iTouch Point Quality Assurance/ Call Recording : SMON and NICE

iTouch Point uses 2 components again for its quality assurance and call recording processes. First one is SMON which is used for screen monitoring, and NICE allows QA to monitor agent calls to ensure they follow the proper customer assistance procedures.

SMON is a set of MIB extensions for RMON that allow the monitoring of switching equipment from a single management workstation in far greater detail than offered by RMON. iTouch Point has a quality assurance team who monitors the agents using this. they can see a screen shot of the agents computer and see what the agent is typing as key words/how they are doing the search etc. while listening into the call.

NICE

iTouch Point undertakes many thousands of interactions (phone calls, emails, and more) every day. These interactions often contain unrecognized insights which are critical.

offers organizations a powerful strategic solution that can improve customer retention and solve many other business issues. The system’s ability to analyze all aspects of interactions means that it can effectively:

• Flag calls from customers “at risk”
• Help in analyzing campaigns effectiveness
• Identify inefficiencies in the contact center operation
• Enable the organization to take proactive measures to improve overall performance

NICE Perform includes a complete set of Web-based tools to extract, process, analyze and effectively visualize information from customer interactions on a large scale. The information gathered through:

• Sophisticated mining rules
• Analysis engines
• Call flow events,
• Agent screen-activity
• Customer surveys

Together, these resources provide the insights which until now have been unavailable from recorded interactions.

iTouch Point Call Management System: Avaya CMS / Queue Statistics

To ensure great service to its callers, iTouch Point uses a 2 part component to track and manage their incoming calls. Avaya Call Management System, and Queue Statistics.

Avaya CMS

Designed for businesses with complex contact-center operations and high call volume, Avaya Call Management System is a database, administration, and reporting application to help businesses identify operational issues and take immediate action to solve them.

Using a familiar Windows interface, managers can view data and receive customized threshold and exception alerts, all in real time. They can also view historical reports to help them analyze trends, establish performance benchmarks, and plan new marketing or customer-service campaigns. These reports can be easily customized to suit the needs of the business. With easy access to real-time and historical data, managers can make faster, better informed decisions, for more effective contact-center operations.

Some key features that Avaya offers are:

• Get immediate feedback
  Real-time monitoring and customizable alerts ensure that managers can spot problems and respond immediately.
• Simplify monitoring and reporting
  A wizard and other tools make it easy to design customized reports. And managers can schedule the running and printing of reports, ensuring that the call center is always being managed using the most up-to-date information.
• Address problem areas immediately
  If real-time reports show conditions that require immediate changes to keep the contact center operating smoothly, integrated administration enables managers to instantaneously drill into admin to make the required changes.

Queue Statistics

This queue statistics will give you complete overview for all incoming calls to your queue and outgoing calls from your asterisk server, as well as better control of the quality of the service that you provide to your clients. You can have table and graphical representation for the total amount of incoming calls, outgoing calls, calltime, ringtime and transfers for chosen period of time and group, divided by agent, date, hour or weekday.

Sykes Quality Monitoring: NICE Systems

There is only one way to monitor the calls that comes in, in a customer service environment. That is, to have calls recorded so that Quality Associates can listen to the call repetitively and grade each with a given metric.

NICE monitoring system

Nice provides the ability to record calls to be monitored by the quality associates. It is linked to the Avaya system so that it can capture the actual call done by each representatives. The voice calls are then converted into audio files. The Quality agents then, are able listen to them repetitively and grade them accordingly.

It is amazing how this system has helped monitor calls for Sykes. Real time calls are captured clearly allowing both customer service representatives and Quality agents do feedback and monitoring simultaneously. It has helped in enforcing good quality to service partners and have given Sykes the reputation of being one of the best vendors there is.

This technology has helped the BPO industry reach the height of where it is right now. It became a good measure for accuracy and made judgements and decisions easier. Also, it is a good channel for documentation, which obviously avoids errors.

For maintenance, a helpdesk is always assigned just in case glitches are encountered. General management of the actual system is maintained by NICE itself and have provided full support on Sykes’ Customer Service.

Sykes Managing Customer Calls: Avaya CMS (Call Management System)

There are several Call Management Systems in the market and one of them is Avaya CMS. Sykes acquired this system to well organize the information needed in terms of the handling of calls from their customers.

Avaya CMS captures a cloud of calls on queue and automatically keeps a record of calls in terms of times such as service rate, utilization rates, number of customers in the cloud per hour/minute, number of customers on call, number of agents on service, waiting time, hold time, handling time and total service time. This allows employees to organize these information they need for their daily, weekly and monthly reports to be sent to their superiors and partners that they deal with.

These information gathered by avaya are automatically generated in an excel file for report generation. The information on these reports are easier to understand is perfectly suitable for timely decision making for managers.

The Avaya system is linked into each Avaya phone that each customer service agent is using. That is where it determines the information needed for recording. It can also track the agents on queue, including their service hours, breaks, hold time and idle time which enables the management to keep track of their agents’ efficiency and can be used to track attendance, too.

Obviously, it does make the lives of Sykes’ employees easier in terms of report generation. They have come to appreciate it for years and as the system itself is being improved from time to time, they are able to do efficient work and save up time which allows them to have a more flexible utilization so they can attend to other matters aside from report generation.

Avaya Call Management System

Sykes Facilities

Customer Service Production Floor

Conference Room

Training Room

Front Desk Office

Golden Rules to Successful CRM

Research: CRM Best Practices for long term CRM success

Taken from crmtrends.com (Please see our blogroll for our reference sources)

The most important basis for strategy development is a comprehensive understanding of what drives customer loyalty and how strong those drivers are. The key to understanding what drives your customers’ loyalty lies in finding answers to the following questions:

• How does our business define customer loyalty?
• Are our customers loyal? To what extent or intensity?
• How do we create, build or earn customer loyalty?
• How can we use customer loyalty strategically and tactically for positioning?

The first step in answering these questions is to measure both customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. In working toward a thorough understanding of your customer, begin by looking at why your customers leave. Profitable CRM projects start by understanding customer needs.

Great service and customer recommendations alone are not sufficient for relationships. If you give poor service you won’t have a relationship. And if you give great service, you might not have a relationship if you don’t take care of that relationship, knowing your customers’ preferences. It is essential to have a solid grasp of which factors in your business relationship with your customers are most important to them. Listen to your customers and then begin developing your CRM strategy because if you don’t satisfy your customers, they won’t come back. And remember:

a) CRM isn’t CRM unless it affects the customer’s experience

b) CRM is a strategy, not a project

c) CRM should improve ROI

d) Technology is a means, not an end

e) You want a 360-degree of your customer

Consider the checklist below. We believe that these strategies will enhance your likelihood of long-term CRM success.

1: Get sponsorship from the top brass. If management doesn’t believe in the new approach, why should the employees? Implementing CRM requires working across organizational boundaries and breaking down long-term siloed behaviors and attitudes. You can’t do that by yourself! Many times the difference between a successful CRM strategy and a huge waste of money is backing from the executive suite.

2: Build a team. Prior to developing your CRM strategy or selecting your CRM software, form a CRM team with representatives from each department to make sure colleagues’ needs and concerns are addressed. Too often companies neglect to include the correct stakeholders, and the initiative fails to meet the needs of those tied to its results. Pick your CRM team wisely – everyone will need to own the customer experience. Remember in forming the team, consider people, process, and technology as all will be affected.

3: Define your business objectives? Your CRM strategy must be designed with your business objectives and customer requirements in mind.

4: Identify who your customer is. Is there agreement on definition of “customer?” – The marketing department of an automobile company might consider a “customer” to be a dealer, but the call center might consider it to be a driver. Have consensus on this and other key definitions. Can you identify your customers across multiple touch points (retail, call center, mail, catalog, web and e-mail)?

Consider life stages. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are roughly 75 million baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964), more than 49 million gen Xers (born between 1965 and 1979), more than 72 million gen Yers (born between 1980 and 1999), and 40 million millennials (born between 2000 and now).

5: Differentiate. Identify your customer segments – your high-value and high potential customers. Know who you want to serve. Understand what that customer wants? Prioritize. What is the customer worth and what is their potential worth?

Research: CRM Top Trends 2009

Taken from crmtrends.com (Please see our blogroll for our reference sources)

2009 can probably be best summed up by Charles Dickens, who once wrote:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way.”

Who knew that all these years later, he would be the one to capture the essence of our current situation?

Recognizing that as Marketers we’re facing greater headwinds than at any other time in memory; through it all, there remains some glimmers of good news for CRM practioners. That relatively good news is reflected in our 5 interrelated trends for 2009:

1) We are in an age that can be best characterized as the “paradox of thrift,” but we want people to spend, donate or deposit money (see Marketing In A Recession below). Given this uphill climb, companies will further their investment in CRM Marketers – taking the spotlight away from customer acquisition and putting it on customer retention, loyalty and profitability.

2) Increased focus on data analysis. Companies are investing in understanding customer value and modeling customer behavior. Investments in Lifestage Marketing will begin to have more prominence as the affects of our changing demographic become more pronounced.

3) Customer Experience. Customers have more choices than ever, and are more frugal. This affords them the luxury of demanding more. This is the year that the CRM Marketer will be charged with offering a consistent experience across all company touch points and developing the infrastructure that allows for knowledge sharing and smart communication. More importantly the customer’s online experience will begin to evolve and rival the customer’s offline experience – attentive assistants and all.

4) Personalization and customization: In order to be effective in this new year, companies will seek to know more about its customers and use that insight to talk, engage and interact with their customers more often and more meaningfully in new and innovative ways (including dynamic content, blogs to other social networking). 2009 is going to be up close and personal, like it or not as

5) With budgets across the board being cut, mobile marketing will see its wings being clipped a bit in 2009. With that said, companies recognize the transformative power of this medium and will continue investments in this arena, albeit at more reserved levels – deploying only critcial releases to maintain competitiveness.

Research: About Sykes

SYKES is a global leader in providing customer contact management solutions and services in the business process outsourcing (BPO) arena. SYKES provides an array of sophisticated customer contact management solutions to Fortune 1000 companies around the world, primarily in the communications, financial services, healthcare, technology and transportation and leisure industries.

SYKES specializes in providing flexible, high quality customer support outsourcing solutions with an emphasis on inbound technical support and customer service. Headquartered in Tampa, Florida, with customer contact management centers throughout the world, SYKES provides services through multiple communication channels including phone, email, web and chat.

Utilizing its integrated onshore/offshore global delivery model, SYKES serves its clients through two geographic operating segments: the Americas (United States, Canada, Latin America and Asia Pacific) and EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa). SYKES also provides various enterprise support services in the Americas and fulfillment services in EMEA, which include multi-lingual sales order processing, payment processing, inventory control, product delivery and product returns handling.

Research: About iTouch Point

iTouchPoint is a high-quality provider of contact center solutions. The mission of this company is committed to provide end-to-end, high-quality and cost-effective Business Processing Solutions. Its key components are the robust infrastructure, experienced people, best practices and state-of-the-art technology and network. With these emerge a strong institution that focuses on the global business needs. Aptly placed competitively with its customers able to save 30-50% on worth of calls compared to others.

This company focuses on People, Process and Technology. Its operational excellence, coupled with its strong technology base has proven to be of immense value to its rapidly growing client list, which includes many of the world’s most-admired companies. Regardless of the communication medium used by the client’s customer to interact – Voice, E-mail, Internet, Mail or Fax – iTouchPoint provides the expertise you need to maximize the value of this direct channel to the most precious asset: the customers. The client service is what this company is made of. They seek to consistently provide prompt, courteous and accurate customer care services, with an emphasis on communication so that their customer is fully aware and involved.

iTouchPoint started in the Philippines seven years ago with their business hub located in Eastwood City, Libis, Quezon City. The company adheres to ISO 9001:2000 (International Organization for Standardization) prescribed practices and their continuous improvement programs evaluate and analyze their processes to meet client needs. iTouchPoint’s Dual Delivery Center (DDC) Model ensures 100% uptime with 24×7 hot-synced centers in India and the  Philippines.

Three locations form the totality of the iTouchPoint Operations. The company headquarters is in New Jersey, USA, the Network Operating Center (NOC) in India and the main operations in the Philippines. All three hubs work in-synch, with India and Philippines working as if they are just doors apart.

Currently, the company has a total of two hundred forty one (241) employees in the Philippines, where one hundred ninety (190) belong to the Directory Assistance Division. They are on graveyard shifts to pattern with the U.S. time zone. The minimum number calls taken by an agent per month is ten thousand (10,000); any number lower than this forms a negative impression on the agent as this implies that he/she takes too much time on the calls. The target call processing time (CPT) is at most, thirty-three (33) seconds. The salary range of an agent ranges from Php 13,000 (no experience) to Php 18,000 (with experience), excluding the night-differential.