational, vendor, partner, and technology road-maps.
- What role Microsoft® should play in an enterprise UC strategy.
- How to integrate enterprise UC strategies with application platforms.
- The proper role of “the cloud” in your technology infrastructure.
Join our live presentation on Thursday, January 26th at 1 pm ET by pre-registering now. Or, upon completion of the event, we’ll offer a recording you can view online.
We’re looking forward to a great discussion during A Unified Communications Reality Check that promises to provide valuable insight that will help your business advance its UC strategy and realize greater business efficiency.
Customer Service 2.0
by Chris O'Brien on October 26th, 2011
Photo credit: mensatic from morguefile.com
October opened with a nod of acknowledgement to the customer service industry. Since 1992, the first week of October has been celebrated in the United States as National Customer Service Week when Congress first proclaimed it a national event. The statement issued at that time by President George H. W. Bush noted the essential role customer service representatives play in connecting with customers, as evidenced by this excerpt:
A business built on customer service understands and anticipates the customer’s needs. It designs goods and services to meet those needs and builds products that perform to customer expectations. It then packages them carefully, labels them correctly, sells them at a fair price, delivers them as scheduled, and follows up, as necessary, to satisfy the customer. This kind of commitment to service leads to customer loyalty and to genuine improvements at the bottom line.
Consider the relevance that these words, spoken nearly 20 years ago, still have to customer experience today. Despite countless advances in social technology and online communication, listening and responding to the customer’s needs lie at the heart of exceptional customer service.
However, even if the underlying principles of customer service haven’t changed, consumers have.
One significant advantage on the side of the customers is the ability to quickly share and leverage their opinions of the service they receive, both good and bad. Just one customer can readily share a negative experience with hundreds of contacts on social networks, blogs, discussion forums, and rating sites. As a result, companies are eager to enter the social space as well to engage with customers, head off potential negative feedback, and earn customers’ loyalty.
Is your organization prepared to deliver the level of engagement expected by today’s highly networked, information-empowered Consumer 2.0?
In a recent report for Forrester Research, analyst Kate Leggett explores various methods to Turbocharge Customer Service with Social Technologies. The report is worth reading in its entirety: it points out a number of strategies for implementing social technology without losing the consistency of your brand experience across channels, and without losing sight of the fact that social channels are, in essence, another method of delivering the same excellent customer service that should be delivered to customers via traditional channels.
Leggett will be presenting key elements of this report alongside Aspect in the upcoming webinar, “Forrester Viewpoint: Business 2.0 Imperatives for Consumer Engagement.” Register now and plan to attend on Wednesday, November 9, to hear best practices and emerging tactics for breaking down the customer communication silos in your organization.
It would be a mistake to expect today’s consumers to be the same consumers they were in 1992. But it would also be a mistake to assume social technology is a shortcut to customer satisfaction.
Join the thought leadership discussion, Forrester Viewpoint: Business 2.0 Imperatives for Consumer Engagement, and learn the steps you can take now to empower agents, enhance the customer experience, and leave customers with a positive impression of your brand.
Gartner® analyst research, courtesy of Aspect
by Chris O'Brien on October 6th, 2011
This month, many of the IT industry’s leaders will be meeting in Orlando, Florida, for several days of networking, collaboration, and innovation at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2011.
Representatives from Aspect will be on hand as well to talk with individuals in pre-scheduled one-on-one sessions and to showcase our next-generation contact center solutions at the Aspect booth.
At Aspect, we pride ourselves not just on the quality of our solutions and customer service but also on partnering with IT professionals to develop flexible, scalable platforms and applications necessary for growing a successful business. Your organization is at the forefront of Aspect’s mission: to help you meet the heightened expectations of today’s socially networked, information-empowered consumers. We succeed when you succeed.
To celebrate the spirit of thought-leadership, research, and innovation promoted by the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, we are pleased to offer complementary reprints of two Gartner research documents, available for download for a limited time.
Magic Quadrant for Contact Center Infrastructure, Worldwide presents the analysts’ view of the contact center marketplace and breaks down factors that contribute to a provider’s position in the Magic Quadrant – such as the organization’s completeness of vision and ability to execute.
Business Benefits Drive the Alignment Between Contact Center Infrastructure and Workforce Optimization Software documents the workforce optimization (WFO) capabilities of all the major contact center infrastructure(CCI) vendors in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Contact Center Infrastructure, Worldwide. The provision of a single solution spanning CCI and WFO reduces the total cost of ownership and provides incremental business value not otherwise achievable with stand-alone solutions.
Our customers have reported significant cost savings one year following implementation of their Aspect contact center solution, including 20 to 30 percent lower annual maintenance costs.
Hopefully the ITxpo will offer us a chance to connect and discuss these possibilities in person!
The IT agenda: Staying ahead of expectations
by Chris O'Brien on September 22nd, 2011
As legacy systems age out of operation, the case for moving toward more open and non-proprietary systems has no doubt been made in your organization. CIOs and leaders across the enterprise are recognizing the functional necessity of maintaining a framework that is flexible, scalable, and capable of minimizing the cost of dependence.
Not every customer contact solution provider is on par with your long-term IT objectives, however. In fact, most offer proprietary, black-box contact center applications that fail to interface well with the existing enterprise stack.
Reducing Complexity
Aspect’s next-generation customer contact platform is a forward-facing, centrally administered solution that utilizes standard protocols so you can readily respond to business demands. Maintaining unified systems and processes can help you prevent disruptions to customer service that can translate into significant monetary loss, as well as harm to the corporate reputation.
But what about the high cost of inertia? The resource strain of maintaining diverse systems that operate in disconnected silos is an often-overlooked impediment to business agility and budgetary prudence.
Cutting costs
In actual customer cases, organizations have reported examples of the cost savings they experienced over the past year following implementation of their Aspect contact center solution. These included:
- 337% ROI within 1 year
- 15-25% lower infrastructure costs
- 20-30% lower telecommunication costs
- 10-20% lower IT overhead
- 20-30% lower annual maintenance costs
One of the themes of this year’s Gartner Symposium/ITxpo is taking charge of the IT leadership opportunities available in your organization to optimize performance, growth, and the ability to respond to customer’s changing needs and expectations.
Aspect will be on hand at the symposium to discuss our solution in depth. If you would like to schedule individual time with an Aspect expert, please submit this request.
THINK FAST! The Customer Service Juggling Act
by Chris O'Brien on August 29th, 2011
When an organization is trying to deliver on the ever-elusive promise of exceptional customer service, it can feel a lot like a juggling routine.
You know the street performers who juggle knives? That’s the image that comes to mind for me. Someone starts out juggling three or four of the lethal-looking objects—a perfectly impressive, but still manageable, number for a man of skill—but then his partner starts flinging more knives at him, one right after the other. His ability to deftly catch each one by the hilt and return it to the ever-growing path of encircling blades overhead never fails to draw gasps of awe (and horror) from the onlookers.
But if knives were customer service calls, that’s not the only thing our blade-wrangling agent would have to deal with, is it? Customers would also be tossing him curve balls and bowling pins. Flaming bowling pins. Studded with razor-sharp insults and jabs.
This poor guy, assuming he’s still alive (and has both of his hands), is tasked with catching and juggling anything tossed at him—cats included.
Failure to delight the crowd on the street means failing to get those $20 bills in his hat. Failure to delight the customer means an organization loses buyers, becomes the subject of negative tweets viewable by millions, receives bad service rankings from industry watchdogs. In either case, it’s the customer—and the customer experience—that dictates success or failure.
With so much at stake, maybe juggling isn’t exactly the best way to manage this sophisticated customer-company relationship. In fact, we suggest choosing a platform that keeps your contact center grounded, instead of up in the air, by delivering a cohesive, coordinated experience across a wide range of channels to interact with today’s hyper-connected consumer. No need to even hire (or grow) extra arms.
Hear about a company that did exactly that. On September 28, one of our clients will discuss how they used Aspect Unified IP to route incoming interactions from multiple sources and balance the workload between their existing contact center agents.
Register for the webinar and case study discussion: Boosting Customer Satisfaction through Contact Center Innovation.
They proved it’s possible to rethink the juggling act—you can too.
10 reasons to attend Aspect’s Insight On Workforce Optimization webinar series
by Chris O'Brien on August 12th, 2011
If you use or are considering using Aspect technologies—or you just want to stay abreast of the latest trends in workforce optimization—be sure you’re registered for the free Insight On Workforce Optimization (WFO) webinar series.
You see, I actually owe everyone reading this blog an apology.
You have your own reasons and/or excuses for not checking in more frequently. I know. It’s fine! You’ve been busy. But our new Insight On WFO webinar series kicked off in June, and I still haven’t given you my Top Ten Reasons for attending.
(One could argue that since I was not blogging in June… but my boss hates whiners, and I’m sure yours does too. So off we go!)
Anyway. As compelling as I know you’re going to find my ten reasons, the webinars actually speak for themselves. The Insight On series is a forum for Aspect to share practical tips and strategies with users, prospective users, and anyone who is challenged with enabling or enhancing customer contact. The goal is to help you make sense of the ever-evolving customer landscape while optimizing all available resources—including those within your customer contact operations and beyond.
Each webinar is delivered by a subject matter expert who translates technology and innovation into practical, real-world advice that can you can use to drive your contact center’s productivity, effectiveness, and profitability.
But because we’re both here, and I promised: Top Ten Reasons to Attend Aspect’s Insight On Workforce Optimization Webinars:
10. All webinars offer valuable content at no charge.
9. Plus, if you dial in from a local café, perhaps you could expense your lunch. (Please note that Aspect in no way recommends doing this. I can’t believe you would entertain such an idea!)
8. If you are already an Aspect customer, this is a great way to be sure you’re maximizing the value of your investment.
7. Become the go-to expert in your organization. Every webinar is recorded, and you can easily forward the link to the webinar replay to your peers using a clever “We need to think about this!” email.
6. Engage with the presenters to ask questions and get answers to your own specific challenges.
5. Learn about new solutions that can help you address common workforce issues. (See #7 above. You will quickly earn the admiration and respect of all your peers!)
4. Raise the bar on performance with practical advice and guidance, including strategies for utilizing Workforce Management that you may not have considered.
3. Discover new ways to balance the skills and demands of your workforce against the opportunities and demands of today’s consumer.
2. Upcoming topics will address “Getting the Most out of Agent 2.0,” “The Benefits of Aspect Workforce Management 7.4,” and “Incorporating Quality Data into Managing Your Workforce.”
1. Consider the implications of not attending. Just consider for a moment. But not too long, because you could really freak yourself out.
All that being said, these webinars really do speak for themselves in terms of the content value and deep dives into Workforce Optimization topics that they offer as a benefit to you and your organization. See for yourself by listening to one of these replays:
Mastering the Social Dialogue in Your Contact Center
Driving Results with Interaction Analytics
Then, be sure to register so you have the opportunity to engage with the presenters in upcoming sessions!
Connecting with the customer (or whoever is at end of your line)
by Chris O'Brien on August 9th, 2011
Do you have kids? I have a teenager. Communicating with her can be a lot like dialing an 800 number.
Yesterday was registration day at her high school, so I knocked on her bedroom door to see if she’d filled out all the necessary forms for classes, parking, etc. There was no answer, so I opened the door a crack to politely peek in. Kate was on her cell. She glanced up at me and held up a finger.
I’d been placed on hold.
Thus began my customer experience with own daughter, and it didn’t even include any soothing hold music.
Eventually, Kate put her hand over the receiver of her phone, indicating that my appearance did not qualify as a reason for ending a call, and said bluntly, “What?”
I explained the situation, that registration would begin in an hour, and we needed to gather up her forms.
“I don’t know where those forms are,” she said. “I’ll ask Dad.”
I was on hold again, as Kate hopped off her bed and left me standing in her doorway while she routed my issue to an expert.
A few moments later, my husband appeared in the hallway. He looked at me questioningly.
“Well?” I said. “Did Kate ask you about the forms?”
“What forms? Kate said you needed me for something.”
I stifled a huff. Clearly my issue had not been communicated to the next agent.
When analysts and organizations debate unified communications, the arguments can take on a myopic view that centers on productivity and time savings: either it saves agents a significant amount of time per interaction, per activity, per hour, per day, and that savings is considered significant to the organization… or it doesn’t.
As Eric Krapf of the No Jitter blog linked above points out, “That’s just lazy.” The number of minutes saved by performing “x” task is not how UC business cases are built. To illustrate this point, he directs readers to a sample slide presentation (PDF) of how they are. Instead, UC is about closing sales faster, and resolving contact center issues faster.
These are the business outcomes that drive real results.
Sure, if all UC could do was give my daughter an extra 15 minutes in her day, she’d spend it on the couch. But if UC could be implemented at the mother-daughter level, and it lived up to its promise of making our brief communications more effective, leaving me with a positive, happy feeling instead of a rage stroke, then yes. Sign me right up.
At the contact center level, you have the opportunity to effect the type of customer-company relationship that can greatly influence a customer’s perception of your brand by making genuine, human connections. UC gives agents the tools to be responsive to a customer’s needs and keep them connected throughout the conversation.
Those are the companies I want to do business with.
NOTE: Register now for the CRMxchange-sponsored webinar debate, “UC in the Contact Center –Successes, Disappointments, and Emerging Opportunities,” on August 16, featuring experts from Aspect, Cisco, and Seimens.
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.
Next-generation customer contact: Where the rubber meets the road
by Mike Sheridan on May 26th, 2011
My colleagues and I have been talking for some time about next-generation customer contact: how the increased expectations of today’s consumers are compelling companies to tap into the collective intelligence of the organization by adopting a customer-centric model and integrating a range of communication tools.
Despite our best efforts, we are not immune to the temptation of lofty promises, hyperbole, and blue sky thinking. However, we recognize it’s important to separate the products and applications that can deliver real value now from those that are still years away. That’s where firsthand experience with Aspect customers comes in, because it grounds us as to the reality of the evolution of customer contact and how companies have begun to extend its reach throughout the organization.
Most recently, at our online symposium last week, I led a roundtable discussion with contact center executives from three companies. They shared a number of ways that they have already begun to integrate new tools to support a more proactive, robust dialogue with consumers.
Darren Lloyd, the information service manager with Newport City Homes, talked about how Microsoft Lync has enabled contact center agents to tap experts within the organization, leading to reduced call times, a decrease in agent stress levels, and lower call waiting times. Darren has also integrated text messaging into the contact center to notify his customers of appointments and send them reminders.
Nina Westvold, the director of customer contact with American Century Investments, discussed how her business is focused on more meaningful customer interactions and embraces higher handle times to ensure that customers are getting the service they need. She also noted that the company is also starting to use outbound calls to reach out to customers proactively.
Richard Volel, vice president of contact management for American Home Mortgage, talked about the benefits of a unified platform for his six globally dispersed contact center operations to address the changing mortgage servicing environment. And unlike Nina, he’s looking to offer more self-service options and decrease the volume of customer service interactions. He used an example of a mobile app to provide account updates.
It was great to hear about their experiences so far, and one of the points it drove home was that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to delivering a great customer experience.
You can hear the whole roundtable discussion or attend the symposium’s other sessions free of charge. Check it out and let me know your thoughts.
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.